Leaders Need Hobbies

If you did a study on some of the most successful people, you would find several common denominators among them. One of the denominators is that they all have hobbies they are passionate about. For example:

Former President, George W. Bush, is an avid painter
Actress Susan Sarandon calls herself a ping-pong propagandist
Billionaire Richard Branson’s favorite sport is kite boarding
Investor Warren Buffet plays a lot of online bridge
Inventor Albert Einstein loved to sail
Apple Founder Steve Jobs played guitar
Actress Angelina Jolie collects daggers
Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin does trapeze

Hobbies allow us to escape from work and replenish our quality of life. All work plus no play equals psychological disarray. When we find enjoyable hobbies, we are in essence investing into our well being. Having healthy outlets allows us to decompress from stress. Everyone should have a hobby that they are able to get lost in at times. This oscillation from working to playing generates creative energy. Remember playing cars as a kid with hot wheels, micro-machines, or whatever type of toy you had? You could set up tracks with three-hundred-sixty-degree loops right in the middle.

These loops would create momentum for the car to keep going until it reached the finish line. As soon as the car made its way down the loop, it would pick up an extreme amount of force to keep moving. In the same way, hobbies create a propelling loop that gives us the mental and physical strength to keep persevering. They reward us with improved creativity, emotional recharging, self-confidence, stress relief, social connection, idea generating, leadership lessons, and broader awareness. Simply put…hobbies are extremely good for your mind. Tons of world changing ideas and solutions have been conceived during recreation. For instance, 3M inventor Art Fry had his breakthrough moment while on the companies private golf course where he got the idea for post-it-notes. George de Mestral was on a hunting trip when he noticed burdock burs sticking to his clothes and his dog’s fur. Curiosity led him to study the burs to figure out why they stuck so well and he used what he learned to create Velcro.

All work plus no play equals psychological disarray.

Ideas come to us more frequently when we are in a good state of mind. The word recreation means “to create again or renew.” Recreation always precedes creation. When you are fresh you are at your best. Make sure you are investing time into your leisure so that life becomes a holistic journey. And don’t just have a hobby, but make sure you are consistently doing your hobby. Author James A. Michener said, “The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.”