Finite vs. Infinite Goals - Simon Sinek

I've become very very interested in the idea of playing in games that have no finish lines. Some games have finish lines, baseball, and football. Getting a part is the finish line. You audition, and there's a beginning, middle, and end. There's rehearsal and practice. There's showing up for the audition and you either win or you lose, and then it's over.

That is finite. But one's career is infinite. There's no end. It's like our lives are finite but life is infinite. People come and people go but life continues. Theater. Actors come and actors go but theater continues. It's infinite. You don't win theater. You win a part.

But what happens once you get the part? The finite game is over. Now you enter the infinite game, you have to be able to convert. And the reason this is important, and I've seen this unfortunately so many times, is from a young age all you wanted to do was get to Broadway.

And then you get to Broadway, and then what? You've devoted your entire life to one finite goal and when you get there, the immediate response is depression because I spent 15 years of my life for this one thing and I got it and now I don't know what to do next.

Like what do, get to Broadway again?! It doesn't have the same ambition. It doesn't have the same passion, that you've devoted, you're from Fargo, North Dakota and that's all you wanted to do is get out of Fargo and make it to Broadway and you made it. It doesn't have the same kind of passion. And this is because these are finite goals.

There are a lot of studies that have been done with athletes who have finite goals. To become the greatest X in the world. So Andre Agassi was one of these athletes. He wanted to become the greatest tennis player that ever lived.

So, guess what? Everyone in his life he would view them through, how do you help me get to that? Everything was how does this help me get to that? Everything was a transaction, how do you help me move there, and then you know what happens?

He achieved it, he became the greatest tennis player in the world and you know what happened immediately after? Depression. Michael Phelps set out to become the most medaled Olympian in history.

Do you know what? He achieved it. Do you know what happened immediately after? Depression. They spend their whole life working for one goal.

Though most will never get it, the few that do, don't know what to do next because their goals were finite. Their goals were finite. And so there are finite components to your career but your career should be infinite.