What separates Tom Brady from Matt Biondi and Barry Sanders? And how does that difference relate to countering the stress of a workaholic culture, especially as it manifests in Millenials working for entrepreneurial or tech industries?
Tom Brady, for anyone who doesn’t track professional football, is the quarterback of the New England Patriots, in the news last week for leading his team to its 6th Super Bowl title at the sports-ancient age of 41, making him the oldest quarterback in NFL historyto manage that feat. But what makes him relevant here isn’t his talent or list of accomplishments. It’s the fact that despite having already endured 19 years of an ultra-demanding, 365-days-a-year training routine and punishing football hits, he’s made it clear that there is “zero” chance of him retiring yet. He aims to play, God and his body willing, until he’s 45.
Matt Biondi and Barry Sanders were also exceptional athletes in their sports. Biondi was the third-highest Olympic-medal-scoring swimmer in U.S. history (after Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz), winning a total of 11 medals, 8 of which were gold. Barry Sanders was one of the greatest running backs in NFL history, one of only 6 to accumulate more than 2,000 rushing yards in a single season, and the 3rd highest number of total yards in his career. Arguably, if he’d played more seasons, Sanders could have outstripped the two running backs ahead of him. But as I wrote in a piece for The Atlantic, both Sanders and Biondi walked away from their sports—Sanders at the very height of his career—saying, in essence, that it just wasn’t fun anymore.
How is that Tom Brady’s passion for playing football seems undimmed, while Matt Biondi and Barry Sanders’ enthusiasm for their chosen sports ran dry? The answer is complex and, on some level, unknowable to anyone outside of the athletes themselves. But a piece of it, according to Dr. Sean McCann, senior sport psychologist for the U.S. Olympic Committee, relates to how much an athlete is, or remains, motivated by internal, or “intrinsic” rewards.
It’s easy enough to assume that great athletes are driven by the desire to win gold medals or championship rings. And to some degree, they are. But according to Dr. McCann, those external rewards aren’t enough to sustain a person’s motivation over time, especially if the work involved is hard. “Long-term goals can be great motivators,” he said, “but short-term, day to day, [an activity] needs to be fun, at least at times. There are exceptions, but not at the highest levels of performance.”
Dr. McCann cautioned that pursuing an activity for purely external rewards can actually reduce a person’s intrinsic motivation, or ability to pursue an activity for its own sake. And if the internal motivation isn’t there to balance the hours, sacrifice, and effort a career is demanding of someone, the result is often burnout. As Matt Biondi said in an interview when he gave up swimming, “I can’t tell you how many mornings I got to the pool and stood over the cold water, and just had to force myself to drop in.”
It’s a feeling that would resonate with legions of working professionals facing another Monday morning. So it would seem that all of us would benefit from thinking about what’s motivating us, and whether or we’re getting enough internal rewards, or “fun,” from our jobs. And that doesn’t mean having a foosball table in the lobby. That’s like enjoying the breaks from football practice, instead of the practice itself. The fun that matters comes from whatever rewards or enjoyment participating in a given activity or job confers … keeping in mind that different people may be rewarded by different aspects of that participation.
Tom Brady, for example, clearly loves playing football, just for the sake of playing football. He says he loves winning (doesn’t everyone?), but one also gets the impression that if he never won another championship, but could play the game another four years anyway, he’d be far happier than walking away, conquering hero, at the height of his game.
Importantly, that inherent love of an activity isn’t limited to “fun” professions like sports, acting, creative arts, or other things people commonly fantasize about getting paid to do. My brother, a computer science Ph.D., loves figuring out and designing algorithms so much he’d do it for fun, even if it weren’t his job. My niece’s college roommate, who majored in finance, was so excited about accounting that she’d gush to me, when I visited, “I can’t wait to handle my first client tax return!!”
Fun can also come from feeling as if what we’re doing has some kind of meaningful impact on the world. Ask teachers who’ve been working for low pay for two decades why they continue to do that work, and they’re likely to answer with some variation of the late astronaut/teacher Christie McAuliffe’s famous line, “I touch the future. I teach.” They get paid in fulfillment and meaning, as well as in paychecks. That sense of meaning and impact is so important—not only for our happiness, but also for our ability and motivation to keep putting our best effort into a job over time—that some colleges are now putting a greater emphasis on helping their students find a “calling” instead of just a good-paying job upon graduation.
Another important piece of that motivating sense of “fun” comes from our environment—the people and culture surrounding us in any given activity or job. If we respect and enjoy the people on our team, believe we share common goals and levels of dedication, and feel as if our efforts are well enough supported to make important goals possible to achieve, we’re much more likely to sustain our enthusiasm, even if the work is hard. If, on the other hand, we’re working in a dysfunctional environment, feel our teammates don’t have our backs, or don’t feel we have the tools and support to be successful, even a dream job soon loses its appeal. If Barry Sanders had been playing for a well-managed, consistently high-performing team, instead of the problematic and perennially disappointing Detroit Lions, his passion and enjoyment for the game might well have continued as long as Brady’s.
Few of us would stay on an athletic team, or agree to do something dangerous like rock climbing or flying, if we didn’t trust the people around us to be responsible for their piece of the outcome and, simultaneously, to have our backs. The stakes at work may be less dramatic, but the principle still applies. For teams to perform their best and retain talented people, they need leadership and institutional support that rewards team members for having each other’s backs and taking responsibility for their contributions and actions in an atmosphere of mutual respect, trust, and enthusiasm. Easy to say, of course; much more difficult to accomplish. But it’s still an essential goal to set and work toward.
All three of these important motivating elements: intrinsic love of a task, a sense of impact and meaning, and a healthy environment of mutual respect, trust, and institutional support, came to mind as I read a recent New York Times essay on the stress and burnout Millenials are struggling with in the glamorized “hustle” work culture pervading many entrepreneurial, tech, and “gig” jobs.
Millenials aren’t the first generation to feel pressure to out-work each other. Young professionals have always been more susceptible to the pressures of the striving, “constant-hustle” world of work and achievement. Aside from having more time to devote to work ambition (due to fewer family responsibilities and commitments), the possibilities of what you can become or achieve are still wide open, in your 20s or 30s. When the majority of your career still lies ahead, it’s easy to imagine your effort leading you to become the next co-founder of a multi-billion-dollar start-up or a famous and rich (fill in the blank). And when you’re still trying to figure out who you are, the desire to be in the center of the glitter-filled action is a tough pull to resist.
It’s also true that changing the world—on a small or large scale—really does take dedication and time invested. Where would we be without the passion, persistence and sacrifice of individuals like Margaret Sanger and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., not to mention Thomas Edison and the inventors of everything from the internal combustion engine to personal computers?
And yet, even when it comes to changing the world, motivation and balance still matter. There is a world of difference, for example, between wanting to be known for changing the world or wanting to get rich through a start-up or creating a transformative product (both of which are external-reward motivations), and pursuing an effort out of intrinsic love of the task, personal curiosity, passion, or a belief in its inherent importance. Striving in order to feel as if you’re in the center of things, or are successful by external measures—especially if that striving takes place in an environment of people looking out for themselves instead of each other—almost always, as the Times essay highlighted, leads to eventual burnout.
At the same time, even internally-motivated passion can burn out, unless we pay attention to whatever level of balance we need to keep our reserves intact. Tom Brady may work out 365 days a year, but not at the intensity he devotes during football season. He recharges, with far more family time during the off-season, which undoubtedly has helped him keep his energy high when he needs it.
Granted, there are people whose passion for a goal is so consuming that “balance” doesn’t enter the conversation very often. But there is a cost to that kind of intensity. It’s worth noting that Elon Musk, quoted in the Times essay as saying that changing the world requires somewhere between 80-100 hours of work a week, lost his marriage—at least in part because, as his ex-wife diplomatically put it), “extreme success … comes at the cost of many other things.” Matt Biondi wouldn’t have gotten as good as he did if he hadn’t had a deep well of passion for swimming. But in the end, the cost of that extreme success became too high.
What can we learn from all this? First, that regardless of whether we’re pursuing our passions, changing the world, or just trying to build an sustainable career path, it’s important to think about what level of balance works for us. We also need to think about the elements that give us the strength and endurance we need in order to contribute and achieve our best, over the long haul. We need to do the reflection and exploration necessary to discover what endeavors we love to pursue for their own sake. We need to think about what goals, causes, or types of work give us a sense of meaning. And we need to look for supportive work environments that prioritize the kind of team respect, cohesion and trust that maintain our enthusiasm for being part of them.
At the very least, we’re much more likely to feel good about our lives and careers. But we might even find ourselves winning a 6th Super Bowl ring, long after it was supposed to be possible—all because we still love the game, believe in the mission, and are energized by the collective experience of a team we both respect and trust.
