Think Of It Like The Pacific Salmon
The NBA executive turned venture capitalist, Sam Hinkie, is known to be a fan of Robert Caro and Caro’s extensive biographies of rich, famous, and powerful figures. Asked what he’s learned from studying figures who dedicated their lives largely to chasing things like money, recognition, and power, Hinkie said, “I think of it like the Pacific Salmon—they spend their whole life making this journey upstream to spawn in this one spot. And as soon as they do, they die. That’s largely what Caro shows you.” The outcome is always a tiny percentage of the total experience—that’s the theme of this SIX at 6…
Oh My God, Where Did My Life Go?
In 1997, at the age of 27, Matt Damon won his first Academy Award for Best Screenplay (Good Will Hunting). After Damon won the Oscar, he went home, sat down on his sofa, and looked at the award. As he looked at it, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a heartbreaking thought: “I remember very clearly looking at that award and thinking, ‘Imagine chasing that, not getting it, and then getting it finally in your 80s or your 90s with all of life behind you and realizing what an unbelievable waste of your life.’” Damon stood on the Oscars stage for eighty-one seconds. That’s 0.0000641% of the four years he spent working on Good Will Hunting. To let 0.0000641% of an experience determine one’s happiness or satisfaction is a heartbreaking waste of one’s life. “My heart broke,” Damon said. “I imagined another one of me [not getting that award until I was] an old man, and going like, ‘Oh my god, Where did my life go? What have I done?’ And then it’s over.”
It Has To Be About Something More Than The 0.1%
In the 200-meter backstroke at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, American swimmer Aaron Peirsol touched the wall first with a time of 1:54.95, a new Olympic Record (”OR”). Peirsol looked up at the scoreboard, where instead of “OR,” “DSQ” flashed beside his name. Peirsol had been disqualified for an alleged illegal turn during the race. The U.S. team filed a protest against the decision, arguing that Peirsol didn’t make an illegal turn. Over the next several hours, officials from the sport’s governing body, FINA, reviewed video footage of the race, consulted the judge in Peirsol’s lane, and debated whether or not to reinstate Peirsol’s gold medal and Olympic record. Asked about what he was thinking and feeling during the hours of that deliberation, Peirsol said, “It just reinforced something I kind of already knew but now had no choice but to face up to, which was, ‘I’d be here anyway.’ You know? ‘Medal or no medal, I’d be here anyway. I’d be satisfied with all I did to get here anyway.’ The Olympics—I was lucky to be in 3 Olympics—are an amazing pinnacle of what sport is, and it’s fun to be on that stage, but the other 99.9% of the time, you’re not on that stage. And so it has to be about something more than that—if all you really cared about was that .01% of what your career entailed, you’d be missing out on your entire life. If you define yourself or your career by that .01%, that’s really unfortunate.” Shortly after Peirsol realized he and his career weren’t going to be defined by a .01%-moment, the FINA jury came to an agreement: Peirsol had made a legal turn. The disqualification was overturned, and Peirsol’s gold medal and Olympic record were reinstated.
The Pinnacle is Over in an Instant
In 2008, “In The Heights” won a Grammy and four Tony Awards. At Radio City Music Hall, the entire cast and crew went up to receive the final Tony award presented: Best Musical. Two of them picked up the writer and star of the musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and put him on their shoulders. There was fist-pumping, waving, screaming, and smiles. Then the lights shifted and everyone in the audience got up and started exiting. But “In The Heights” director Tommy Kail stopped on stage and stood there by himself. As everyone emptied out of Radio City Music Hall, they talked about what after-party they were attending and what they were going to eat and what they were working on next. Kail stood on stage alone and thought, “Well if this is a pinnacle, and it’s over in an instant, and people are already talking about what’s next, it can’t be about this. It has to be about something more than this.” The “In The Heights” cast and crew stood on the Radio City Music Hall stage for forty-four seconds. That’s 0.000017% of the eight years Kail spent working on it. To let 0.000017% of an experience determine his happiness or satisfaction with the work, Kail realized, would be insane.
Honors Are Un-Real
Considering that the physicist Richard Feynman began his undergraduate studies in 1935, he had been studying and working in physics for 30 years when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. He was asked if being honored with the Nobel Prize made all those years worth it? “I don’t know anything about the Nobel Prize,” Feynman replied. “I don’t understand what it’s all about. I don’t see that it makes any point that people in the Royal Swedish Academy [the organization that awards the Nobel Prize in Physics] decide what’s worth what, that this or that work is noble enough to receive a prize.” Long before the Royal Swedish Academy decided he was worthy of a prize, Feynman said, “I already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding a thing out. The kick in the discovery. The observation that other physicists use my work. Those are the real things. Honors are un-real to me. They are made up. I don’t believe in honors. I don’t like honors.”
Try To Get Most Of The Rewards From The Work Itself
If not things like money, awards, honors, prizes, and medals—what should we strive for? “When we were writing Good Will Hunting,” Matt Damon said, “Ben [Affleck] and I always talked about just wanting to love it. We would say, ‘If it’s just a tape on our mantel that no one ever watches, we want to love it.’ We kind of stumbled into a very wise strategy, which is to try to get most of the rewards from the work itself.” Since you control the work itself, since honors are un-real, since the outcome is always .01% of the total experience—Ryan Holiday once told me, “The work has to be the win. Ultimately, you have to love doing it. You have to get to a place where doing the work is the win and everything else is extra.”