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To the obsessed,

Here's your weekly Ten Bullets. A list of ideas I can't stop thinking about- to help you build companies, make content, and find your life's work.

Obsess responsibly.

1. On surrendering:

"Have some friends whose careers are absolutely taking off, and the common theme among them is how they’ve surrendered to their nature. They’re done trying to be somebody they’re not."

- David Perell [Twitter]

2. On great ideas:

“When you’re onto something great, it won’t feel like revolution. It’ll feel like uncommon sense.”

- Derek Sivers, Anything You Want [Book]

3. On intelligence:

"Smart people who lack courage and don’t take risks often end up bitter. They keep seeing less smart people with more courage do better than them."

- Sully Fazie [Twitter]

4. On the alter-ego:

"All I want to do, ever, is play chess... Chess and me, it’s hard to take them apart. It’s like my alter ego." - Bobby Fischer

Speaking of, all the great obsessed had an alter ego. Kobe - Black Mamba, Beyonce - Sasha Fierce. Even if there's no 'name' to it...it's there. The extreme, ruthless, relentless version of you. Then, there's the 'normal' version of you, that gets groceries, makes small talk, and functions in society. But the obsessed version is there, in the shadow, always, waiting to come back out.

5. On what the audience wants:

"In order to grow your audience, you must betray their expectations." - Hayao Miyazaki

Related:

"Follow your own excitement, not the audience's." - Rick Rubin

6-7. On product and obsession:

"I have the code in my head. You have to cut open my head and take my brain and put it on top of some big organization, and you can’t. That sweatshirt, that T-shirt decision I’m making, is a piece of my mom, having me at Operation Push at age 5. It’s a piece of my dad going to the homeless shelter. It’s a piece of my grandfather having a store where he fixed furniture in the back. It’s a piece of my cousin bootlegging Cross-Colours out in L.A. It’s a piece of my aunt that was the chicest woman I knew. Even when she had Alzheimer’s she still dressed better than the entire family. And I remember the colors that she had and they remind me of the colors that we were able to start to find, and like penetrate this concept by the second season, without being held back by the fabrics that were available."

"I like pain. I like the challenge. I like making things harder for myself. Because, if you can beat the game on the hardest mode possible, then you’ll be the best of all time."

- Kanye West, SHOWstudio Interview [Article]

"It’s always hard. It always takes so many hours. I slept at the studio and I would have dreams or nightmares about the look board. I slept at the studio and I would have dreams or nightmares about the look board."

- Kanye on Yeezy S2, Vanity Fair Interview [Article]

8. On turning pro:

"The amateur is an egotist. He takes the material of his personal pain and uses it to draw attention to himself. He creates a 'life,' a 'character,' a 'personality.'

The artist and the professional, on the other hand, have turned a corner in their minds. They have succeeded in stepping back from themselves. They have grown so bored with themselves and so sick of their petty bullshit that they can manipulate those elements the way a HazMat technician handles weapons-grade plutonium.

They manipulate them for the good of others. What were once their shadow symphonies become real symphonies."

- Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro [Book]

9. On brand names, and owning a word:

"It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I believe it is much more powerful long-term to make up a new word (e.g., Expedia, Zillow, or recently Glassdoor, 3 words that my teams have created) than it is to use a literal word (e.g., Travel.com, RealEstate.com, or Jobreviews.com). Why? The short answer is that when you successfully make up a new word and introduce it into everyday language, you own it. It becomes a major differentiating asset that cannot be confused with anything else or encroached upon by competitors. At the very best, you end up defining a whole new category – Kleenex, Levis, Polaroids, Nikes, Ebay. The downside to creating your own brand is that it is hard, and most of the time, very expensive and time consuming to hammer a new word into the consumer vocabulary."

- Rich Barton (Founder of Zillow), Syllables, Scrabble Letters, and Picking Brand Names [Article] (H/t Nik Atanackovic for sharing)

10. On writing:

"I can't grasp much of anything without putting down my thoughts in writing, so I had to actually get my hands working and write these words. Otherwise, I'd never know what running means to me."

- Haruki Murakami, What I Talk about When I Talk about Running: A Memoir [Book]

I’d love to know what you thought of this edition. Reply to this email, or tweet me at @zachpogrob.

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Stay obsessed,

Zach 🏴

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