Sure, you can be successful without being obsessed, but you can’t reach the levels of success I am
talking about without being obsessed. It’s the single common factor that super successful people around the world share. To show you how to become obsessed and harness that obsession to build your own success, I’ve broken this message and guide down into manageable chapters. The first chapter of Be Obsessed or Be Average explains how obsession saved my life and why it’s so important. I define obsession and what it means to me. Chapter 2 will erase the conventional wisdom that average and safe are all you can achieve and explain why you need to replace mediocrity and doubt with a burning, purposeful, animal obsession.
Then in chapter 3 we’ll look at how you can identify your own obsession. I’ll walk you through some key exercises you can use to find out what you really want most in life. The next chapters build on that foundation, guiding you through the tough process of beginning to follow your obsession. I’ll prove why it’s important to “feed the beast” of your obsession in chapter 4. In chapter 5 we’ll explore why you need to “starve the doubt,” block out naysayers, and embrace haters. Chapter 6 talks about all the ways you can learn to use your obsession to dominate—your past, your thinking, your money, your area of expertise, and your brand. And chapter 7 explains why playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you can do—and how to stay dangerous against great odds.
These principles will guide you in your quest for success. Then we’ll shift to practical business advice that will help you make your obsession real, not only to you but to everyone around you. In chapter 8 I’ll share my world-renowned sales knowledge to help you understand the importance of sales to realizing your obsession and how to become a monster marketer, promoter, and salesperson. Chapter 9 will focus on winning customers—and how you can overpromise and overdeliver. In chapter 10 we’ll turn to the people you work with, especially employees, and I’ll show you how to build a culture around you that is totally aligned with your obsession. We’ll close out chapter 11 with advice on how to be a real leader—or in my words, “how and why you must be a control freak.” These are all the practices you will need in order to not just maintain but grow your obsession into a thriving, lucrative, and powerful business that can maybe even create an entirely new industry or disrupt an existing one.
The last two chapters of the book talk about how to sustain your obsession over time. In chapter 12 we look at the power of persistence as your obsession matures and morphs into something beyond what you can imagine today. And before I let you go to change the world, in chapter 13 I will share final tips and techniques on getting, being, and staying obsessed. We’ve all read the generic books that tell you to follow your dreams. But while those books might offer inspiration, they don’t tell you how to really make a permanent change in your life. This book will be brutally honest. It will tear down the cocoon of average that has been spun so tightly around you by society.
It will help you unleash the power of obsession and then teach you how to take care of and direct your obsession to achieve your most powerful dreams. Whether you are an entrepreneur, business owner, trailblazer, freethinker, artist, athlete, inventor, salesperson, creative, or engineer, I know you are someone who strives for success and refuses to settle. This book will encourage and fuel that can’t-quit, won’t-quit, accelerator-to-the-floor monster ambition inside you.
When you become unapologetically obsessed, as I am, you’ll be at your very best: hyperfocused, persistent beyond understanding, creative to the point of appearing magical, and with an insatiable determination to win that not only attracts great talent but also brings out the best in others. This level of obsession doesn’t mean you are selfish and self-centered; it means that you’re finally operating at the
levels you were always meant to and that you can pull others around you up to their full potential and
possibilities. The obsessed are the industry builders, disrupters, titans, game changers, and living legends others admire and wish to emulate. The obsessed don’t just make the world go around. They make the world worth living in. It’s my goal that this book will influence you and millions of others around the world to create a new movement.
A movement where we give one another permission to embrace and fuel our obsessions. Imagine if every person on earth threw themselves fully and completely into their positive obsessions without reservation, regret, or apology. Overnight the world would be a different and better place. With everyone so focused on their own production and creating their own success, there would be no time for war, drugs, or other wasteful, unnecessary destruction. We’d all hit levels of success previously thought impossible—and inspire one another to do more and be more. If you’re all in, ready to take responsibility for your life and your business, ready to change your own future and the world, then turn the page.