Success Is Not About Passion Its About Trance

1. *
“Running an Agile Fortune 500 Company”
Aditya Yadav, aditya.yadav@gmail.com
in.linkedin.com/in/adityayadav76

2. * A Typical Global Company
* Fortune 500/1000
* 200 Divisions
* 40 Countries
* 25000 Employees
*

3. *
@ Acme Inc.

4. * Original Question “Our Employees Lack Passion,
and the Entire World Knows That To Succeed
We Need Passion”
* The Correct Question - “Ahem! That‟s not
exactly true. Allow me to explain.”
*

5. *
And The Philosophy Behind The Answer

6. * I don‟t want to harp about it, and I‟m not going to
quote and paraphrase from Legacy Literature either
* You all have heard the Cliché‟ – To Succeed You
Need To Be Passionate About What You Do…
* And conversely, you should only do those things
which you are passionate about…
*…
* With that I will cut through the chase and
straightaway jump to the Correct Solution!
*

7. * So what's a Trance? forget the dictionary meaning for the time
*
*
being.... just think of it this way... Every time you fall in love with
someone the first few days or weeks you are in hyper conscious
mode, analyzing yours and her every move, its meaning, its
perception etc. but after that you go into hyper drive or cruise mode
if I shall say. Also your brain loses critical judgment to a large degree.
You just flow with the flow...
Its the same with driving... have you noticed after a few days on a
route you just go into a trance very morning on the way to office and
you glide unconsciously through the route to and from office on the
same route every day every night...
Similarly, I'm not the worlds best body builder, and I'm not even body
building,.... because I'm not building!!! anything I'm just doing some
serious gym with the intention to get rid of my tummy and tone some
of my muscles.... and I'm desperate to get into a Trance .... I guess it
will take another 10-15 days to get into a Gym Trance mode after
which I will soon become a stud...
*

8. * I r'ber people ask me how the hell I swam 24 hours... the
answer is very simple and the same.... after the first 1 hour
of swimming I went into a rhythmic trance, my breathing and
my swimming was in perfect rhythm... and I went into a
trance.... the only next thing I r'ber is when people started
screaming and shouting and blowing whistles to say that the
race is over, yeah 24 hours are up...
* I r'ber when I prepared for IIT JEE for two months, I was in a
state of trance.... and even at IIM I struggled the first fourfive months with work and study schedules, assignments,
exams etc.... but after that I got into a trance and got
straight A's on everything I touched (and my team touched)
* Sounds Sexy right???
*

9. pas•sion (ˈ
pæʃ ən)
n.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
compelling emotion.
strong amorous feeling; love.
strong sexual desire; lust.
a strong fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for something: a passion for music.
the object of one's passion.
an outburst of emotion.
violent anger; wrath; rage.
*
*
*
*
I consider myself to be a really smart guy but I struggle to articulate the concept of Passion
*
*
*
*
*
Is your Passion Foolhardiness?
Are you passionate? About something?
What does that mean?
Maybe it means …. you will do it no matter what because of something you cannot articulate and I have no real
interest in knowing or any capability to know without you „telling‟ me so
Maybe you are already good at it, that‟s why you want to do it…
Maybe you think you WILL BE GOOD AT IT…. That‟s why you want to do it
Maybe for you the Ends justify the Means…
Lets just take your word for it and leave it at that…
*

10. *
*
*
*
*
*
What do leaders mean when they say that their team lacks passion?
What they mean is that the Engagement Survey shows that they are not Engaged, they
are not Active, they are all Dull, bored to Death, don‟t care a Damn about anything,
Unmotivated… etc. etc.
So what would a Passionate team be like? – They would be arguing, fighting and beating
the crap out of each other all the time…
We have been studying dynamic systems for too long… they exist in…
i.
Stable
ii.
Periodic
iii.
Random
iv.
Complex
* Or a combination of above „states‟
Having Passion by itself Cetris Paribus doesn‟t necessarily imply any benefit at all (ref:
States above), though it „seems‟ to be better than having Un-Dead people in your team
So What are we missing?
*

11. *
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Let me introduce two more words (i) Dispositional and (ii) Situational
Passion seems to be Dispositional, either you have passion (for something)
or you don‟t
While a Trance seems to exist within a context, in relation to the
environment, its dynamics, its constraints and rewards…
Ref: My deck on – Dispositional vs Situational
If we recall only 20% can be attributed to Dispositional while 80% of the
things can be attributed to Situational
And this infact is reflected in a lot of Empirical Studies of Success… and
Successful people…. Only 20% of their success can be attributed to Passion
(Dispositional) while 80% of their success can be attributed to Trance
(Situational)
It seems that Trance is simply a better broader concept
Or atleast a 4x important concept (compared to Passion) without which
you cannot understand Success (especially by just looking at Passion)
*

12. *
*
*
*
If you want to succeed in your Job you have to enter the trance...
*
Rule: And Rhythm is the Gateway to Trance, Create the Rhythm, eliminate everything that Prevents the
Rhythm => Glide Smoothly! Cruise!
*
Rule: Your Judgment and Rationality will degrade significantly in a Trance, so be careful, there are
some tradeoff‟s
*
Conclusion: The world gets it wrong.... Its not Passion that leads to success it‟s a Trance... Ceteris
Paribus… Passion just helps you overcome setbacks. Its actually Trance that helps you continuously
move forward in a really really long and hard race.... Again… Passion prevents you from sliding back or
giving up but its actually The Trance that propels you forward…
*
When some Management Consultant or Academic or a Psychologist preaches the Principles of Passion to
you, ignore it, and do whatever you want to do, but only continue to do it if its rewarding and you
achieve a state of Trance…. Or else quit and do something else… anything otherwise would be
Foolhardy (or Passionate!)
*
MTV Enjoy!
If you want to succeed in Academics you have to enter the trance...
If you want to succeed in your Marriage you have to enter the trance...
Whether its Dancing, Music, Fashion, Art, Literature, Journalism, Design, Architecture, Engineering,
Technology, Research, Entrepreneurship, Management, Consulting…. The Winners are always in a state
of Trance…
*

13. Aditya!!!
*