Make It Happen Mondays | July 5, 2024
Passion, grit, and success look different up close than the conventional playbook suggests. Guy Kawasaki disagrees with most of that. In this episode, Silicon Valley legend, Apple alum, and author of Think Remarkable joins John Barrows to talk about what actually drives performance and why the way most people think about success is holding them back.
Listen on Captivate | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
About Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki was part of the original Macintosh team at Apple under Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, where he coined the concept of “evangelism marketing.” He has since built companies, backed others as a venture capitalist, and written 16 books including Wise Guy: Lessons from Life, The Art of the Start, and Think Remarkable. He is one of the most influential voices in Silicon Valley on entrepreneurship, technology, and what it actually takes to build something that matters.
- Website: guykawasaki.com
- LinkedIn: Guy Kawasaki
- Book: Think Remarkable on Amazon
What You’ll Learn
- Why following your passion is bad advice for most people and what to focus on instead
- The difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and which one actually sustains performance
- How grit works in practice, and why talented people often have less of it
- Pursuing multiple interests without losing focus: how to think about breadth vs. depth in a career
- Leveraging AI as a force multiplier without outsourcing the thinking that makes you valuable
- Breaking societal norms that constrain what you think is possible for your career
Passion, Grit, and Success: The Key Insight
Kawasaki pushes back hard on the idea that success follows passion. Most people don’t know what they’re passionate about until they’re already good at something. Get good first. The passion follows.
Why This Matters for Reps and Leaders
The skills that make a great sales rep, persistence, curiosity, the ability to connect with anyone, are exactly the skills that AI cannot replicate. This conversation is about understanding what your actual competitive edge is and doubling down on it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does Guy Kawasaki say “follow your passion” is bad advice?
Most people don’t have a clear passion before they develop real competence in something. Telling people to follow their passion before they’ve built skills puts the cart before the horse. Kawasaki’s view is that you discover passion through mastery: get very good at something useful, and the passion for it tends to follow. Waiting to feel passionate before committing to skill-building is one of the most common reasons people plateau early in their careers.
What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in sales?
Extrinsic motivation is driven by external rewards: quota, commission, recognition. Intrinsic motivation comes from internal satisfaction: solving a hard problem, genuinely helping a buyer, getting better at the craft. Both matter, but intrinsic motivation is the one that sustains performance through difficult markets and long slumps. Reps who only work for the external reward quit when the reward feels out of reach. Reps with intrinsic motivation keep getting better regardless.
How does grit affect sales performance?
Grit is the combination of passion and persistence for a long-term goal. In sales, it shows up as the ability to absorb rejection without losing confidence, to keep refining your approach after repeated failure, and to stay focused on skill development when results are slow. Kawasaki’s observation is that highly talented people often have less grit because things came easily early and they never built the muscle for sustained effort. Competence built through struggle tends to be more durable.
How should sales reps think about using AI without losing their edge?
AI is most useful as a force multiplier for tasks that don’t require human judgment: research, drafting, summarizing, scheduling. The competitive edge for sales reps is in the parts AI cannot do: building trust in a live conversation, reading a room, making a judgment call under pressure, and connecting with another person in a way that creates genuine loyalty. Reps who use AI to do more of the high-value human work, rather than replace it, will outperform those who use it to do less thinking.
Make It Happen Mondays is hosted by John Barrows, sales trainer to Salesforce, LinkedIn, Google, Amazon, and Okta. New episodes drop every Monday. Subscribe and listen on all platforms.
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