Brad Stulberg

That is in contrast to harmonious passion, where you still care deeply, you do the thing all the time, but you control it, it doesn't control you.

So, in a clinical sense, obsession's bad.

Now, more colloquially, when we talk about being obsessed with something, I think being obsessed with something is good to a point.

And that point is you don't want your entire identity or your entire self-worth to ever fuse with what you're doing because that makes you very fragile.

So the way that I think about excellence in obsession is you want to be a little bit crazy and a little bit obsessed, but you don't want to go over that edge where now this is the sole thing that you identify with because then you're going to take unacceptable risk.

You might cheat, you might engage in fraud, so on and so forth.

What does that mean?

That means that if you are pursuing excellence in this values-driven way, when you are aspiring toward a goal, that goal is also shaping your character.

So yes, I might want to deadlift 550 pounds.

That is like a big mountain that I want to climb.

Very Sisyphean task.

And I might think that I'm doing all these things to work on the goal.

So I'm going to the gym, I'm doing my secondary lift, so on and so forth.

But deadlifting 550 pounds is also working on me.

It's teaching me about setbacks, about resilience, about facing my fears, about staying curious, about the power of coaching and community and on and on and on.

And these are all character traits that not only help me in the gym, but more importantly, help me as a father, help me as a writer, help me outside of the gym.

So when you work on something with deep care and intimacy, that thing can't help but work on you.

That's why the values piece is so important.

Yes, we are entirely interdependent with our environment.

So the people around us, the books that we read, the music that we listen to, the conversation that we have, even the mediums that we exist in.