How Not Knowing Allows Me To Make Sense Of The Passion Economy

A place of not knowing is a place of growth. How many of us though, dare to go there in ourselves? Or how many of us dare to go there publically? What’s worse – how many of us actually know what a place of not knowing actually feels like? That is, how many of us fool ourselves into thinking we’re there, when we’re not even close?

A good psychotherapist will at various points work carefully to create so much confusion in their clients that they no longer know which way is “up or down”, to directly quote a recent and perhaps unfortunate psychotherapy client of mine. A common saying among psychiatrists and psychologists is that the Rorschach inkblot test works because the images “confuse the rational mind so much, that the real personality has no choice but to come through.” And that’s exactly the purpose of being in a place of “not knowing” – when you’re there, it’s when your actual personality shines through. When a good psychotherapist cuts his way through all the flotsam and jetsam that clouds a neurotic individual’s mind and gets to a person’s real being, the therapist basically says “Hi, nice to really see you” and then leaves the client to sit in yet a further existential swamp to come up with their own solutions to the world. The only difference between the flotsam and jetsam that the therapist had to cut through, and the existential swamp that has been reached, is that the existential swamp is “who the client actually is.” We leave the client with their own swampy resources to solve their own problems and their own personality to contact the world.

So, what does this have to do with The Passion Economy? Well, as a psychotherapist, and as a human being who through his therapy training has been so confused as to ask “which way is Saturday” The Passion Economy scares me. It scares me because it is another layer introjected of flotsam and jetsam that people swallow whole, hoping that it actually becomes part of themselves. After being exposed to a talk on “The Passion Economy” people could walk around thinking “I’ll be passionate about everything I do”, or “Hey, the people I work with are not passionate – I’ll take myself to a firm that is passionate”, or “I’m going to be the passion transformer in my office”. A similar, and equally scary reaction is “Eh – the passion economy – it’s got nothing to do with me.”

All of these are based on the psychological theory of introjection, which is really worth exploring here for just a minute. Between the ages of about 3-19, a child and subsequently teen learns a hell of a lot about the world, and their personality is formed. It is formed by observing and taking-in parts of the world, and by having lessons in basic humanity taught to kids throughout these very psychologically formative years. For Freudians out there, this is the Super-Ego, or ideal of an individual. It is primarily a collection of all the “shoulds” one is exposed to in their life – where the person doing the “shoulding” could either be a parental figure of the individual themselves. Classic examples – “I should respect my elders”, “I should share”, “I should not cross at a red light”, “I should be charitable”, etc…

What happens on a more technical level, is that the introject, or should, is psychologically swallowed, and then integrated. Three things happen, two of which are psychologically healthy, and one of which isn’t. I’ll let you guess which is which:

- A person is given a “should”, takes it in and takes it for a test-drive. They try it out, see what they like about it, and see what they don’t like about it. If they like it, it becomes part of them, and they can modify it to suit their own personality.

- A person is given a “should” and takes it for a test-drive. If they don’t like it, they respectfully return the “should” to the dealership and say very definitively “This is not for me. Sorry if I offend you by refusing it, but it just won’t work.”

- A person swallows a “should” whole. There is absolutely no integration process involved what-so-ever. The person simply “becomes” the should, no questions asked. It the becomes like a carrot infront of a horse. A person keeps trying to reach for the should, but never does. Disappointment after disappointment follows because they cannot live-up to this “should-ideal” that they have swallowed whole. In the end, when a person tries to live-up to a number of these shoulds, their ego function is reduced, and their sense of who they are becomes neurotically impaired. This person gets very confused because people continually reject him – he doesn’t know why – because he is afterall, living up to what he “should be” in society. These individuals continue to swallow the next big thing, hoping that it will be them.

What my concern about a “passion economy” for you, in this audience, is that unless you have strong ego boundaries, you are likely in danger of having the third option happen to you. How do I know this – because as a marketing consultant, researcher and psychotherapist, I have to ask you one thing – have you guys ever listened to yourselves talk??? I mean seriously? For the most part, you simply put-out quote after quote from other marketing gurus. You’re quoting newspapers, journals, academic studies that you really know nothing about, taking one or two sentences out of very detailed works, and swallowing them whole. You’re quoting successes of other companies to support your own theories, when in fact, you have very little idea as to the truth of the situation. As a consultant, I’m constantly asked for ideas that amount to spoon-feeding you.

Just a few weeks ago I was asked to submit a consumer research proposal on innovation to a food company. I wasn’t even there to talk about innovation, I was there to research a brand line extension – they just happened to like my line of thinking. So my proposal to them for innovation said (I’m paraphrasing here) “before I suggest any consumer methodologies, I’m going to suggest researching your staff and finding out their views of innovation – because if you’re so desperate as to ask me how to innovate, the problem is not with how you ask consumers how to innovate, the problem is with what your definition of it is, and how you implement it.” So I do get concerned that you will attempt to package and eat whole “passion” without understanding it. I guess though, I can’t fault you for that – wrapping-up difficult concepts and making them look appealing enough to eat is what you do for a living as marketers and advertisers. However, I hope you can see that a diet of advertising alone will make someone psychologically anemic.

I also want you to notice a critical element of this speech – I have not, and will not quote a single thought leader, individual or case study. All the ideas in here, with the exception of the theory of introjection, are mine. Quoting others is fine, but what concerns me is that I have no idea where the speaker begins and the quote ends, if all I hear a speaker do is rhyme-off an endless string of quotes. It amounts to someone chanting positive affirmations to an audience, in my opinion.

So, let me return to a “passion economy” and “not knowing.” The previous part of my speech may have suggested that I don’t take a “passion economy” seriously, and that’s actually not true. I take it very seriously. I think that people should do what they are passionate about – it is the way to good mental health, in my view. Passion represents good ego function, good mental health and it is the way society grows. The goal, however, is to find-out what you are passionate about, and you get there by not knowing. Me – I’m passionate about being witty, I’m passionate about laughter, and I’m passionate about making real human connections and contact with people. I’m also a lazy son-of-a-bitch, who’s very shy and uncomfortable around others. I’m a bit of a wise-ass and as my therapist supervisors would say “I’d like to thud people between the eyes with my clinical observations.” I would prefer nothing more than to sit at my cottage 24/7 and listen to the lake, wind and waves. I’d prefer to play with my 16 month old son, but leave the hard parenting to everyone else. Those last few items would lead many to classify me as a narcissist.

That’s it. That’s me – and here’s the good news. When I engage in what I’m passionate about, I don’t know and I don’t really care about outcome or results. I will naturally do what is necessary to engage in my passions without knowing. This does not mean I have a sense of recklessness or abandon – it means though I can proceed without knowing, but at the same time be passionate enough about what I’m doing to get help and self-support along the way. It’s a process called maturation, and ability to contact the world. For example, if I as a parent think that I can do all the easy stuff with my kid and none of the work, I’m in for a really rude awakening. With passion comes responsibility that is easily accepted. So, yes, I do my fair share of parenting work because I am passionate about my son

I had a therapy client who said to me “Brian, how do we know if this works” and I simply said “I don’t, but it’s something I believe in, or else I wouldn’t be here.” She looked at me with tears and said “Well, at least that’s honest.” I do the same with my corporate clients - I have no idea if my methods are going to work, but I’ll stick with you every step of the process. When you are passionate, there is nothing more, and nothing less you can do. The best part, is that clients appreciate when you’re honest with them and that’s what I think sells – not when you feed them half-assed, half-regurgitated, and half-passioned hyperbole.

Now, here’s the bad news. As a researcher, I’ve finally learned I’m not passionate about marketing or advertising (at least bad advertising – I love the good stuff and will tell you straight-up about it). I’m not passionate about profit, big corporations and helping my clients make a buck. I’m not overly passionate about tactics or strategy (though what I’m exceptionally interested in is why people propose the strategies that they do). I don’t care about the latest and greatest way of doing things because that’s not where my passion lies. What that means is that part of what I engage in will never have any appeal to me, but as long as I’m in it with what I’m passionate about, it seems to vanish into the ether.

What this means is chances are deep down you’re not passionate about what you do either. You’re not passionate about marketing, on-line, accounting, process engineering, media monitoring, statistics, accounting, HR procedures, law, computer programming, whatever it is that you do. I highly doubt a garbage man is truly passionate about waste removal. When I started my business, I kept observing my Father-In-Law. He’s a gruff guy and a maverick of sorts, who ran a sewing, trim and thread company. There’s no way that this guy was passionate about the ladies sewing and quilting clubs that he supplied. All he was passionate about was being the boss and busting the unions that worked for him and getting as much financial credit as he could through his business. As a therapist, I really question anyone who comes up to me and says “I’m passionate about monitoring how many people walk by and view bench advertising” or “I’m passionate about optimizing the size of an internet ad for my clients” or “I’m in customer service at Rogers, and I love it.”

As I close, let me combine passion and not knowing:

- When you become passionate, you will be comfortable with not knowing. I have no idea how this speech is going to go over. I think I’m being a bit of an asshole up here and letting some hard truths fly. However, I am passionate about “being cruel to be kind”. Surprisingly, it generally works out for me, except with my wife.

- It is quite clear that passionate people are successful people. However, I have also said that passionate people are also comfortable with not knowing. So, let me ask you this as a question – what’s the real driver of success – the passion, the not knowing or some combination of both. I suspect it’s a combination of both. Not knowing allows the passionate person to see others, see options, and be OK with being uncomfortable as they pursue their passions.

- One thing you must do is throw-out all of those introjects that you have about who you are, and know who you are not. I have not used a single example of a successful company or individual in my speech. The reason why – you’re not them. Your companies are not Microsoft, Nike, Apple, Coke, Zappos, Google, Amazon, eBay or Yahoo – and guess what – they’ll never be. You’re not Gates, Jobs, Knight, Branson, Dell, Buffett or Obama. Chances are, if you were, you wouldn’t be here right now – you’d be running your company. I’ll never forget reading a book by Sergio Zyman called “The End Of Marketing As We Know It” when I started my consulting company seven years ago. He was Senior Vice President of Marketing for Coca Cola. In it he said “Hire the best people. Pay the best salaries and offer your employees the opportunity to travel the world.” I looked at myself, in my tiny soft-loft condo at King and Bathurst and just said “yeah right.”

- When you are working on an introjective level, you are not the catalyst for change that you think you are, or the catalyst that we and others so “pump you up” to be. It is only when you begin to truly change and see yourself that you COULD, POSSIBLY, AND VERY RARELY change and others for what they are. Therapists are taught to live with not knowing whether their interventions have any significant effect on their clients. It’s critical to the training – it takes the self-interest off the therapist and puts in on the actual humanity and human transactions that go on between the therapist and client. Can you live with not knowing about whether you have an affect on others? Can you live without knowing the end result? Can your company live without knowing – because if they can’t and you can, you’re not in the right place as an innovator. Can you enjoy the journey and not the outcome? I think you can, if you’re passionate about yourself.