All About The Passion

If you’ve read my book The Endless Creative or many of my posts on this site, you know that purpose in creativity is a pretty big deal for me. It comes up time and time again. I just can’t get away from it!

You’ll also know that finding your passion is what leads to discovering your purpose (or at least you know it now).

Shifting off of that concept, I’d like to take a step down another path with this bold (but not unsubstantiated) claim:

Nothing great is made without passion

Indeed, every true work of greatness shares something in common: the people who worked on it did so with passion.

I’m not going to spend a long time talking about what it means to have passion because I’m pretty sure you already know. In short: it’s caring deeply about something on a personal level.

The reason I’m writing about this now is that I’ve happened to watch a handful of YouTube videos (not really on purpose, but that’s YouTube for ya) with creatives or about creatives. As I’ve reflected on them, they all seem to be centered on this idea of passion and greatness going hand-in-hand.

In this interview with Ed Catmull, former president and co-founder of Pixar, Ed gives plenty of great insights into the development of Pixar and their creative success—in large part because of their team dynamics.

He makes one point that especially stood out to me: the secret to success (and great leadership for that matter) is having the ability to regularly shift direction and focus while maintaining the same level of passion from start to finish.

From his experience, success has much less to do with skill level or even starting out with a great idea and much more to do with the passion of the lead creator. When choosing the next movie to work on, they’d pick the concept that the person pitching it clearly had a lot of passion for, even if it wasn’t presented well.

It was also quite a relief to hear that they struggled through making every single movie. Despite all their experience and success with making films, no project was a straightforward and easy process from beginning to end.

It was the passion behind the idea that pulled them through until they’d finally made something they were happy with. They believed not just in the idea and what it could become, but much more in the person who had the idea and their excitement and vision.

Another video, The Marvelization of Cinema, is fascinating for similar reasons.

In this video essay the creator highlights common trends of modern films to imitate those from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He discusses why that’s generally a bad thing. Then he compares these to classics like Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings trilogy.

After digging up and re-watching through all the bonus “making of” content, he recalls:

“the sheer amount of passion that was just so palpable in everyone and everything…I’d swear I could feel this passion shining through in the final product.”

From the script writing, to the location scouting, to the set, costume, and prop designs and on, every little detail was lovingly attended to by people who weren’t just there for a paycheck, but who were dedicated to making something amazing because of a deep personal investment.

This is evident in the final product—one that still holds up as a standard of movie making greatness. There’s a quality of greatness that stands beyond just having the right amount of time, skill, or budget invested.

For my last example, I present artist Oliver Anthony (Chris Lunsford), who burst onto the music scene out of nowhere with his hit song “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

Man, talk about passion—you can just hear it in his voice. It’s not something you can manufacture.

I can’t say I’ve personally lived through the same struggles he sings about, but I empathize with the subject matter: the hopelessness and despair felt by our modern culture, the trials of just trying to get by each day. There’s a reason his raw and honest songs have struck a chord with so many others across the world.

Besides that, there’s an excellent interview between him and Jordan B Peterson that’s worth viewing, regardless of where you stand with Peterson (I know he’s controversial for some).

During it, Peterson coaches Oliver Anthony, offering some personal insights on the ins and outs of running a successful creative career. He talks about what it takes to reach an audience with your message and why it’s important.

And it’s equally interesting to hear Anthony’s motivations behind his music and lifestyle. He seems like the real deal: a humble guy who’s lived a hard life and heard many stories from others who are also struggling. But the sudden leap into fame hasn’t changed what Anthony cares about. He even turned down an eight million dollar recording contract because it offered a lifestyle he didn’t want to live.

All those juicy tidbits aside, Peterson encourages everyone to chase what beckons—to find the thing you care about and pursue it with all you’ve got. Because, what else are you going to do with your life anyhow?

It’s wise advice. And I would add that finding your passion isn’t always easy, especially in our distracted society (read The Endless Creative if you want some help with that). Sometimes it just springs upon you, but sometimes it takes its own sort of passionate pursuit to obtain.

But the difference between a project of passion and one without it is obvious. It’s like artificial vs. natural lighting. Sure, we’ve made some impressive and even stunning light sources in our time on Earth. However, as I was reminded at our church’s candlelight service this Christmas season, it still doesn’t compare to watching a single, flickering flame shine brightly in the dark. And what can match a stunning sunrise or sunset?

So it is the same with the burning brilliance that passion brings.

Does passion for your work guarantee its greatness? Clearly not. I’ve worked on many projects that I cared about and they still ended with unsatisfactory results. Though I believe that’s more a matter of lacking craft and experience than anything else.

The magic behind passion is that it keeps pushing you forward, through all the doubts and failures and obstacles. It keeps your learning and growing and reaching.

When you work with passion, you’re creating for all the right reasons. Because, in the end, no matter what happens, you still love what you’re doing.

You’ll keep trying even if the first project doesn’t turn out, or the next, or the next. You’ll press on until, at last, you reach greatness. Because when you truly love what you’re making, eventually, so will everyone else.