Obsession and Passion: Becoming the Craftsman

Well I wanted to go in a specific direction with this month’s Blog, but reality seems to have me backtracking a bit each month. Several people have joined or contacted me just within the last week who have full blown eating disorders as a result of competition in the past. Given we are in the heart of competition season I would like to address further elements of approach to goal achievement which may help some people see the bigger picture or at least begin to question their own participation in a given process.

I’m often contacted by people asking me how I got to where I am and what they should study or read to get there as well. The answer is that there is no knowledge that will bring someone to this point of perceived success. The truth is knowledge is one of the bigger deceivers out there. The best coaches are not the ones who know the most ‘stuff’, but the ones who are the best at the craft of coaching. And this is the answer to that question.

I became a craftsman at a young age in my pursuit of this ‘thing’. The defining factor was not what I knew or learned from books, but rather my passion for the pursuit. As a matter of fact, of my colleagues whom I respect the most, are the ones who also started out with a passion as a powerful entity that drew them to the right places, at the right time, for the right reasons. Passion leads to becoming something else, something entirely greater and building upon itself. Passion leads to becoming ‘a craftsman’. And a craftsman is defined in the dictionary as ‘a highly skilled artist’

And this unfortunately is what is missing in our industry; and that is the art of artistry itself. That is what I would like to discuss this month.

First it is necessary to distinguish between passion and obsession. It is possible to think of both of these on parallel but different roads, or more importantly as maybe a part of a continuum that extends from the ego to the spirit.

Obsession

In and of itself the problem with obsession is that of the attachment to the symbols of achievement or progress and the symbols of success. Obsession concerns itself mostly with externals. Because of this it also induces a certain amount of perceived pressure to endure or perform. So many times people undergo a chosen process, and up being concerned and attached to what they will and can get from it rather than what it adds to their sense of being. Obsession begins the process of constantly looking over one’s ‘ego shoulder.’ With obsession, there is a constant measuring of everything, a constant assessment and judgement of all aspects of process. Rules are viewed with rigid right and wrong assumptions. Good and bad are often assessments based only on the attachments to the symbols of the process or success. So a person is ‘good’ and ‘right’ if they have checked off their three hours of cardio and weighed every gram of this portion of carbs, this portion of proteins etc. It all represents the ‘deserving’ of the thing that is sought after. And yet this ‘right or wrong’ assumption is merely arbitrarily placed in one’s head. But with obsession there comes to be an emotional component of rightness and deserving that has little to do with reality, and a lot to do with want and need. Obsession is steeped in ‘want’ and ‘need’. It bears little fruit in the end, even if it finds what it seeks. All obsession tends to do is reinforce that very need and want to continue. This is far different from passion.

Passion

Passion is far more invested in the personal sense of real self involved in any endeavour. Passion is more correctly in tune with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm literally means “The God within” Passion is for the spirit of doing a thing. The nature of that carries with it the logical conclusion of success of that very thing. It took me a long time to realize this difference between myself and others. I never actually ever ‘trained’ to say, have a bigger arm. Each arm day represented a journey for me to know myself and as such I knew the bigger arm would be the natural result. I did not ever doubt that about the process. A process done with passion has no need to judge and see right or wrong or good or bad. There is only a result. There is no failure because all results have meaning. A result either takes you toward or away from your goal, or replaces that goal with another because your passion allows you to switch gears as you go. Obsession does not.

Passion allows for constant learning. Obsession merely follows process only for the sake of doing so. If an obsessed person has their process interrupted, they are thrown off, agitated, disrupted, and feel a sense of loss. A person of passion feels none of these ill effects because passion IS the process. I just took, as I often do, 5 days away from training and diet. There is no attachment to them. My craft, my passion, is what I do. It can not be lost by simple interruption, because how can you lose what you are, or who you are? It’s because many people do not have a handle on these two aspects of their identity that they are susceptible to perceiving weak obsession, with strong passion and determination.

Yet often, people near the completion of a task will often claim they cannot wait for it to be over with to breath easier for a bit. But what happens? Instead of breathing easier and calmly and satisfied from a passion seen to its conclusion, they now feel at completion, a sense of emptiness, anxiety, loneliness, and void. They were not nourished by experience because they became obsessed within it. This happens a great deal. The whole ego judgement of the event takes over the actual joy or curiosity that began the event to begin with. And then what usually happens is a seeking of yet another process to undertake. Passion is usurped by undertaking challenge for the sake of reward or validation. Passion undertakes challenge because it is the extension of the real SELF. When approached with an inner sense of true passion, the completion of any undertaking is always a reason for celebration and joy. Outcome has little to do with true passion.

Fulfilment is the means and the ends with passionate process.

And these are huge differences in how someone becomes a craftsman. As Abraham Maslow put it “a musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be” Only passion can unfold and manifest a greatness that is strived toward.

But with obsession, this concentration on parts at the expense of wholes, leads to a mentality of right/wrong, good/bad, instead of endless options. Innervation Training, The Cycle Diet, and many other creations and programs were born of a passion not influenced of right and wrong, but only by information gained from a passionate doing of the thing. Once obsession becomes the nature of the process, no matter how much intelligence guides it, it is limited. Once the art of what is uniquely individual is removed from process, meaning is lost, and that is why there is a sense of loss at completion of an undertaking. It is also why so few people actually achieve and maintain their desired goals.

The craftsman is passionate about his craft, and the projects within it. This way passion is expansive, and geometrically so. The craftsman doesn’t follow any ‘specific’ set of written instructions because the nature of the task at hand determines his thoughts, motions, and potential. And this alters and changes the task at hand for him. Passion makes personal what seems impersonal. Obsession keeps it impersonal in terms of rules and recipes to follow. 3 hours cardio regardless of biofeedback is obsession, not passion.

The true craftsman is spiritual in process whether he defines it that way or not. And there is nothing robotic about process that is spiritually driven and passionately grounded. It begs the age old question, who is more complete from process, the carpenter who builds a whole table from scratch; or the labourer in the factory who attaches the same table leg to the same table on the assembly line over and over again? The craftsman is attached to the work because he has invested himself in it. It, the work, represents him, not the results or the assessment made by others. The result of the work is therefore representative of the creative process, and what someone is creating is the true SELF. This is how I coach. So many people are missing the purpose behind their undertakings. This is sad in a world that offers fewer and fewer chances for expressing and finding that passion of that expression.

On a grander scheme, the divorce of art from process, from technology, is completely unnatural, and for most it will be felt, in terms of that disconnect of meaning from results. Obsession adds little to learning and empowerment. Building a body for example means being a craftsman, a carpenter if you will. Does the carpenter obsess over his tools? A carpenter uses tools as an extension of his work to accomplish a finished project of creativity. Building a body is not a survival mission. It is not a war you wage with inanimate iron, or against the bathroom scale, the calories, the grams, the percentages. This is to lose focus on the creative possibilities of self-expression. The passion express, is decidedly Tao, or is at least one of the principles in the Tao of Scott Abel.

What is wrong with these insane approaches to results is that they are not connected in any real way with matters of the spirit and the heart. The body created by obsession over these component parts is the illusion of craftsmanship at the expense of the creativity. Creativity is within anyone who wants to tap into it, to find their nature or soul so to speak.

All this dogma of science and pseudo science has it all upside down. Creativity, originality, inventiveness, intuition, imagination, these are often outside the domain of science, but within the reach of passion. Rationality and logic and reason are necessary but limited, especially within the obsessive approach. Our industry is a reflection of this absurdity. If a ‘rationality’ factory is torn down but the rationality that produced it is left standing, then that same rationality will simply produce another factory. So the obsession with dietary fat as the enemy, is replaced with an equally absurd obsession with carbohydrates as villain. Everyone talks about systems of logic and rationality but so few actually understand them.

Beyond Obsession

The Tao of goal fulfillment is self-rewarding if the goal of the aspirant is one of direction. Then passion is endlessly self-fulfilling, whereas in contrast, a life devoted to gain and reward is full of pitfalls and suffering. Prosperity is measured not only in dollars or results but also in the joy of participation. Intention of directed passion has everything to do with growing. Intention as my new book discusses is all about concentration and focus, not about thinking and measuring. Intention with passion is self-direction. There is no doubt that the accomplishment will be achieved. There is not so much striving after it as there is ‘anticipation’ of it. This, unlike obsession becomes a part of character. Razor-like focus, not on rules, or guidelines but on the craft itself is expanded to all aspects of life. Then as passion and intention develop, there can be no selection of ‘this’ or ‘that’ as being more important than the other. It is all the same, whether one is bench pressing a new personal best, or merely peeling a potato. Even digging a ditch, every single shovelful is equally important to the goal of the ditch and the commitment to the activity is absolute and total. We know this creates in athletics what is known as The Zone.

The Zone

Intention leads to what is known in athletics as The Zone. All actions become spontaneous and even effortless. The body stops being thought of as a “me” and becomes just another object in the picture. In baseball, hitters in The Zone report at the time the baseball to seem like the size and speed of a beach ball. There was just a sense of ease and non-effort and flow. This is the Tao of non-effort, or trying by not trying. Obsession with symbols of success like calories, and grams, and percentages, and fancy charts and graphs, is too much trying and not enough experiencing. The craftsman knows that experience is never forgotten. There is no goal to be achieved. There is only the present moment. Only right now: The one-pointedness of mind and absolute intention. Clarity takes over and stops time. There is the absolute exclusion of everything except that pinpoint of focus. I have witnessed and experienced this Zone many times in my career. Passion and intention. That is the Tao of craftsmanship. The way of the heart, the way of the mind, and the way of action is actually accomplished via the pathway of surrender to it; not the endless ‘trying’ to control it. The pathway of the craftsman is so counter-intuitive to our society.

Lots of people write me and they want to know more resources for information. And yet as Einstein said, information is not knowledge. Often those obsessed with results accumulate ‘data’ with the intellect but it does not ripen into subjective experience. Sometimes the realization is that the intellect is no longer a useful tool but is now the barrier (paralysis by analysis)

The craftsmen knows it is really simple to follow both paths simultaneously...This is Tao, the way of the heart, and the way of the mind, which is the way to having, knowing, and being the higher self. The question that begs is, what if you let go of your obsession of want and desire, right here, right now, and instead put on the tool belt and began to practice your craft?

As I have quoted many times, “real winners forget that they are in a race; real winners just love to run”Some of you will get, many of you will not.

Arnold as the prime example

Many competitors say to me, but I have a competitive instinct. I “need” to compete in order to satisfy it or I feel lost. Untrue. This is the classic disconnection that requires obsession and pursuit, not for fulfillment but for its illusion. The key word is “need” But passion is a form of inspired competitive instinct. It’s just that the instinct does not ‘need’ an opponent or a stage to play itself out.
Look at the biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger. To many, he represents the American dream or so many other aspects of success. But underlying what he accomplished was simple and profound passion.

First Arnold had to overcome a countryside mentality and learn a new language. Then he had to travel to the big city and establish himself in Europe. But all the while his dream began to be, America.(which meant learning yet another language) His passion knew it would lead him there, the only variables were when and how. Arnold used passion to master everything he touched. He owned the bodybuilding world of its time. He was indeed bigger than the sport. But his passion saw possibilities and options beyond another inch to his arm, or another Olympia title. His passion led him to real estate, then to movies where he was laughed at for his thick accent, weird name, and total lack of acting skills. Yet he became in his time the top box office movie star and most recognizable face and name on the planet. And yet his spirit, ignited by passion, still did not rest there. With a keen political interest Arnold has gone on to become governor of “Callyforneeah” I can’t think of a better representative of the difference between passion and obsession. Passion never ends. And the craftsman employs it to master the craft at hand. Obsession, doesn’t entertain possibilities; it just circles itself on an endless hamster wheel of process, because of need and want and desire.

I had to laugh when I heard about a thread on some website recently that asked “if there is life after competition” Only an obsessive personality could take that seriously, because the truth is for most, there is zero life within competition. Not the kind of life lived with passion and possibility anyway. I think Arnold’s life answers the question in spades. It depends what you are made of, passion, or need.

Become the craftsman. Decide, what is my craft? Call on your passion. Fuel it with possibilities. There are no limits. The past cannot remember the past, and the future cannot generate the future. This is the Tao of now. A surfer never rides behind the crescent of the wave, or far in front of it. There is only the current wave that rises in the now, and then fades. This is the Tao of the craftsman. It is to be so absorbed in a passion that time loses meaning. That is where YOU really live, and that is where and how you find happiness and fulfillment.

Again, some of you will get it, some of you will not. Some of you will rail against it. And that is fine as well. I welcome your comments on my forums.