How do you redefine the term “passion”? A definition shouldn't be a barrier to your progress, should it? Yet, the moment you hear people talking about passion, you're stuck. And that's because their definition is all wrong. How do you redefine the term “passion”? And what does one-buttock have to do with passion? Let's find out. You can read this episode online: One Buttock Passion ------------------ In a TED Talk that's been watched over 9 million times, the conductor of the Boston Philamornic, talks about a seven year-old child. And this is what conductor, Benjamin Zander, says in his speech. He talks about a seven-year old child and what he sounds like when he's pounding on the piano. Clearly, the sounds that emanate from the piano border on pain. Even so, if that seven-year old practices for a year and yes, takes lessons, he's now eight. And the piano isn't screaming out in terror any more. Benjamin Zander goes on to talk about how the child sounds when he's nine, then when he's ten. At which, point, Zander suggests that most kids give up. However, if he'd waited for one more year, he would have sounded pretty wonderful. Zander takes pain to suggest that it's not that the kid became suddenly passionate, engaged or hit puberty. He explains that when the child was younger, he was playing with an impulse on every note. Then as he got better, he was playing with an impulse on every other note. At 10, it was every eight notes. And the 11-year-old had one impulse on the entire phrase. Zander calls this the “one buttock” moment When instead of hogging the piano stool with both buttocks, the music takes over and you're taken over by the music itself, so that you're playing on a single buttock. People who try to find their passion are two-buttock players. At the start of their journey they're struggling to hit the right impulses and this is because of the information they get about passion. -Stop looking for your passion. -Knowing something well and solving someone's problem is more commonplace than you believe. -Why the terminology is all wrong—and hence drives us crazy. -What if you know too much or too little? Think about passion for a second and what does it sound like to you? It sounds remarkably like love at first sight, doesn't it? You don't equate passion with spending five years chasing after a girl or a guy to get their attention. Instead, it's quick, it's instant. You have a new type of drink, possibly a wonderful Pisco sour, and you fall head over heels with it. Now you want to talk about it to everyone. You want Pisco sour for breakfast, lunch and dinner, if possible. It's all about instant, now, magical moments. And that's what passion sounds like to everyone, whenever it's brought up in a conversation. But passion for your work is almost never like that It's almost always a kind of slight attraction, a lot of frustration, some joy, some more frustration, some more joy. And then bingo, you look backwards and it's no longer two-buttocks on the seat. Take me for example. Most people consider me to be a really proficient writer. Without fail and for 40 weeks a year, I diligently turn out at least 5000 words a week. That's the bare minimum, by the way. However, I had no passion for 500 word-articles, let alone 5000. In time, I could turn out 500 word articles while conducting two courses, it was that easy. And may I add, fun too. I was one-buttocking my way to writing. In 2014, I started writing longer pieces that progressively moved into the 5000 word zone. As we were having coffee this morning, Renuka reminded me how I was getting upset with her all the time. Well, really I was getting upset with myself. I couldn't come up with topics. Writing 5000 word articles would drain me completely. I'd reach out to her to get ideas, and of course it wasn't something that she was interested in, so it wasn't possible to suggest something as quickly as I needed it. This would cause me to complain, and quite bitterly at times, that s