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 and going all in 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. Rarely is passion something that you just stumble upon, and the same drive that fuels breakthroughs—whether they're athletic, scientific, entrepreneurial, or artistic—can be every bit as destructive as it is productive. Yes, passion can be a wonderful gift, but only if you know how to channel it. If you're not careful, passion can become an awful curse, leading to endless seeking, suffering, and burnout.
Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness once again team up, this time to demystify passion, showing readers how they can find and cultivate 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 that's not always a bad thing. They show readers 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—and every bit as important, sustain—passion.

BRAD STULBERG writes for Outside magazine, New York magazine, Forbes, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, Runner's World, and the Huffington Post. Previously, Brad worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company. He lives in Northern California with his wife, Caitlin.

STEVE MAGNESS is a coach to some of the top distance runners in the world. He has been a featured expert in Runner's World, the New York Times, the New Yorker, BBC, the Wall Street Journal, and ESPN The Magazine. He lives in Houston, Texas.