Take One Thing and Become Insanely Obsessed with It for 6 Months

This is how it'll change your life

From $100K to $300M in 2 years.

That’s how much a Canadian carpenter named Christopher DeVocht made. After work he became insanely focused on day trading for 6 months. He read every book. He learned about businesses he could invest in.

Then he deployed what little money he had into one stock: Tesla. Within months his investment was worth $26M. At Tesla’s peak he was worth $300M. He ended up losing it all but that’s a story for another day.

The point is when you take off the training wheels and go insanely all in on your obsession, amazing things can happen. Ordinary people can become extraordinary.

Most people never go all in (but they think they do)

The people we lie to the most are ourselves.

Normies read an article like this and go “Yep, I’m insanely obsessed with one thing and I’ll 100% do it for 6 months.”

The truth is most people lightly engage in a tiny passion or interest, then delude themselves into thinking they’re obsessed.

Here’s what it means to go all in:

• Embracing loneliness

• Saying no to social events

• Investing some or all of your money into it

• Not looking at your phone for days, weeks, or even months

• Sometimes working 12-16 hours at a time on your obsession

• Using weekends and holidays to build instead of “taking it easy”

• Going at your goal with such intensity people think you’re a psychopath

Going all in is putting yourself on the line. It’s being okay with failure and rejection – in fact, it’s f*cking loving failure to the point where you crave it more than success.

The only time I learn anything is when I fail. I’m terrible at listening to advice or learning a new skill. I need to fall flat on my face and have a 5 inch scar on my neck before the wisdom enters my thick skull and screams “Wake up Denning!”

Action:

Increase the intensity of your obsession by a factor of 10. Watch your body and mind come alive.

Do it until you feel overwhelmed

“Subtle reminder that you're supposed to feel overwhelmed. It means you're doing something new. You're taking a new path. You're learning. You're growing. You branched into the unknown, and that's admirable.” – Dan Koe

This is a controversial statement.

People hate to feel overwhelmed. They call it burnout and run to the shopping center for some undeserved self-care.

But being overwhelmed is a good thing.

If you’re not overwhelmed it means you’re not trying hard enough. Yesterday I felt overwhelmed. I soft-launched a new product. I got hit with hard questions from prospects. The operational complexity went up, and I broke my business’s tech stack.

You know what else happened? I also hit a new record in revenue.

The breakthrough you’re looking for lies on the other side of becoming overwhelmed.

Discomfort is an early sign of grow. If everything feels good and easy then you’re moving too slow. You’re taking the mediocre path which will take 10 years to get anywhere (a.k.a. nowhere), and you’ll probably get lost in the process.

Action:

Increase the intensity until you feel overwhelmed.

Without this one thing nothing will happen

Obsession turns into success only when you have extreme focus.

Here’s what it looks like for me:

• The only person who can call my phone is my wife. All incoming calls have been blocked for 5+ years.

• I have no notifications enabled for my phone, iPad, laptop, or desktop.

• I say no to all networking.

• I do one meeting a week with my business partner.

• I have no social media on my phone, laptop, or iPad (only desktop)

• My emails are checked by a virtual assistant before I wake up so all the spam, permission-seeking resumes, and needy requests are removed.

• I don’t do podcast interviews or “pick your brain” sessions.

• I have mostly a blank calendar.

See the level of focus? It’s hard not to be successful when you just focus on one thing and switch the world off.

The level of focus, attention, time, and resources needed to turn an obsession into a tiny empire is way higher than you think.

Once you get comfortable with this idea it feels like knowing the cheat codes for a Playstation game like Grand Theft Auto. Suddenly you’re living in god mode and nothing can kill you or your obsession.

Let your obsession keep you awake at night

I don’t sleep well.

My brain wants to work on my writing obsession 24/7. I have ideas for tweets while I’m trying to fall asleep. I wake up at 3 AM with an essay idea and jot it down in my phone. I have posted notes on my bathroom wall with mini listicles. When I’m talking with friends I’m doing research for the next Substack.

Obsession never ends. It takes over your life like a cancer and forces you to go crazy. You end up being crazy good and joining the top 1%.

It’s obvious you’ve chosen the wrong goal if it doesn’t stop you from sleeping.

“Your comfort zone is costing you millions”

… The gap between who you are & who you could be is where real wealth lies – Justin Welsh

The reward for being insanely obsessed is wealth.

To get it you’ve got to become unrecognizable. As cliche as it sounds, it means leaving behind your boring old comfort zone.

Changing careers. Stopping the salary for a while. Adopting radically different beliefs. Contemplating whether mainstream media is nothing more than propaganda. Joining cults that make you do hard things.

There’s who we are, and there’s who we can become. I wish most people could meet these two versions of themself.

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Today I went into the city of Melbourne at 8 AM.

I walked around aimlessly. I watched people in suits rush through busy streets holding coffee on their way to work.

They look depressed. They looked like they were missing out on life. Their facial expressions showed they were living in the future, not the present.

None of these office job people looked happy.

By 9 AM I felt depressed and went home. So much potential is wasted by staying at a job forever. There’s a whole other side of life most never get to see. They don’t realize all the job focus is killing their dreams and costing them millions of dollars.

The simplest example is this. When you own a one-person business (or larger), many of the big things you buy are paid for by your business using pre-tax dollars. Just this tiny difference over a lifetime is worth millions of dollars in extra cash.

That money helps you buy back your time so you spend time following your curiosity, instead of following a boss’s business plan into the next round of guaranteed layoffs.

The #1 sign you’re obsessed enough

10 years ago I found a life hack that changed my life.

The theory went that if I had a goal and worked on it every day, I’d probably figure out the right path, even if I had no idea what I was doing. Well, it worked.

Chase one thing for the next 6 months and do it daily. Don’t miss a single day. Don’t fall for your excuses. Don’t let life curveballs like health problems, family issues, or work issues get in the way like the average dumb-dumb.

Relentlessly keep going. Defy the odds. Go to the dark place. Become a maniac. The freedom and feeling that follows is incredible.

Tell me whether you agree with this essay and why in the comments.

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P.S. The Fearless Writer Challenge kicks off in 4 days. 

If you want to catch a little obsession in your own life, plus have me as your drill sergeant for a month, you need to grab your spot now. 

By the time I publish my next Substack issue, doors will be closed. 

Click here and to reserve your spot before the deadline.