No Limits
To have what you want in life, you must give yourself permission to throw yourself all in on your dreams. Make it clear to others that you are obsessed and that, though you would like their support, any expectations they may have of your staying where you are, settling for less than you dream, or being average will have to take a backseat.
Ask yourself, How far up can I go? How much more can I do? And most important, What do I want to become completely obsessed with that will lead to success?
being obsessed doesn’t take into account your education, your money, or even your abilities. you’ll need them eventually, but none of them matter if you haven’t first given yourself permission to be obsessed. It’s all about your desire and willingness to see a goal all the way through, despite huge obstacles.
You Are The Only One Who Has Your Dreams
Steve Jobs said: “I want to put a dent in the universe.”
Martin Luther King Jr. said: “I have a dream. . . .”
Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Bill Gates said: “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
Muhammad Ali said: “I am the greatest.”
You know these people and their words and their work because they were obsessed. They stayed obsessed long after others had dismissed them. Sure, people tried to get them to just enjoy life a little more. They were called crazy, arrogant, troublemakers, insane, wacked, fanatics, and more. In the end, though, they each changed the world.
These people weren’t superheroes; they didn’t possess any special powers. They were just completely obsessed. This led to their unshakable dedication, unreasonable efforts, and enduring commitment to go far beyond what any average person would do in order to make their dreams a reality. They didn’t simply play in the game; they were obsessed with shaping it.
Keeping Your Obsessions Fresh
All of life is a transition. You will work out what it is you are supposed to be doing and commit completely to that thing. Then there will come a time when you will again wonder what you are supposed to be doing, and the process of clarifying your purpose will start over again.
It is challenging, but you must redefine who you are and refuel your obsessions as conditions change and your previous goals are achieved. This will determine how much you can get done in your time here. It is you continuing to create you.
Just as you reboot a computer by restarting it and reloading the operating system, all people need to reboot themselves. We are all in transition, getting older, starting over—and things change. The destination changes, conditions change, motivation changes. There are disappointments, challenges, losses. If you don’t stay obsessed with where you are going, you will become that person you don’t want to be: lost, jaded, and wasting away.
Feed The Beast Of Your Obsessions
When you are truly obsessed with things that are good and you constantly feed them, all those things yanking at you—self-esteem issues, introversion, disability, fear of success, fear of failure, or any form of neurosis—fall away. Why? Because you don’t care about them. Your attention is fully on the good stuff.
STAY LASER FOCUSED ON YOUR GOALS
Goals aren’t a New Year’s resolution or a journal entry or a bumper sticker; they are critical to your life’s happiness and fulfillment.
Write them down every morning and read them every night until they become a part of you. Once you internalize them, you will see everything around you as a means of achieving those goals. The moment you quit this practice, you will find yourself falling into the repetitive cycle of work without purpose.
And don’t forget that goals will continue to mature and change. You will not write down the same goals five years from now that you write today.
ROAR TOWARD THE FUTURE
Keep your attention constantly focused on the future rather than the past. What will you create? What can you do that has never been done? Look at what’s in your windshield and disregard the rearview mirrors. Feeding the beast will keep you locked in on your future and the discovery of your potential.
OBSESSED WITH LEARNING
The easiest way to feed your beast is to spend time learning something new or learning how to be even better at something you’re already doing. Make the super successful your mentors. Buy their books, go to their conferences, read their interviews. And turn your travel time into learning time: Load your phone with podcasts and audiobooks that you can listen to while driving to work and home.
The point is to immerse yourself in knowledge. Don’t just drink the Kool-Aid—swim in it. Then make sure the people who live in your home and work at your company are reading the same material.
Starve The Doubters And Stay On Track
The real danger haters and naysayers bring is the possibility of going off track. If you do not push through all the doubts and confusion they throw at you, you will lose.
You must be willing to cross the safety line in life and in business. Governors are put on engines to keep things running nice and steady, so that the engines don’t go too fast and blow up. But the obsessed are willing to redline the engine, and that scares the general public.
The obsessed are not interested in popularity contests or any majority-rules approach. The obsessed are monster dreamers who are confused by the fact that so many people think so small. They don’t understand when it became popular to not dream big and would rather be disappointed by not reaching a massive target than never try to reach it at all. Haters and naysayers don’t reach; they just talk.
Dominate Yourself
When you neglect to dominate and control yourself, you can waste years of your life.
This is where the military would benefit us all: with its structure, ethics, rules, orders, and unquestioning task execution. In civilian life most people don’t operate under a culture or mind-set where you must show up on time, dress in a certain way, operate at peak capacity, and follow orders. Because no one is setting a clear course, your energy goes everywhere and nowhere.
DOMINATE YOUR LIMITED THINKING
You don’t want issues beyond your control steering you, because you don’t—you can’t—control them. If your problems own you, it’s only a matter of time before they lead to tormenting destruction. Until you learn how to get rid of the negative and to focus completely on your potential and your goals, somehow you will always feel you are falling short. But when you define your real obsessions and make them the things you invest all your time and energy in, everything will start to change. You will be obsessed by choice, not by pain.
DOMINATE YOUR TIME
stop wasting time on tasks that don’t matter and don’t fuel your obsessions. For example, someone else should mow the lawn and wash the car, if those chores don’t get you closer to your goal. Pay someone else to do tasks that aren’t a part of your obsession.
Your time and your focus are precious, so treat them that way.
There’s time to do it all—when you make time and quit managing it.
Commit First And Figure The Rest Out Later
The obsessed are willing to be reckless. They are willing to create and manage chaos in order to get growth. They are geniuses only because they are courageous. Ask them about their courage and they will tell you, “I find my genius when I am completely committed.”
Commit first and figure the rest out later. In the beginning your need to have order and have it all figured out is going to kick you in your teeth. The fears get unleashed:
“How will I get it all done with everything I have going on?”
“Is it a good deal?”
“What if I make a mistake?”
“How will I get the financing?”
“What if I can’t get financing?”
“What about the holidays?”
“What if I can’t do what I have promised I can do?”
What if the world gets hit by a massive comet in the next twelve hours? This deal will be the least of your problems. Hell, the world might explode before the day ends. So don’t sweat the little stuff. Do not allow yourself to get caught up in details. And do not be afraid of venturing into new territory with your money.
Build An Obsessed Team
Your people are your power. If you don’t surround yourself with the best, if you don’t create a culture in your company that is as obsessed as you are with getting you where you want to go, you are not extending your power. If you don’t continue to recruit, you are left to manage with what you have. And the people you depend on today can disappoint you tomorrow. So invest in people and keep investing. To do any less means you’re not obsessed with the well-being of your business
DEVELOP A REPUTATION AS A PLACE PEOPLE WANT TO WORK
If you’re pumping out excellent products, making sales, reinvesting, and getting to know people, you are going to get a reputation for doing great work. Let that work for you. If you are doing great things, other people who want to do great things will find you and want to work with you.
ALWAYS BE HIRING—NOT JUST WHEN A POSITION IS OPEN
Super businesspeople make recruiting one of their top priorities.
LET THE WORLD KNOW YOU’RE HIRING
To start you need to hang that “Help Wanted” sign on the door. With social media it’s never been easier. You have every online outlet available to let the world know you’re hiring.
LOOK AT MORE RÉSUMÉS THAN SEEMS REASONABLE
When it comes to hiring, you need to be recruiting, looking, hunting, marketing, and being obsessed at a massive level. That means looking at massive numbers of résumés.
DO INTERVIEWS YOURSELF, AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
Hiring isn’t just a matter of reviewing a résumé and checking LinkedIn. It involves an instinctive feel for another person. There is a lot to consider, not just the candidate’s ability to do the tasks required for the job, but also how he or she will establish and encourage the company culture you want to create.
Do More Than Reading This Book
You can read this book—or any business book—and get excited for a moment. But being obsessed is not a small idea, and you will meet resistance. This is not a weekend conference where you walk across a fire, bend arrows, or break boards.
This is obsession. You are being given permission, probably for the first time in your life, to go all in and be a freak. To sustain healthy, voluntary obsessions, to have it all and do great things, requires more than a book. It requires tremendous commitment, clarity, confidence, sacrifice, and persistence and a willingness to be in the minority, even unpopular.