🏴 On outliers, vision, and burning the boats. Ten Bullets.

To the obsessed,

Here are your weekly Ten Bullets.

Ten ideas to help you build companies, make art, and fuel your obsession.

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From me:

1. On obsession:

2. On constraints:

If you know your obsession, but aren't doing it, I highly recommend making an extreme commitment/constraint that forces you into action.

Otherwise, you'll obsess too long about making it perfect. But a deadline will crush that. It forces you to produce.

A great constraint is a lighter for obsession.

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Committing to daily content.

Signing up for a marathon.

It’s wild how much of my progress/obsession has come from setting constraints.

3. On burning the boats:

From The Obsessed:

4. On Rogan’s first obsession:

“I got very lucky in that when I was 15 I got obsessed with martial arts. That was the first thing I did where I didn’t think I was a loser anymore. I realized, that if you work really hard at something, and you’re completely obsessed with something, it can transform your life. My life from 15 to 18, I was a different human. From 14, 15, I was insecure. Bad social anxiety. We moved around a lot. I’d get picked on a lot. I went from that, to being completely confident.”

— Joe Rogan #2116 - Kevin James (h/t Shani)

5. On outliers:

6. On the details:

7. On childhood obsession:

I don’t think an obsessive personality can be taught. Some are born with intensity. And some are not.

8. On vision:

“Doing what? I had no clue. Like I said, it was a broad vision. The picture was very fuzzy. I was young. What did I know? What I would learn, though, is that some of the strongest visions emerge like this. From our obsessions when we're young, before our opinions about them have been affected by other people's judgments of them. Talking about what to do when you're dissatisfied with your life, the famous big wave surfer Garrett McNamara once said that you should "go back to when you were three, figure out what you loved doing, figure out how to make that your life, then make the road map and follow it." He was describing the process for creating a vision, and I think he's absolutely correct. It's obviously not that easy, but it is that simple, and it can begin by looking back in time and thinking very broadly about the things you used to love. Your obsessions are a clue to your earliest vision for yourself, if only you had paid attention to them in the beginning.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger, Be Useful (h/t Ben Wilson)

Recommend Ben’s new episode of ‘How to Take Over the World’ on Arnold:

9. On a way of life:

"Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life."

"Let’s assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course). And let’s assume that you can’t see any real purpose in any of the eight. THEN— and here is the essence of all I’ve said— you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH."

— Hunter S. Thompson, Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life (Farnam Street)​

10. On commitment:

"If you want to fix your life just stop treating it like an index fund. Every decision you make you should be all in on. Don’t spread your bets, the kingdom of heaven isn’t achieved through diversification.

You should be systemically destroying optionality, every door you don't take you should slam shut, every bet you make should kill you if you lose it, think about anthropic leverage, you don't want to be alive to see a world that isn't the one you bet on."

- @willmanidis​

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