19 Lessons From 1100 Episodes - #1100

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. It is episode 1,100, and that is a number that I did not think that I would get to. I don't think I've done 1,100 of anything apart from these podcasts. As is tradition, I've put together a list of lessons that I've learned from the show, and from writing, and reading, and life over the last six months, since the last one of these that I did. I'm going to go through them today. So let's get into it. First up, I started thinking about obsession and why no one understands obsession. I think literally no one understands why obsession is the way it is. Discipline, motivation, and obsession are three words that get thrown around quite a lot. I think most people misunderstand all three, and because of that, they miss some very big lessons about how life actually works. So here's the simplest way to separate those three out. Discipline is, I will make myself do the thing. Motivation is, I want to do the thing. Obsession is, I can't not do the thing. So all three produce the same outcome, the thing gets done. But the internal cost couldn't be more different, and the difference is primarily around friction. So discipline is friction accepted. You don't want to do the thing, but you do it anyway. You lean on effort, willpower, routines, and environment, and design, and past patterns, and habits, and drag yourself over the line. It's mostly under your control, which is why it's so reliable. If you're willing to pay the price, discipline will always show up. But the problem is that the price is high. Discipline is really expensive. It burns energy, creates resistance, feels heavy. It works, but it's a grind. And motivation is friction reduced. You want to do the thing, so the resistance drops. You still need effort, but you need less of it. Motivation comes from desire, the circumstance, novelty and identity and community and emotion. You can try to kind of manufacture it with goal setting or visualization, community support and celebrating micro wins, or me and Alex Hormozi compilation videos and heavy metal music. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't. Right? Motivation is unreliable because it's kind of downstream of how you feel. When your mood dips, motivation just fucking evaporates. It's useful fuel, but you can't build a life that depends on it. And obsession is friction inverted. So remember, we've got discipline, friction accepted, motivation, friction reduced, and obsession is friction inverted. You don't need to make yourself do the thing. You can't avoid doing it. You don't push. Instead, the work sort of pulls you toward it. It invades your thoughts, it follows you into the shower, into the car, into bed. And when you're tired, it doesn't disappear. Obsession is kind of like motivation's poltergeist big brother who just never stops haunting you. And because you can't switch it off, that's why obsessions with negative pursuits like politics or porn or a toxic ex can be so destructive. The reason that obsession is so powerful is simple. It's basically permanent free motivation and discipline. You get output without negotiation, and you get action without having to tap into any willpower. It's the fuel source equivalent of hitting a superstar in Super Mario. So this is why obsession produces such disproportionate results in a short window of time. People look at the output and assume superhuman discipline, when in reality, if you're obsessed, the work felt almost unavoidable. People admire discipline and envy motivation. But very few understand obsession. Because they don't understand it, they waste it. So here, I think, is the part that people miss. Obsession isn't a personality trait. It's a state, which means that it can't be summoned on command. You can't decide to be obsessed. It appears when curiosity, identity, reward, and meaning all accidentally align some weird celestial bodies. And when it appears, it doesn't last forever, which is a tragedy. Obsession is a non-renewable fuel source. When it leaves, you don't get it back on demand. In future, it will take you so much more effort to get even partially close to this obsessive level of output. So use your free fuel while it's available, which is why the correct response to a positive obsession isn't to suppress it or balance it or apologize for it, it's to surrender to it. So if you're currently obsessed with something positive, my advice is to let it crawl inside of you and wear your skin and stare out through your eyes. If you can't stop watching, lifting videos and spend all of your time thinking about diet and training, now isn't the time to be balanced in the gym. Or if your sleep is wrecked because you're ruminating about a business idea that you can't wait to launch and then, this isn't the time for you to seek calm. You're allowed to go full on demon founder mode with it. Serial obsessives, as far as I can see, move from intense project to intense project, making huge progress while the tide is with them, so that when the obsession inevitably fades, something important has happened already. The rails for their future behavior get laid down. So by the time that your obsession wanes, you have built the patterns and routines and skills and habits that allow you to keep going when the fuel is no longer free. So I started going to the gym when I was 18 because I was obsessed with gaining muscle and I researched protein shake formulations and dreamt of going to Gold's Gym in LA and skipped nights out marching to stay in my bedroom and read the MISC forums on bodybuilding.com. The most autistic excuse for not going on a night out ever. Nearly 20 years later, I'm still training.