Life-changing ideas and insights from some of the world's greatest thinkers.
The legends of success know how to go all in when the moment presents itself. They step into dangerous environments and take advantage of them.
No one who has made a great contribution on this planet rests on their laurels. ... Not one person who has proven more successful than me has ever once suggested I do less or work less. The only people who have suggested I not be so obsessed are ordinary people committed to average lives.
Prepare yourself. When you commit to this obsessed thing, you will be labeled an outlier, a freak, and a weirdo. Remind yourself you aren’t the problem. The problem is the world we’re living in.
Are you scared at this very moment? If you aren’t, then you aren’t doing the things that are worth doing. Stay hungry, stay dangerous, stay obsessed—and win.
Commit yourself to this feeling of discomfort. I’ve become obsessed with the idea of being uncomfortable, because I know it leads to success. I guarantee that you will not find the path to your purpose inside your comfort zone. The greatest you will be discovered far outside your comfort zone.
Use this daily practice to remind yourself of where you’re going and why. Write your future in order to achieve it.
Yes, you are fanatical, and yes, the mission is impossible, and yes, you know no one has ever done exactly what you want to do before. But none of those conditions are cause for doubt! Respond with determination and go all in.
It’s vital that you teach people how to keep going in a world that has basically made quitting okay. You need to show your team that you can take on an impossible task and confront things that normal people quit on.
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 engines don’t go too fast and blow up. But the obsessed are willing to redline the engine, and that scares the general public.
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.
