The Passion Paradox: A Guide to Going All In, Finding Success, and Discovering the Benefits of an Unbalanced Life

The coauthors of the bestselling Peak Performance dive into the science behind passion, revealing the ways in which passion is a double-edged sword and offering a plan for following your passion without ruining your life.

Common advice is to find and follow your passion. A life of passion is a good life, or so we are told. But it’s not that simple. The same drive that fuels breakthroughs–whether they’re athletic, scientific, entrepreneurial, or artistic–can be every bit as destructive as they are productive. Yes, passion can be a wonderful gift, but only if you know how to use it. If you’re not careful, passion can become an awful curse, leading to suffering and burnout. Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness once again team up, this time to demystify passion, showing readers how they can find their passion, sustainably harness its power, and avoid its dangers. They ultimately argue that passion and balance–that other virtue touted by our culture–are incompatible, and that to find your passion, you must lose balance. And they show how to develop the right kind of passion, the kind that lets you achieve great things without ruining your life. Swift, compact, and powerful, this thought-provoking book combines captivating stories of extraordinarily passionate individuals with the latest science on the biological and psychological factors that give rise to passion.