Become so disgustingly obsessed that you're unstoppable (Get Ahead Of 99% Of People)

Most people coast through life.

Following what others have told them without questioning it.

Repeating the same day, over and over.

Waking up. Commute. 9-5. Eat. Consume. Sleep. Repeat.

They will accept it, thinking that’s what life is supposed to be. Finding comfort in the meager pleasure they can find, clinging to whatever dopamine hit they can trigger.

They will die without ever experiencing the feeling of purpose and fulfillment that pursuing a greater goal provides.

And if your brain is remotely wired like mine, this is your greatest nightmare.

I’ve always been fascinated by humans who don’t settle for the minimum. Humans who reject the status quo, despise mediocrity, and seek mastery in their craft, whether it’s in writing, art, or entrepreneurship.

I can’t think of a greater way to spend your life than honing your skills and pursuing mastery. (Next to founding a happy family and being great parents).

What I’ve observed is that there is one driving force behind all great historical figures who achieved mastery and left their mark on history:

Obsession.

Obsession is the root force that allowed all great historical figures to achieve greatness.

But it’s also the source behind a fulfilling and meaningful life. You don’t have to change the world or become the greatest artist or athlete to benefit from it. Just pursuing goals that are realistic and meaningful to you and immersing all of your being into that pursuit is enough to make your life 10x more enjoyable and without it feeling like a grind.

That’s why in this article, I want to help you (re)kindle your flame of Obsession that may be weak or completely extinguished at the moment so you can take back control over your life, reconnect with the feeling of fulfillment that pursuing mastery provides, and break free from all physical and modern poison that society constantly throws at us.

I’ll start by showing you 7 profound ideas about Obsession, then showing you a 2-step system to reverse engineer Obsession in your life and get back into that divine, driven state.

7 Ideas About Obsession

1) Talent is overrated. Obsession is the true root of greatness.

Most people think talent is what matters the most when it comes to becoming great at something.

But it’s not.

Obsession is the true root of greatness. Every artist, every entrepreneur, every creator who influenced our world and left their mark in human history, stood out because they had a relentless obsession toward a higher purpose.

A classic example of this is to compare the life of Francis Galton with his older cousin: Charles Darwin.

Galton was considered an unmatched genius by his peers and went on to have an illustrious scientific career. But nobody remembers him. The truth is, you probably never heard of “Francis Galton” before opening this article. But you all know about Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin, on the other hand, wasn’t a genius.

He admitted himself that he was a “very ordinary boy”, rather “below the common standard in intellect”, with “no great quickness of apprehension”. But he had one power that differentiated him from his cousin and allowed him to forever change the course of human history:

His ability to follow his obsession with unrelenting focus and courage for a very long period of time.

As a child, Darwin could be considered a weirdo.

He had one overriding passion that granted him this honorific title: collecting biological specimens. That’s why, at 22 years old, when one of his former professors told him that the HMS Beagle would soon leave the port to set sail around the world, and they needed a biologist to collect specimens and send them back to England, Darwin obviously said yes. (Despite the protest of his disappointed father)

This opportunity was a heavenly match for Darwin’s Obsession.

Darwin spent the next 5 years sailing around the world, collecting and studying an astoundingly vast array of diverse specimens and fossils, to the point that a crazy but fascinating theory started to emerge in his mind.

After those 5 years, he went back to England with only one goal:

Prove his initial hunch about his theory of evolution. And that process wasn’t pretty. Darwin had to deal with a lot of bullsh*t to get recognized. For example, he studied barnacles for 8 years just to establish his credentials as a biologist. Then he dealt with intricate politics and mastered the social skills necessary to handle all the prejudice against such a theory at that time.

But what sustained him throughout this dreadful ordeal was his intense love and obsession with this subject.

2) Your Shower Thoughts Determine Your Future Success

The greatest way to audit where you’re at on the scale of obsession is to analyze your shower thoughts.

When you’re in the shower, your brain is in what scientists call the brain’s “default mode network”. This mode is associated with daydreaming, creativity, recalling autobiographical memories, and planning for the future.

Those are thoughts that naturally arise when you’re relaxed and not consciously thinking about something. This is where you’ll naturally receive creative inspiration or “downloads from the source” as woo-woo spirituals like to call it. And they aren’t wrong. It’s in this mode that you’ll receive your best ideas.

The problem is that most people’s thoughts aren’t their own.

They’re constantly being brainwashed by the latest drama on social media or the news. They can’t form their own thoughts because they don’t have clear goals to follow through. Thus, their shower thoughts are constantly plagued by meaningless stuff and can’t contribute to the improvement of their life.

You don’t want to be most people.

If your thoughts in the shower aren’t related to your goals and the current problems you’re trying to solve in your life, then it means your brain is being hijacked by external sources. You need first to delete all of these parasites’ frequency so you can listen to your own in peace.

You’ll know you’re following your Obsession when all of your shower thoughts are related to the concrete improvement of your life and solving the current challenges you’re facing.

3) Obsession Allows Exponential Results.

If you invest 80% of your energy, you’ll get 80% back.

But if you invest 100%, you’ll get 200%.

It seems like the math doesn’t add up, but everyone who has already experienced the feeling of being deeply immersed in their work knows that it’s true.

There is something magical that happens when your entire being is immersed in one goal. You start filtering the entire world through the lens of that goal. Everything becomes an inspiration for your work. You find ideas and solutions to problems from seemingly unrelated stuff. Just watching people walking down the street can trigger a breakthrough in your work. It’s like your entire life becomes a constant flow state toward your higher mission.

The best entrepreneurs, artists and creators that you admire are able to create outstanding work because they’re all in.

That’s how they’re able to differentiate themselves from the rest of the crowd and stand out. You can feel it in your bones when someone is putting out work that comes from their deepest being. There is an inexplicable resonance that occurs.

This is especially true in writing.

You can create a piece that looks good with AI, but you’ll never be able to create something that grabs the reader by the throat and reminds him of his human existence. Even if you have the best ideas and a different perspective, you won’t be able to create that resonance.

How you present things is as, if not more, important than the message in itself.

When you’re entering into that state of Obsession, you’ll be able to create work that is undeniably you, and that has the potential to resonate with the world.

4) Motivation < Discipline < Obsession.

Everyone knows that relying on motivation is fleeting.

That’s why you need to be disciplined and raise your standards. Motivation reduces friction to start a task, whereas Discipline is about accepting the friction and starting the task anyway.

But Obsession is infinitely more powerful than discipline.

Because it inverts the friction. Instead of feeling resistance to start the task, you start to feel an irresistible pull toward your work. Your Obsession consumes you and makes it impossible for you to procrastinate.

The hard part isn’t starting anymore, but stopping.

How can people compete with you when you’re in that state?

When everyone is using willpower and discipline to progress, you’re so in love with the game that you can’t stop playing it. This puts you in a position that is infinitely more powerful than discipline. The feeling of drive and fulfilment becomes enough to hold you through any challenges and any work block, because it comes from a place of genuine love, curiosity and passion.

5) Balance is a lie sold to you by people who made it unbalanced

Balance is the greatest scam sold to ambitious people that wants to fulfill their potential.

First of all, most people’s definition of balance is flawed. Being perfectly balanced means being mid everywhere. You can maintain your life with balance, but you can’t break through it. What you should seek instead is harmony.

Harmony is accepting the different cycles of life and embracing them fully.

If your current season is about embracing your Obsession and relentlessly pursuing it, then do it. Don’t try to bridle yourself. Following your Obsession is a blessing given by the heaven. When you feel the pull of Obsession, fully dive into it instead of trying to repress it. Don’t be afraid to drown inside.

Successful people who tell you that balance is important aren’t purposefully trying to lie to you.

But when trying to reach greatness, you must study what has been done to get there, not what the person says. Most people that inspire you made it by being “unbalanced” for a certain period of time. The reason why they’re now preaching balance is that they are in a new season of life. They made it in the material realm, and now they want to focus on other things. Maybe it’s family, maybe it’s health.

But you can be sure that they weren’t concerned about balance when they were doing their best to make it in their field.

If you try to drastically change the trajectory of your life and your loved ones, 2 years of relentless Obsession will have 10 times more impact than 10 years of “balanced” work. Some opportunities require Speed and Intensity and can only be grabbed and leveraged when you’re putting your entire being on the line.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that you must be sacrificing your life, your family, and all your relationships to the altar of work and status.

I’m not preaching hustle culture here.

What I’m preaching is a state of mind where your entire being and focus are directed toward one clear goal and purpose. You can pursue your obsession while working 5 hours a day, spending quality time with your family, and taking care of your health. That’s actually what I would recommend and what would be the most efficient because the law of diminishing returns applies to everything in life, especially work.

When following Obsession, you’ll have some 12-hour workday that the hustle bro’s love to brag about anyway. They’ll naturally happen because they will be a direct consequence of your love and drive for your purpose.

This is the healthy way to sprint, because it’s not forced.

6) What people call “Enjoying Their Life” is disguised self-destruction

When you’re on the path of following your Obsession, people will do their absolute best to snap you out of it.

They will tell you that it’s too extreme. That you must live life. That you’re going to die of something anyway, so you should relax and drink that beer and smoke that joint.

The truth is, when people are talking about “You should enjoy your life” they’re often doing this because they’re trying to rationalize their own self-destructive behaviors and want you to endorse them too so you can validate that they’re not wrong.

These people will never talk about “Enjoying their life” as going on a 4-hour hike with your friends and sleeping under the stars. Or doing a 2-hour workout and savouring the feeling of self-transcendence that breaking your PR on 200mg of caffeine and phonk music provides. Or having a deep conversation with your loved ones by the sea.

They will always use it as an excuse for some degenerative behaviors like drinking, partying, smoking, or quick-dopamine sources like watching Netflix or playing video games.

But when you’re following your obsession, you don’t need all of this anymore. Because work doesn’t feel like work. It feels like play. Improving and challenging yourself become the new norm. It becomes your new addiction.

But for people who are still in the paradigm of cheap dopamine, this seems inconceivable.

Don’t be deceived by these people. Be extreme. Be okay with making those people uncomfortable. You only have one shot at life, so it’s better to be considered a weirdo by people than dying with regrets on your deathbed, crushed by the weight of your wasted potential.

But remember to be compassionate to these people as well.

They haven’t found their obsession yet, and they’re being deceived by all the intricate psychological traps that society created to keep us enslaved in endless consumption. We all have been there. And we will probably be back there as well during other seasons of our lives. I can even bet that the more attracted you are toward embracing your Obsession and fulfilling your potential, the more you have indulged in these self-destructive behaviors as well. It’s part of the process of understanding yourself and what really matters to you.

Once you’re really ready to leave this old identity behind to fully embrace the identity of the “you” who is following his obsession, these behaviors won’t seduce you as much.

But be wary of the whispers of your old self that will sometimes try to get you back to your old habits.

7) Develop A Healthy Ego

Cultivating your obsession also means developing your ego.

But by ego I don’t mean being a dick and looking down on people.

I mean building genuine self-esteem by giving yourself proof of your own achievements. The higher your self-esteem, the lower the gap between who you are and who you think you should be to achieve your goals is.

Every time you do something that you’ll never have done before, you prove to yourself that you’re able. You connect with that feeling of being limitless. You’re fulfilling your potential in real time.

This feeling is a drug. Imbue yourself in it.

The more you do it, the more you’ll prove to yourself that you can live up to your obsession and find joy in it, which will create a positive feedback loop that will keep you fulfilled.

Don’t trust people who tell you that you need to “be humble”.

They’re just trying to lower your standards, so you stay at their level and don’t challenge them. Kobe wasn’t humble. Jordan wasn’t humble. But they were greatness incarnate; nobody can refute that. Don’t be afraid of being motivated by becoming more powerful, more charismatic, and generating more respect from others as well.

Society created a taboo of money, power, and success.

Most people repress these desires because they’re afraid of becoming arrogant assholes. But you can totally find joy in improving yourself, becoming more powerful and successful, without looking down on others.

To achieve this, you must exit the paradigm of judgment. You must stop putting an arbitrary value on yourself and people. You must become like Alexander the Great, who, despite being the most powerful man living at that time, said that if he wasn’t himself, he would be Diogenes.

Become delusionally self-confident. Build unshakeable belief in yourself. Don’t be afraid of your own light and power. Don’t repress your materialistic desire despite what those who value being “morally right” more than achieving anything say.

Keep pushing past what you thought you were able to so you can build a bank of memories that serves as undeniable proof of your own infinite power. Do this without feeding the need of your brain to classify things as superior or inferior. It’s not real.

Finally, trust your values. Trust that this desire for greatness, power and success is to better serve your family and make the world a better place.

How To Reverse-Engineer Obsession

Obsession can be hard to experience.

Some people say that you can’t force it and that it chooses you instead. And it might be true. But I don’t like to give power to things outside of my control zone.

I choose to believe that obsession can be engineered by creating an environment that makes it the default state.

And the more you’re able to stay in that environment, the easier it will be for you to experience Obsession, until the perfect alignment between your skills and goals will appear and allow you to experience it at an even deeper level.

Step 1) Delete All Sources Of Cheap Dopamine

Yes. We’re back to the most over-used concept of self-improvement online: the infamous Dopamine Detox.

But this shit works. Anybody who has truly done it in their life can testify.

You can’t experience obsession if you’re constantly being distracted by other people’s thoughts and following other people’s goals. You need to create mental and physical space for you to be able to receive different types of thoughts that will make you feel, and thus act, differently.

Dopamine Detoxing will lower your baseline for stimulation, allowing you to enjoy less-stimulating activities again.

Reading, writing, working out, meditating, clearing the dishes mindfully, painting, walking, running. All of these things are very hard to enjoy when your dopamine baseline is fucked up by endless stimulation from no-effort activities.

But once you remove them, you become able to enjoy the discomfort of silence again. And behind that discomfort hides way more profound emotions, like curiosity, fulfilment, and gratitude.

This step is a prerequisite to enter the Obsession state.

If you can’t do this, how do you expect to achieve anything meaningful in life?

If you can’t make sacrifices to achieve your deepest dream, your deepest dream will become the sacrifice. That’s the harsh reality.

I know it’s hard and that you have dozens of very valid excuses to keep doing what you know deep down you should stop doing.

But don’t worry, it becomes easier to stop when you become fed up with always feeling tired and not driven and realize the root cause is all those activities that you can’t seem to stop because you “enjoy them so much”.

You don’t even enjoy doing these activities; it’s just that you’re addicted. Let’s take smoking. Everybody knows that smoking is awful. The taste is awful, the smell is awful, everything is awful. And I say this as someone who has been on and off of smoking for 7 years now and was smoking a pack a day at his prime.

Smokers never enjoy smoking; they enjoy the feeling of relief that smoking provides because they’re addicted to nicotine in the first place. But it’s like wearing tight shoes all day-long so you can feel relief when you remove them at the end of the day. It’s not love. It’s addiction. That same logic applies to all of the effortless dopamine sources.

Here are the most common cheap-dopamine sources that prevent you from reaching Obsession and that I invite you to delete asap:

1. Social Media.

Short-form content is the greatest mass control tool created. It’s the ultimate psy-op. Reels, TikToks, Shorts, it’s all the same. I don’t care.

As long as you have these apps installed on your phone, you’ll scroll. You can’t avoid it. Stop trying to limit it and just delete all these apps instead.

If you’re a creator, install Eden App and use the Discover feature to find inspiration, or block a dedicated time period to study what works every week.

The mental clarity, creativity, and time you’ll free up just by deleting these apps is crazy. Just stop for a week, and you’ll never go back again.

If you want to look at stories and scroll a bit, just look at Instagram on your computer. The user experience is so bad that you won’t do it for more than 10 minutes. I’m convinced the computer UX is bad because they want you to consume on the phone to keep you as addicted as possible.

Anyway. Just. Delete. All. Apps. No exception possible.

2. Video Games.

I’m an avid gamer.

I’ve been playing video games since I was 8. I have more than 10k hours in dozens of JRPGS. I have 3k hours playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate competitively. I work and go to sleep every night listening to game OSTs.

I genuinely love video games and believe it’s the ultimate art form.

But it’s absolutely impossible to play video games and be obsessed at the same time for a very simple reason.

Video Games become the Obsession.

You can’t be obsessed with your goals, because video games will give you clear goals to pursue and your brain will automatically rewire to them. You’ll think about how you can level up your character in the shower. You’ll watch YouTube guides and tutorials to learn techs and tricks to farm more exp effectively.

It will consume you and won’t leave you any space for other meaningful goals you can have. Yes it’s a lot of fun, but all the time I’ve spent playing video games has left me with nothing to show for it.

All the loot, all the grind, all the exp, nothing is real. It won’t help your family. It won’t make you grow as a human. It won’t secure your future.

So stop it and start treating your own life as a video game and see yourself as the character you need to level up.

3. YouTube.

YouTube is an amazing platform to learn and grow.

But it is also endless stimulation.

A lot of people aren’t trying to learn on it; they’re just filling the void. Watching videos while eating, walking, or working.

Just stop consuming on autopilot.

Only watch videos when you truly want to learn something that is related to the current challenges you need to solve.

If you want to learn for the sake of learning and leisure, read instead.

4. Phone.

Our phones are our greatest enemy.

It’s stealing your focus and attention and preventing you from achieving anything.

The greatest way to protect yourself from your phone is to remove all social media apps and games. Yes, even Substack.

Turn it into a dumb phone that only serves as a GPS and messaging people, and keep it on Do Not Disturb all day long, far away from your reach most of the day.

5. Netflix.

Same thing as YouTube.

Watching an episode or two once in a while is fine.

But compulsively watching for 3 hours every day before going to sleep isn’t.

Just stop and replace it with reading instead.

6. Nicotine.

Nicotine is the biggest scam on planet earth.

It’s the most evil industry on earth, and I say this as someone who used to smoke quite a lot. (I’m French so what did you expect).

Some “biohackers” use nicotine to improve focus without realizing that the increase in focus they feel is just coming from the feeling of relief that the addiction creates. Nicotine is creating a need that didn’t exist before and makes you feel good when you solve it. It turns you into a slave.

They would be more focused without nicotine because they wouldn’t feel the need to stop in the middle of a flow state to light a quick one.

I could write for hours about how evil and vicious nicotine is, but I won’t for the sake of clarity of this letter.

But I know how hard stopping smoking is, because I stopped at least a dozens of time. Reading Allen Carr’s book “Easy Way to Stop Smoking” is a great start. Everything becomes easier after reading that book. Even if you relapse, stopping becomes way easier.

So if you’re a smoker, I beg you to go read that book. You won’t need to stop while reading. Just smoke and read it, and after reading it you will naturally want to stop, and it won’t feel like hell. Trust me on this one.

7. Partying.

Most parties are just a disguised way of indulging in drugs without feeling bad because it’s shared.

Most of your partying friends are uninteresting people the second you stop drinking or taking drugs with them. Just stop wasting time and energy on partying.

Of course we all need to do it for some period of time to experience it, not have FOMO, and get fed up with it, but yeah, once you’ve done it enough you just realize how shallow it is and then you can just stop and keep it for very special occasions a few times a year.

Now I want to keep your attention on something in particular:

Have you realized how all of these habits are things people try to manage in their life by creating limits? They install apps to limit their screen time. They create timers. They set up rules.

But have you ever wondered why you need these limits in the first place?

Yes. Because you’re addicted.

The truth is, no human being ever had to put limits on the things they truly loved and fulfilled them. Artists don’t need to limit themselves to draw. Writers don’t need to limit themselves to write. Only addicts need to limit themselves.

The need for having to control something and the reluctance you feel while reading these lines to delete and stop all of these things is proof enough that they are controlling you and stopping you from reaching a higher state of consciousness.

So stop trying to do damage control and finally cut all of the things holding you back so you can finally get to experience feeling alive and driven again.

I could have written more and gotten into more details about each of these activities, but this letter is already long.

The main principle here to understand is that everything that allows you to trigger your dopamine receptors without any effort is a trap that is making you addicted. We are humans, but in reality we aren’t much more than dumb monkeys. If you have something that can push the button of your monkey brain with no effort, you will keep pushing it again and again.

That’s how we are. You can’t control it. You don’t lack willpower; it’s just how we’re wired.

Delete everything that distracts you.

99% of humanity didn’t have screens and endless stimulation all the time. You’ll manage without. Replace it with reading, working out, walking, meditating, working, and enjoying quality and mindful time with loved ones. You only need those activities to live a fulfilling and meaningful life.

And once you do, the only thing that will be left will be your obsession. Every distraction that you remove becomes fuel that will light the fire of your obsession. And the feeling of obsession is infinitely more fulfilling and enjoyable than any amount of quick dopamine will ever provide you.

Step 2: Pursue Meaningful Goals

Now that we created a favorable environment to pursue your obsession, we must answer the following question:

What should you do?

And of course, the answer is unique to everyone.

As an entrepreneur, my own answers are simple:

Growing and scaling my business through writing. Building great products. Being an amazing man for my lover. Developing my strength and physical capabilities with daily mobility sessions and workouts. Learning boxing. Pursuing what Obsession means by embodying this idea to its fullest every day.

Those are my current answers. But yours will be different.

To help you find meaningful goals to pursue, here are 4 steps I invite you to follow

1. Start from your anti-vision.

Knowing what you want out of life is hard.

But you know what’s not hard? Knowing what you DON’T want out of life.

Start there. Write everything you don’t want to experience anymore in your life. Bad relationships. Feeling tired. Addiction. Boredom. Negativity. All the ugly stuff you want to remove.

Once it’s done, it’s time to apply the Inversion Principle from Charlie Munger. What’s the contrary of your anti-vision? This becomes your new vision and will guide you on what to pursue.

2. Train in sports.

Physical mastery is one of the greatest things you can pursue as a human, and it’s universal. You can’t go wrong by trying to get stronger, more flexible, more explosive, or more endurant.

Sport is also one of the greatest ways to get out of your mind and into your body, generate energy, and get your best creative ideas. I can’t imagine a life without any physical activity and movement.

As humans, we were born to move. A stiff body is a stiff mind. A weak body is a weak mind. You get the point.

I personally find great pleasure in improving in calisthenics and boxing. Learning tricks and skills is also something I love. Skateboarding, gymnastics, freestyle calisthenics, going to the gym, martial arts, improving in all of these bring me a lot of fulfillment and joy.

I highly recommend you find the sport that makes you want to improve and learn, whether it’s basketball, running, CrossFit, tennis, jump rope, powerlifting, yoga, or whatever.

What matters is that you get your daily dose of movement and progress. This will also greatly contribute to developing a healthy ego and improving your self-esteem and confidence.

3. Find a creative outlet.

Whether it’s writing, drawing, or playing music, pursuing mastery in a creative practice has been a meaningful obsession for a lot of human beings throughout the ages.

Find yours and devote yourself to learning and mastering it.

You were born to create and make art and share your unique gifts to the world.

4. Start a business.

Being an entrepreneur is the ultimate freedom in life.

There is nothing that will kill your desire to greatness and obsession more than a boring, mind-numbing job that sucks out all of your time and energy from you.

Building your own business and achieving financial freedom through it is also one of the best vessels for cultivating obsession. It’s not necessary, but you can turn your creative outlet into a business. Art and Entrepreneurship are deeply connected.

But it’s not mandatory.

Some creative outlets are best kept outside of entrepreneurship and can make you lose sight of what you love when the need for monetization arises.

But writing can be an amazing skill to build a business around, whether it’s writing for others, starting a paid newsletter, or using your own writing to get known and sell your own products.

It’s up to you to decide how and what creative practice you turn into a business.

Conclusion

I believe building obsession must come from a place of inner choice.

It can’t be forced. It can’t be something you provoke because you think you should have it. It must come because you want to feel it.

Most often, it happens when you become tired of mediocrity. Tired of being tired. Tired of repeating the same day again and again, and finding pleasure only by pushing the dopamine button again and again.

Once you are fed up with all the bullshit, following obsession becomes easy.

Because that desire comes from within. It’s not something you do because you’re trying to be someone else, but because you want it deep inside.

My last thoughts for you are to also think about how you can put your obsession at the service of others.

Obsession + love become devotion, which I think is even more powerful. Self-improvement is great, but it doesn’t solve the existential crisis of our over-individualist society that plagues our generation.

So don’t only focus on improving yourself, but also serving others, whether it’s your family, your clients, a mission, or God. Putting yourself as a servant will unlock another level of fulfillment and drive.

It’s my conclusion at the moment. Feel free to leave a comment if you have questions or want to share your perspective on this topic. I would love to get more insights about this subject.

I wish you the best in your own personal journey,

And as always…

Welcome to Noah’s Ark.

Noah.