To the obsessed,

Here are your weekly Ten Bullets. A list of ideas I can't stop thinking about- to help you build companies, make art, and find your obsession.

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1. On being normal:

"She was a normal person who wanted normal things, and there was nothing normal about me. My drive was not normal. My vision of where I wanted to go in life was not normal. The whole idea of a conventional existence was like Kryptonite to me."

- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story​

(PS. Read part one of Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder before this. He wrote it when he was in his 40s. It's a manual for obsession, not bodybuilding.)

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2. On conviction:

"When every idea is acceptable to you, it leads to destruction in the end.

When everything could be true, or you can’t decide who you want to be, it will lead you down a path you don’t want to go.

The best path for your life is incredibly simple.

It’s founded on a single idea that makes it crystal clear what’s on the path, and what’s a distraction from the path.

Staying on the path is the way to receive the benefits of taking action on an idea.

Being distracted, getting on different paths all the time, and aimlessly wandering in directions that you don’t understand or know what results it will generate, will cause you to stumble and fall and ultimately destroy your life.

Decide what results you truly want in your life. Think in decades, not days. What consistent actions lead to those results? What path leads to that end?"

- Jordan O'Connor, Conviction [Blog]

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3. On obsession:

"Work should feel like taking a break and taking a break should feel like work."

- @brutedeforce​

When you're obsessed, you don't force yourself to start working. You force yourself to stop.

"As soon as you start treating it 'like a job' it's over. Founders don't count hours." - Sean Frank​

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4. On opportunities:

"The idea is not that we will participate in one story that can be easily wrapped up by our biographer- but that there are many adventures and quests that we can pursue. Rather than the attitude of the saint who is given a mission by God, it takes the attitude of the swashbuckling adventurer who goes out to seek his fortune.

Instead of imagining yourself as the hero of a Hollywood movie, imagine yourself as a particularly hearty ancestor that you might brag about when drunk: the one who rode bareback, founded a town, fought a grizzly bear, raised 10 kids, saved her son's life by drinking the governor under the table, and went to the frontier to stay one step ahead of the hangman and her gambling debtors.

This approach to the problem of meaning recognizes that, rather than trying to discern a mission, it is better to become a certain kind of person- a person who is capable of acting on and recognizing opportunities to make meaning when they are."

- Vivid Void (Twitter/X) (h/t Spencer for the rabbit hole)

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5. On hypomanics:

"Hypomanics are brimming with infectious energy, irrational confidence, and really big ideas. They think, talk, move, and make decisions quickly. Anyone who slows them down with questions 'just doesn't get it.' Hypomanics are not crazy, but 'normal' is not the first word that comes to mind when describing them. Hypomanics live on the edge, between normal and abnormal.

For example, Jim Clark, cofounder of Netscape, was described in Business Week by Netscape's other cofounder, Jim Barksdale, as 'a maniac who has his mania only partly under control.' Michael Lewis profiled Jim Clark as a perpetual motion machine with a short attention span, forever hurtling at unsafe speeds in helicopters, planes, boats, and cars. When his forward motion is impeded, Clark becomes irritable and bored."

- John D. Gartner, The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (A Little) Craziness and (A Lot of) Success in America (Book)

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6. On naming:

"Choosing a name is one of the most important decisions you will make as an entrepreneur. Your company's name could be a lever that separates you from your competition. It could be the key element that helps your customers understand your value.

Rule 1. Be unique in your category.

'Warby Parker' is an odd name for a glasses company.
The name originated as a combination of two book characters.
​And it doesn't tell you what the company does.
But you know the name and it's memorable."

Rule 2. Use words that can turn into verbs.

You need to start the relationship off by inviting them to action in some way. Engineer a name that eventually becomes a thing people do. A 10x company name will invite people to action immediately. It becomes synonymous with accomplishing an important task.

Rule 3. Limit your syllables.

The more difficult it is to type out, the less it gets searched online. The sweet spot is a 2-syllable name.

Rule 4. Easy to spell

Don't get cute and change up the letters of a traditional word.

Rule 5. Easy to pronounce

Rule 6. Domain availability

Rule 7. Trademarking available"

- Brett Adcock, Naming a Company [Blog]

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7. On craft:

"I cannot find any patience for those people who believe that you start writing when you sit down at your desk and pick up your pen and finish writing when you put down your pen again; a writer is always writing, seeing everything through a thin mist of words, fitting swift little descriptions to everything he sees, always noticing.

Just as I believe that a painter cannot sit down to his morning coffee without noticing what color it is, so a writer cannot see an odd little gesture without putting a verbal description to it, and ought never to let a moment go by undescribed."

- Shirley Jackson, The Greatest Menace to the Writer is the Reader [Blog]

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8. On original ideas:

If you feel stuck in the crowd, unable to stand out, it's worth asking yourself- have you had one original idea in your life?

If you keep reading books everyone reads, listening to podcasts everyone listens to, it's almost impossible to be unique. You're stuck in a slaughterhouse of attention, a cog in an algorithm, recycling the same ideas.

Stop consuming for a bit. Then, consume only what you find on your own. Without a newsfeed, or a recommendation. Unique output is the byproduct of unique input. There's no other option.

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Related:

"Sometimes I think discussions these days are just proxy debates between each person’s favorite podcaster." - @levelsio​

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9. On the voice:

"If you think there's something that you can't bring up into consciousness because it's going to take over your mind, or as people say, 'curl up in a fetal position,' that is exactly the thing you must look at.

How much might that thing that you are not thinking about be impacting you? 'That's on my mind all the time, but on the backburner.' That's like having a voice in the background telling you something very negative or very distressing..

'That's why I don't let myself get ahead.' If there's something inside of you and you think 'I can't let that to the surface,' what that's telling you is 'I must let that to surface.'"

- Dr. Paul Conti: Tools and Protocols for Mental Health I Huberman Lab Podcast (YouTube)

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10. On the hunt:

"On November 12, 1996, Allen Iverson dropped 35 on the Knicks in a win at the Garden.

On November 12, 1996, I played five minutes and finished with two points in a Lakers win at Houston.

When I checked into my hotel room later that night and saw the 35 on SportsCenter, I lost it. I flipped the table, threw the chairs, broke the TV.

I thought I had been working hard.

Five minutes. Two points.

I needed to work harder.

I did.

On March 19, 1999, Iverson put 41 points and 10 assists on me in Philadelphia.

Working harder wasn’t enough.

I had to study this man maniacally.

I obsessively read every article and book I could find about AI. I obsessively watched every game he had played, going back to the IUPU All-American Game. I obsessively studied his every success, and his every struggle. I obsessively searched for any weakness I could find. I searched the world for musings to add to my AI Musecage.

This led me to study how great white sharks hunt seals off the coast of South Africa.

The patience. The timing. The angles.

On Feb 20, 2000, in Philadelphia, PJ gave me the assignment of guarding AI at the start of the second half. No one knew how much this challenge meant to me.

I wanted him to feel the frustration I felt. I wanted everyone who laughed at the 41 and 10 he put on me to choke on their laughter.

He would publicly say that neither of us could stop the other. I refused to believe that. I score 50. You score zero. THAT is what I believe.

When I started guarding AI, he had 16 at the half. He finished the game with 16. Revenge was sweet.

But I wasn’t satisfied after the win. I was annoyed that he had made me feel that way in the first place.

I swore, from that point on, to approach every matchup as a matter of life and death. No one was going to have that kind of control over my focus ever again.

I will choose who I want to target and lock in.

I will choose whether or not your goals for the upcoming season compromise where I want to be in 20 years.

rIf they don’t, happy hunting to you. But if they do…. I will hunt you obsessively. It’s only natural."

- Kobe Bryant, Obsession is Natural

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Visual Obsessions:

I obsessively curate images and screenshots like these. Figured worth sharing. As I build out brands and products, you'll see these aesthetics playing a role.

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I'd love to hear what you thought of this edition. Feel free to reply here. Also, you can always email/DM any obsession quotes/inspiration you find yourself. I'd love to share them.

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Stay obsessed,

Zach 🏴

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