The space between obsession and acceptance
Finding balance in a world that worships extremes
👋Hello, my friend, and Happy Mother’s Day! I am so grateful for all the wonderful moms in my life — and all that they do — which is a ton! I hope you all get spoiled today!
So, this week I’ve been thinking about the idea of standards—where we set them, how we measure ourselves against them, and who’s really driving the scale. I want to walk you through two seemingly opposing forces that have been showing up in my life lately: obsession and acceptance. And more importantly, the balance—or maybe the tension—between the two.
Let’s do it!
Obsession vs. Acceptance
It started with a podcast. (It usually does…)
I was listening to a conversation between David Senra (host of the Founders podcast) and Patrick O’Shaughnessy. If you aren’t familiar with Founders, here’s how it works: Senra reads biographies of iconic entrepreneurs—people like Steve Jobs, John D. Rockefeller, and James Dyson—and shares the key lessons he takes from their lives. He’s incredibly engaging and passionate. It’s easy to get pulled into what he’s saying. For me, his energy is contagious—it usually leaves me feeling pretty fired up to go attack my latest project.
In this conversation between Senra and O’Shaughnessy, one idea kept coming up: the power of singular obsession. The most successful people—at least in business—often orient their entire lives around one simple, clear idea.
One example they discussed was Tim Graves, the founder of Raising Cane’s. Graves had one idea: make the best chicken fingers in the world. That’s it. People mocked him, but he believed deeply in that mission—so deeply that he actually felt that God had put him on this planet for that very reason! And now, he’s built a billion-dollar business around it. Maybe he was right.
Then there’s Jensen Huang from Nvidia — the semiconductor company that has come to dominate the world of tech and is powering the next generation of AI. David mentioned that Huang, at least at one point in his life, would wake up, look in the mirror, and tell himself he sucked — again, and again. That kind of brutal self-evaluation might seem extreme, but it reflects the kind of intense standard these people hold themselves to.
Senra and O’Shaughnessy talked about this obsession in their own work. Senra, at one point, describes not being ashamed to think that his own work is some of the highest quality in (the podcast world) — which I don’t disagree with — and the reason he’s not ashamed to think that way is because he is absolutely obsessed with the work. In fact, he’s essentially built his entire life around making insanely good monologue-style podcasts on the world’s best entrepreneurs. And he’s proud of them. Makes sense to me.
But here’s where I started thinking about the other side of this hard-charging, no-holds-barred approach to life.
They mentioned the term “casuals.” As in… you might not want to associate with that guy because he’s a “casual” — or someone who’s not serious. Not obsessive. Not intensely mission-focused. Certainly not in the mold of Jobs or Dyson or Graves. Senra even mentions that he literally can’t have friends who aren’t entrepreneurs because he can’t relate to them. I guess they’re casuals.
Okay, that’s an interesting little framework to assess who to associate with, I thought.
But as I was listening, I kind of started to feel… bad. About myself!
And I started to wonder, Oh sh&t. Am I a casual?
As you might know, I’m mildly obsessed with self-improvement. It’s why I write Intentional Wisdom. And (at this point occasionally) make the podcast. But I also have like… the other 95% of my life. The part where I have a job. Should I feel bad about that? And the part where I’m a husband and father. I’m not going to feel bad about that. And the part where I occasionally like to do things like play golf. Does that make me a casual?
Then I thought about the brain retraining program (re-origin) that I’m doing right now, and which I wrote about last week.
Almost the entire point of that program completely contradicts with this message of “if you want to be great at something, you have to focus on that and only that.”
That program is about releasing the pressure a bit—learning to breathe, to be a bit gentler with yourself (like maybe not slapping yourself in the face in the mirror to start!). It recognizes that you’re going to have good days and bad days. It’s about easing the constant striving.
And I’ve honestly been enjoying that. I’ve even started to notice a few small but meaningful shifts in myself in just a couple of weeks—feeling a little more empathy, a little more kindness, a bit more connection with others.
So now I’m holding these two opposing ideas in my head at once:
One says, You need to be all in, obsessed, never satisfied.
The other says, Relax. You’re allowed to enjoy where you are.
And that contrast has really stuck out to me.
The Yin and the Yang
This whole thing reminds me of the concept of yin and yang.
In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang describe how seemingly opposite forces can actually be complementary—how darkness and light, rest and action, softness and strength all coexist. The goal isn’t to choose one over the other—it’s to find a balance between them.
A lot of these entrepreneurs that Senra profiles—they’re pure yang. Intense, relentless, driven by an internal fire to bring something into the world. And we need people like that. A lot of progress in society happens because someone was obsessed enough to push through 5,000 iterations to make a better vacuum cleaner—or a better phone, or a better chicken finger.
But I think there’s a real danger in trying to apply the lessons of these outliers wholesale to our own lives. Because it can leave us feeling like we’re not doing enough. That we’re not enough. And I’m not sure that’s healthy—or helpful.
Because let’s be honest: most of us aren’t going to be Steve Jobs. And that’s not a failure—it’s just reality. But that doesn’t mean what we’re doing isn’t worthwhile.
The Balance I’m Trying to Strike
Take this newsletter, for example. One of my goals this year was to publish Intentional Wisdom every week. And so far, I’ve done it. There’ve been a couple weeks where it came down to the wire, but so far, I’ve made it happen.
There are good and bad parts to that. The good part is the consistency—it creates a regular connection with you, and it gives me a place to sort through my thoughts.
But I also worry about whether the consistency sometimes comes at the cost of quality. There are topics I’ve written about where I think, Man, I could spend a month researching this and put together something amazing. And I’ve gotten feedback like that before—people enjoy the deeper dives when I’ve done them. But that’s hard to do on a weekly cadence.
And that’s where the tension comes in again.
It’s this balance between pushing yourself to create your best work, and giving yourself some grace when things don’t feel perfect. It’s being willing to put something out there, even if you know it’s not flawless. And also knowing when it’s time to push harder.
Because these singularly obsessed entrepreneurs—yes, they’ve accomplished incredible things… But often, they’ve paid a real price for it. Many of them struggle with mental health. Some of them live pretty isolated lives. And when you’re optimizing your entire existence around one thing, you’re often leaving other important things behind—like relationships, like downtime, like golf!
So this week, I’ve just been thinking about all of that. About how tempting it is to idolize the outliers. About how easy it is to feel like your life only matters if you’ve invented the iPhone.
But I think we have to be careful with that thinking. Because swinging too far in either direction isn’t helpful. You don’t need to be a billionaire to live a worthwhile life. But you also don’t need to throw up your hands and say, Well, I guess this is just my lot in life.
To me, it’s about balance.
I think we can still be driven. We can still pursue projects and ideas that we care deeply about. We can still be obsessive at times about quality and craft and making something great.
But we can also learn to breathe a bit. To accept where we are. To appreciate the life we’re living right now—not just the one we imagine around the corner.
That’s the dance. That’s the yin and the yang. And that’s where I’m trying to live these days.
Content Diet
Podcast: David Senra and Patrick O’Shaughnessy on Founders, Focus, and Obsession – A fascinating look into the minds of singularly obsessed entrepreneurs. Inspiring and energizing, but also a good reminder that these models aren’t for everyone.
Book: The Brain that Changes Itself — Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge, MD.
As part of my “brain retraining,” I’m starting to go deep down rabbit holes on learning about the brain. This book has been recommended in several other podcasts and sources I’ve been consuming so I’m diving in. So far, it’s a pretty amazing collection of stories of people who have completely changed/improved different aspects of their lives & health through neuroplasticity — or intentionally re-wiring their neural connections through a variety of methods. Helpful for anyone struggling with anything from ADHD to depression to learning disorders and beyond. I’m still super early-stage but I’m enjoying learning about what’s possible with the brain.
That’s it for this week — oh, did you see Whoop came out with their latest device? I ordered it already… because obviously… I’m obsessed.
Have a great week.
Greg