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To the obsessed,

Happy Saturday.

Let's get right to the bullets.

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1. On imbalance:

Imbalance creates success.

Balance sustains success.

I've met some ultra-successful people lately. Almost all care about balance, health, meditation, etc. But, they started caring after they made it.

Obsess, then optimize. Over and over and over.

2. On the mission:

People follow people on missions.

Don't preach to a standing crowd.

Instead, lead them up the biggest, most challenging, most epic mountain you can think of.

If you want a following, take people somewhere. Go after a vision, goal, or purpose, 1000x bigger than you.

3. On making the unexpected:

"Juxtaposition. That entails combining unrelated elements from different genres to see if they fit together into something spectacular.

When an unexpected combo satisfyingly fits together, the result is something people haven’t seen.

This makes audiences lean in because there's an unexpected contrast, and that throws off their pattern-matching and delights them." - Julian Smith​

Creativity is combination. All that matters- to me- is giving the world something it's never seen before. (Great thread by Julian above).

4. On going where 'it is':

"Disney moved to Hollywood. Bob Dylan moved to Greenwich Village. Chappelle moved to New York City. Schwarzenegger moved to Venice Beach. Taylor Swift moved to Nashville.

The songwriter and record producer Ryan Tedder tells the story of a time he was speaking to a group of aspiring songwriters. After his talk, one audience member told him that they had been trying and failing for years to break into the music business.

As Tedder tells it, 'I said, 'Where do you live?' She said, 'Holland.' I said, 'That's why.' She said, 'What?' We were in LA—I said, 'Move here. Move to London. Or move to New York...You gotta go to where it is.'" - Billy Oppenheimer​

Move to the place where your obsession is normal. Grateful to have found that in NY:

Abe Wolke @abewolke NYC Killers. Something special going on here pic.twitter.com/RwFzKqgeZy June 2nd 2023 0 Retweets 57 Likes

5. On live players:

"Whether you are examining past societies or living and acting within one today, it’s important to distinguish between live and dead players. A live player is a person or well-coordinated group of people that is able to do things they have not done before. A dead player is a person or group of people that is working off a script, incapable of doing new things." - Samo Burja, Live vs. Dead Players​

Surround yourself with live players.

6. On overnight success:

"There is no such thing as an overnight success. @MrBeast uploaded ~120 videos to YouTube before breaking 1,000 subscribers. He now has: 157M subs." - Blake Robbins​

Mr. Beast is still playing in decades.

7. On the main course:

"I am more fulfilled right now writing this to you in my garage than laying on the deck of a $50 million yacht being served fine cheese by my private staff. I don't write this to look humble. I am not. I write this to let you know if you build a life routine of discipline that you love...you are not missing much than a few highs. The main course is your day to day." - Alex Becker​

8. On belief:

"Sometimes all it takes is someone to tell you, 'You are who you think you are.'” - Jack Harlow, 24 Hours with Vogue​

9. On obsession:

"Ever wonder how people can go to the same gym yet have completely different results in their careers. My experience has taught me the biggest difference is passion, passion is what makes the difference between athletes. That’s what they think about when the lights aren’t bright and the cameras aren’t rolling. It’s not only the physical training, it’s about what they meditate and pray on during their free time. Victory is a result of the obsession." - Jon Jones​

Obsession is what you think about when you're not thinking about anything.

10. On story vs. facts:

"The thing is that facts almost never get in the way of a good story.

Because a good story feels true.

A good story resonates.

A good story is based on our feelings, long-held and hard-earned.

A good story sticks with us, regardless of the facts.

If I bring facts to rebut your story, they will fail… unless the facts I bring are the foundation for a new story, a story about doing something smart, based on evidence or simply more effective.

But facts alone have little chance in a battle with a good story.

Part of the job of making change is working to make sure a bad story doesn’t get in the way of good facts." - Seth Godin, Don’t let a story get in the way (h/t Hunter Weiss)

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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