Joe distinguishes between intention (essential) and attachment (counterproductive). Intention — a clear goal, a North Star — is “absolutely completely important to getting stuff done.” Without it, you’re lucky to get anywhere. But the attitude you hold toward that intention determines everything about efficiency, enjoyment, and flexibility.
You can hold a $100M revenue goal as “I should,” “I want to,” “I will,” or “I can’t wait.” Each produces radically different energy, rigidity, and capacity for adaptation. Attachment to the goal is “like throwing an anchor out and sailing across the ocean with your anchor out.” It works — you can still succeed — but it’s neither efficient nor enjoyable.
Every highly successful CEO Joe has coached was attached not to money or success itself, but to something beyond it: being the best, reducing carbon, creating great customer experience. When succeeding is a necessary step toward your deeper goal rather than the goal itself, the entire relationship shifts.
“Being attached to succeeding is absolutely a fine way to succeed. It’s not the most efficient way to succeed. It is not the most enjoyable way to succeed.”
Joe’s personal story illustrates the shift: his “should” to make money in venture capital traced back to trying to please his father. When he identified his actual want — creating great workplace cultures — “everything started to open up and flourish.”
Related Concepts
- Craving and wanting are fundamentally different experiences
- Goals generate questions, not destinations
- Wanting is a form of aliveness close to love