Stop Looking For What You Love

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

You're listening to the Sage Hill podcast with Dr. Chip Dodd. Sage Hill is a social impact organization that helps people see who they're made to be so they can do what they're made to do. Hey, Chip. Hey, Stephen. Hey, man. Glad you're awake. Because it's 05:30 in the morning. It's not really 05:30 in the morning. It's 04:23. How was your drive in? Oh, no. 05:30 in the morning. No traffic that early, Chip. Early bird catches the worm, as they say. Yeah. So you got a weather report? It's Nashville in the summer, so it would say it's hot and humid with a chance of more humidity and more heat. Oh, but you'll be in this studio. It wasn't even it wasn't even daylight when you got into the studio this morning. No. It's a Friday afternoon, man. It's good. Relax. Been a good week. Uh-huh. You know, last night, we were doing one of our evening with Sage Hill gatherings, which if any of you who are in Nashville or outside of Nashville, about once a month, we get together and just host a a conversation, and you talk or I'll talk or answer questions. Sometimes Phil will talk. It was it was great, but this this idea came up in the conversation. We're talking about story last night, and this idea came up, you know, I forget how it came up, but it was like, if I do what I love and I just pursue and I'll find my purpose and I'll get to make a million dollars. Right? There's this Western myth. This

I wouldn't call it western. Oh, I think it's Well, I think I think it's born out of the of the this American dream mentality, which is not a bad I don't think it's a bad dream. No. I'm not saying. I just would like for you to consider it's a human craving too. Yeah. It's embodied very much in America. But certainly, we experience it in the Western. Yeah. Because we have the freedom to pursue it. Because we live in the West. So you'll defend Westernism, and I'll attack So that's good. I wasn't defending it. I'm saying that the the human we talked about the human beings are We fight too sometimes. Can you tell? But but human beings are the same everywhere. They are. All over the world. And I do think in our culture though, we have been given

a a mindset. We have a mindset. No doubt. That things it's a We will obtain all of our dreams and we will be satisfied. And if I don't, then I'm somehow If you work hard, it all works out. Yeah. If you try hard enough, it all falls into place. Yeah. If you really want it, then you can make it happen. If you can figure it out, you can do it. Yes, that's very global and very American. Yeah. And I think it's so, you know, part of our culture that it's almost become a right and a demand of some people. I think it's even it's it's expected because it's also come close to being true. It has enough. Yeah. You know? It has enough. There's enough story there. But I run into a lot of young men, especially, and I say young men, guys in their mid twenties, mid thirties, who are really stuck because professionally, they get squared away. Right? They they have a job that they like, that pays them decently, and, you know, has opportunity for growth and achievement and maybe fulfillment, but they're still missing some something. Right? And they've bought into this this idea that if they have the right job and work hard and get themselves to it, then they'll be fulfilled. You know? Because they're doing what they love. Or if they get married and have kids, and then they'll be fulfilled. Like, there's this idea that there's something outside of me that I can do, and if I do it hard enough, I'm gonna be fulfilled.

Yeah. And, you know, you're what you're bringing up, I'll take it like even sort of like what is traditional, what you're describing. I think that also what I'm seeing is that there are more and more people rejecting what you just described. Yes. They're saying no to the marriage, no to the job, I'm not gonna participate in any of these traditional things until my, I discover my passion and it takes me to my love. Yeah. I'm so glad you brought that. That's the other side of that same coin. Yeah. And I'm running into more of that than the, of finding what you love and doing it and it becomes the thing that you stay with and don't step out of. Mhmm. I've seen people like, hey, man. If you really have a passion, you pursue it. And their assumption is it will be what you love, and it will all work out. It's the it's sort of the hidden way of being cool about what's been traditional. You know, like, as you say, in our Western American thinking. And all of us today think that's not a cool way to think, and actually, it's still being promoted in a hidden way. Yeah. And I think so so often, people

That was a deep thought. Can you unpack that a little bit before you move on? Which one? Like it's being done in a hidden way. It's still being done. It's new language for the same problem that people think that there's gonna be some way that life's gonna be easier for them because it's gonna feel good and everything's gonna fall into place sort of like some kind of magic. If I pursue the traditional American dream, then I'll be okay. If I reject it, cause I didn't see that work out for my parents, so if I reject it, then I'll be okay. And the truth is If I reject it and do this cool thing that's not like what they did, like I'm gonna open up a

coffee shop where, the I play my music that I write and other artists come in and do it, and I have some of my paintings and my friends' paintings on the walls. Yeah. And then I I end up inventing sort of this cool logo that goes with my coffee shop, and that logo becomes a bumper sticker and on t shirts. And before I know it, I'm I'm I'm on the front of, Cafe Magazine or Java Magazine or something Right. And people just go, God, dude, how did you get there? It's like, oh, man, I just Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook. I just Well, I just followed my passion. I just followed my passion and, you know, just kinda fell into place, and I don't know why you're not doing it. And it becomes a a form of of, it's a form of the old, you know, wealthy guy who invented had a lumber company and made a ton of money and says the same thing. You follow what I'm saying? And so, but in this time though, we're using language to describe our experience more than hard work. We're using the word passion. And then I think passion is getting diluted into meaning, you really go at it really hard and your passion makes it happen. But see, passion is what a person has and proves what they have when it doesn't happen. See, passion's a willingness to be in pain for something that matters more than pain. So if something you really, really want and you're willing to have failure and struggle and difficulty, it's the thing that allows you to keep persevering because you're not able to let it go until something actually truly stops you and you have to relinquish it. You have to. You can't stop thinking about it. And so that's closer to loving what you do. It's not about the external prophets that put you on Java Magazine. It's not about this cool logo that you woke up one morning and somehow the spirits within had written it for you, the muses came on you during the night and wrote it for you. I'm not making fun of it because I love logo and brands and but I just have a lot of concern that there are a lot of people who are gonna see themselves as failures because they haven't found what they love and they haven't found their passion, so they're kinda like languishing or not doing anything. So many passions aren't commercial. Yes. It's like your love moving rocks. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. And Sonya, we talked about just her organic gardening is not on the front of any magazine. Right. But she just, she follows it because her heart is in it. She, it makes her whole or whatever. So somebody said to me recently, and it was really great. This guy's 27, and he said, I don't I don't buy the credo, do what you love. And he said, and and, because I think he said, because it's a fake form of passion. And my ears perked up, and I said, what do you mean? He said he said, what I say is don't do what you hate and stop looking for what you love. And and he was really just giving a counter comment Right. To follow your passion. The love, the don't do what you hate. Yeah. Don't do what you hate. And it hit me, and he's the one that, enlightened me, really. I mean, you know, and I'm I think it's kinda cool because I'm I'm listening, and he said something really neat. He said, people are always out there looking for this thing instead of instead of continuing to find out who they are, where they are, what they wanna do. And use your passion to make hard choices. I don't wanna do what I hate, and I I may not know what I love yet, and yet I still need to keep, you know, going to work and doing the hard things and finding out and following my heart and listening to my heart and listening to other people's feedback and but the main thing, do I have the see, because passion is more about character than it is about inspiration. Or even about results. Yeah. Yes. And so he was saying to me, do I have that thing that will take the risk of making the hard choices of not doing what I hate while I also live in a life that's hard and difficult and I can do what I love, but doing what I love doesn't mean it won't be really hard. Think marriage, think parenting, think anyone who's a pro athlete, the greatest talent talented guys in the world. Some of those guys aren't in the pros. Absolutely. And a lot of Nashville. A lot of the waiters aren't cutting albums, but they sure can sing. Yes. Yes. And so some but some of these great pro athletes, some of them are less talented than some guys on the streets. Yep. But they did. They worked hard, and they kept following it until they had to relinquish it. So passion's more about perseverance instead of waiting for things to be easy, I think. So I love that, don't do what you hate, stop looking for what you love. And he didn't mean it in terms of don't do what you love.

He kinda tempered it with this is what it takes. I don't have this lust for this thing out there that if once you find it, it'll make you okay. Because I have found, you know, because I think I, in a large part, live within my passions. I'm fortunate enough to to get to do that. Yeah. It it makes my life actually more difficult at times. I'm not complaining, but the burden that it that comes with my passion, the responsibilities that come with my passion, the, the resistance from others that comes with my passion, the the my need to slow down to bring other people along because my passion takes me too far out ahead and end up alone, like, comes with my passion. Right? Yeah. And that's real different than me trying to be successful. You know? Like, going for it you know? And you you said something the other day. We were talking about something and something I've been putting a lot of energy and time into, and I was I was mad because it wasn't as financially successful as I wanted it to be. Yeah. You know? And I and you very kindly and firmly looked at me in the car and said, shut up. I did not. I was but that's how I interpreted what you said. You said, what you created is very valuable. Yes. You know? So quit saying it's not. Yeah. And it was like this wake up to me of going, oh my gosh. It is. It has been. It will be.

And And you were looking at it from how many people knew about the logo, so to speak. Well, I'll tell you how many zeros or or decimal points were available in my bank account. You're actually saying point blank, it was about the money. Yeah. And and and success was about the zeros. I lost the perspective of the value that I in my gifting, it helped created helped create for other people, for myself, for our community, you know, and it was like such a wake up call for me to, to get away from my lust of security. Mhmm. You know, the false lust of what money can do to make you feel secure, and really step into, man, my passion is gonna lead me to things that cause me pain. And you know what, Stephen? A lot of people

I hear that the idea that if I could if I'm successful, the hidden agenda underneath it is ease. If I'm successful, which really means money Yeah. Then I'll have ease. Or if I do my thing and nobody bothers me, I can kind of be you know, at home and have ease and somehow all the bills are paid. Mhmm. But in that is this idea that I won't have to work anymore, as in struggle anymore. And if that's the agenda, you don't have passion in the first place. Yeah. If you're You're trying to trying to co co or, you know, what am I trying to say? You would try to use your passion to cut a deal with with the universe and why things are making you do. It used to be called deal with the devil. Right? Deal with the devil. That's that's what it changed. Yeah. Yeah. Trying to cut a deal with the devil. I wasn't trying to change it. I just couldn't find my way. Oh, okay. Yeah. That you would I thought it was not a good cool way to say it. Okay. You gotta do a way to say it. Yep. It sounds so cool. No. But I think I think we do. It's like, well, if I just use my passion the right way, then I'll get to take a break. I'll get to rest. I'll get the reward. My experience is the further I get into my passion, the more trouble I've bought for myself. Retirement

from that context is a person who never a person who's focusing on getting to retirement is actually a person who never had the courage to stop doing what they hate. In other words, they endured doing what they hate until they could stop doing what they hate so they could go somewhere else and not do anything or finally go do what they love, but by the time you're there, doing what you love is, in a lot of ways, too late. We don't need to, I believe, get to a place where we're trying to focus on coming to a place in our lives where we don't work. Right. Or having to wait until we kind of follow our interests or loves even if we do it after work. Do you know? Yeah. Or before work. We live in a time, an an extraordinary time, when frankly, many people, according to Morgan Freeman, in this country who really want something can really take the risk of seeing if they can get it. Mhmm. Do you know? I mean, we we have built a system, and and Morgan Freeman is very clear about, you know, the people who don't have opportunity, but but he doesn't try to use that to say there isn't a great opportunity. Yeah. It's gonna be harder. But there's still an opportunity. Absolutely. Yeah. All over the place. Yeah. And he talks about where he came from and where he's sitting, and he talked about just risking and wanting and taking risks

and attempting it. Well, there's even other I don't know why this story popped to mind, but the guy in Tiananmen Square stood up against the tank. Like, that's passion. That's yes. Because there wasn't any opportunity. It turned out okay. Correct. And he was saying, I want that, and I was standing in front of a tank to find that freedom to never have to stop working towards being who I'm made to be. And and and sadly, John Steinbeck talked about that our our problem with the excuse me. I see who's writing twenties, thirties. Yeah. But race rats after the thirties, depression. Season of the forties, post World War II, fifties, Cannery Road, stuff like that. But he said he saw America move into being a, really a giant, And he said our problem is going to be success. Our problem is going to be comfort and leisure. That's what we're gonna have to struggle with. The, so many opportunities that that we've been availed of that we think somehow we can escape maybe the need to sometimes have to stand in front of a tank, as you described it, or

Cross a bridge in Selma or take the risk of or risk in not doing what you hate and stop looking for what you love. Just live live it. Yes. It's difficult and hard, and it's 99% of people aren't gonna wind up in some castle where they wake up every day and somebody, you know, changes their clothes for them. Downton Abbey is over.