Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
The Unfortunate Need for Passion & Obsession 6-4-25
Wed, 04 Jun 2025
In this episode, Scott Becker reflects on how true success in business and life often comes only through deep passion and focused obsession.
Chapter 1: What are passion and obsession in success?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is going to talk about passion and obsession, and we'll talk about those two things together. So here's the deal, and before I get started, I always like to say, thrilled with our audience.
We recently reached number one in the Apple Business News podcast rankings, and so thankful for our listeners, our audience, and our sponsors. Thank you so much. So here's a discussion on passion and greatness and obsession. And I wish this wasn't the case. So here's what I've found throughout my career.
Throughout my career, and I think this is true of many people, some people are so smooth and so calm, they could do it without this. That's not been the case for me. So here's the deal. Every time I've had great success, I've been literally obsessed with an effort and really wanted to be great at it and really worked at it. This was the case of building a law practice, building a business.
Chapter 2: How does obsession lead to greatness?
And the flip side is, wherever I've not been nearly that obsessed with greatness and trying to be great, going through the motions, trying to do okay, I've essentially either the business has failed or the effort has never turned into what it should be. So for example, one of my best friends turned himself into a single digit handicap and he spent a summer or two just obsessed with it.
Chapter 3: What happens when you're not obsessed?
I think he really took a lesson every day, made tremendous progress. And I have to hear about how well he did with it. The flip side for me is – and this is – I think there's a lot of truth to what happened with him is if you're going to be great at something, it's going to take an obsession and greatness.
Chapter 4: Can obsession be a key to achieving goals?
And what I would say is the problem with obsession and greatness is when you're obsessed and you're trying to do something great, it is problematic because it puts a lot of stress on a lot of different places in life. It can put stress on family. It can put stress on time. It can put stress on yourself. And so you have to be willing to live with that stress.
The flip side is the periodic times in life when you become obsessed and you're compulsive about something and really trying to make them great, in some ways, those are the most self-actualizing parts of life. So you don't want to turn that engine off. If anything, you want to try and find some balance with it but you want to embrace that passion and that compulsion and obsession.
Because my own perspective is the only time when I'm able to perform at the level I want to perform at, I had a period of time in high school where I performed at this level and chasing a certain victory in something. But there are periods of life. When I studied for something at one period of time, I also was able to have that obsession.
There are periods of time when that obsession and passion hits you and And notwithstanding all the different negatives to it, I think you have to embrace it and cultivate it and ride that horse while you have it because you don't always have it.
And it's the only thing, at least for me, that leads me to doing things great where everything else gets done sort of in a mediocre way if I don't really find myself compelled and obsessed by something. I hope some people can relate to this. I hope it's inspiring to some.
I'll give a shout out to my friend, Mark, who is the golfer Abramson who I'm talking about here, who just became obsessed with becoming very good at this and took leaps and bounds above the rest of us. Some of my other buddies never got that good. No offense to them. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast.
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