obsession.

Growing up, I was often told that to do great things, you need to be extremely disciplined. I didn’t necessarily agree with that at the time, and now that I’m 20, I strongly disagree.

I think you need to be super “obsessed” to do great things —not just be disciplined.

Let me explain.

I’m not saying that being disciplined is a bad thing—it’s one of the keys to making major life changes in any area. What I’m trying to convey is that discipline might get you good at what you want to do, but what truly sets you apart and puts you in the top 0.1% is pure obsession. There is no substitute for that. You need to be so obsessed that discipline naturally falls into place. At this point you will no longer need to push yourself or do things for the sake of it - it will become your identity and a natural trait.

Take any great founder. There is absolutely no chance that products like Uber, Airbnb, or Facebook would have ever existed today had TK, Brian, or Mark not been obsessed with what they were building at the time. They were thinking about it 24x7x365. Every waking second would be devoted to that particular thing. Being obsessed means you really, really, really want that particular thing and are willing to run through walls to get it done, no matter what. At that time, you won’t need a $500 monitor, a fancy setup, or anything else. All of these things are just noise at the end of the day—they might act as a catalyst, but they aren’t necessary at all. All you need to do is execute—that’s it. You will simply wake up, get to work, work until you physically or mentally cannot operate any longer, and then go to bed. This cycle repeats every single day. You won’t care about anything else other than a few basic essentials that help you work and produce better results: sleep, workouts, diet, and the people around you (this is super important and can either make your life 10x easier or render work extremely difficult). If any of these fall apart, all your hard work loses its value.

In your early 20s, I don’t think there should be a concept of work-life balance. Those three words make absolutely no sense to me. If you actually believe that having a work-life balance in your early 20s is a good thing, chances are you’re working on something you don’t really enjoy or care about and are just doing it for the money. I feel extremely bad for people around me doing that at that age because they have so much energy and agency with barely any responsibilities on their shoulders—it’s very unlikely you’ll have that same freedom when you’re older. Instead, you’re choosing to spend most of your time doing something you truly don’t care about and are lying to yourself and pretending to be happy

Coming back to it—I feel that at every single point in your life, you’re obsessed with certain things; it’s practically impossible to have nothing at all. Whether it’s a specific product, a concept, an inspirational person, or anything else, no matter how niche or random it is, if you want to make it work, you will figure out a way. Otherwise, you never really wanted it in the first place.

The best part about this is that you won’t be obsessed with something you don’t enjoy. You’ll generally be obsessed with at most one or two things at a time, which allows you to have tunnel vision and be extremely clear about your goals. Once you’re obsessed with something, it becomes part of your identity—a natural trait—and you no longer have to force yourself to do stuff.

The key is figuring out how to use that obsession to provide value to the world so that someone is willing to trade their time or money for it. Nail that, and you’ve hit the jackpot.

Take content creators, for example. Some genuinely love filming, unboxing products, playing video games, or doing other random activities they actually enjoy doing. They’ve discovered a way to share that content globally, putting themselves out there while people willingly spend their time watching their YouTube videos. The result? They make money doing something they’re obsessed with and naturally excel at.

The same goes for founders—they love building products and providing value. When they create something so compelling that people are eager to pay for it or invest their time in it—and eventually can’t imagine living without it—that’s when you hit PMF (product-market fit). Look at Uber: in cities with poor public transit, if you don’t own a car or are just visiting for a few days on a rainy day, your only option is to Uber back home.

Bottom line: when you’re truly obsessed, discipline naturally follows. If you don’t care about something, there’s absolutely no point in doing it because there’s no way you can compete with someone spending every waking moment on it while you’re just working 9-5 Monday to Friday.

Discipline is what you need to maintain the speed of the rocket, but obsession is what gets it off the ground.

So, keep trying new things and figuring out what you really care about and enjoy doing. For me, it used to be playing Fortnite when I was in high school—I used to spend around eight to ten hours every day on it. But ever since I moved to Waterloo, that’s been changing every semester. I keep discovering new stuff, meeting new people, and trying out various activities, but I feel like I’ve reached a point where I have a clearer idea of what I enjoy doing for extended periods. For now, it’s just these three things I care most about and spend most of my time on:

1. code ~ probably around 80% of my day is spent on this right now
2. playing music on my FLX4 in random places for people I enjoy being surrounded with
3. filming and making short vlogs on camcorders

I find myself doing the latter two when I’m extremely burnt out from coding and want to switch off my analytical left brain completely and primarily use my creative right side. I’ve gotten some of my best ideas while doing these activities, and they help me produce better results when I get back to work and they just bring more meaning to life.

I’m pretty sure these three might change over time as I expand my spectrum by trying new things and figuring out what I truly like and what I don’t, but for now I’m gonna stick with them for a while. I guess these emerged when I realized I was spending a lot of time either creating or consuming people doing these things around me and I started trying it out myself (aka seeing people build startups, making music sets on rooftops with their friends and documenting their entire journey). Although I have a lot to try out yet - I feel I have a much better understanding of things now than compared to the I first moved to Waterloo.

Also, feel free to reach out on Twitter if you’re building or doing something around any of these—especially the last two, since I’m relatively new to them and still figuring things out.

Peace,

VJ