#4 Door to Obsession, Inevitability and Call of Duty
You are what you are in this World. That's either one of two things: Either you're somebody, or you ain't nobody. - Frank Lucas, American Gangster
Call of Duty is a competitive game with estimated number of all time players being about 250 million. Whether you're a casual player or someone being or trying to become really good at it you are prone to occasionally run into someone who cleans the entire lobby with zero deaths on the scoreboard. Just purely unbeatable like "how this guy exists" type of vibe. Just take a look at @Futives classic "I dropped a nuke in search and destroy" - https://youtube.com/watch?v=FVx77z6Cpqs - potentially the best Call of Duty video of all time. There is a number of Call of Duty players with documented video footage of their achievements like IM PREY or FazeKitty to name a few. How is it that these guys get so good at it?
Decide to be the best. Back in 2000 Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr. had a movie called Men of Honor. It is about a soldier in US Navy that faces a lot of resistance on his path to become a master diver. It reaches a point where anyone sane would just quit. De Niro asks him what his father said to make him try so hard. He responds "to be the best". To understand what that actually means and what it does to human perception we need to decode what "the best" actually means. There is an infinite gap between "incredibly good" and "the best". To be "the best" actually means there is no stopping, there is no end to it and there is no limit. It means committing to an infinite journey to get it all, where there is nothing more to take. It means opening the door to obsession.
Open the door to obsession. In the movie Ford v Ferrari, Carrol Shelby - yes, the guy behind GT350 Shelby and Shelby Cobra, is invited to Mustang Launch in 1964 to give a speech on their newly established partnership. He says to the public:
But there are a few, a precious few, and hell, I don't know if they're lucky or not. But there are a few people who find something they have to do.
Something that obsesses them.
Something that if they can't do it,
it is going to drive them clean out of their mind.
I am that guy and I know one other guy that feels exactly the same.
He's name is Mr. Henry Ford.
Being completely obsessed with something is a whole another level of existence, that completely invalidates the need for any sort of strength or motivation to continue. A great example of a person that operates in this way today is Elon Musk who is completely obsessed with his missions. It would be rare to find a single person truly obsessed with something that doesn't have an incredible understanding about that subject. Obsession looks for ALL possible paths that exist or seemingly not, to find a way to get something done. That state can be artificially summoned by asking one question.
What needs to happen to make it inevitable? Inevitability is a concept coming from serial entrepreneur, Eben Pagan. He explains that it is one thing to have a list of goals to chase, but completely another to put oneself in a state of "what do I need to do and arrange in my life to make it absolutely impossible that I would fail at achieving this goal". It puts our brain on completely different type of journey, where it not only invents new ways of achieving the goal, but also creates plan B, plan C to have backup plans in case something goes wrong. It makes us look for obstacles and things that can stop us, predict them and implement mechanisms to block them. For something to be inevitable it needs to have a 100% of chance, not 60%, not 75%, not even 99%, but 100%. We fight for every 1% of chance to add them up and ensure inevitability, so we will do all things we can think of to make it happen. It also means it needs to happen automatically, to be independent of our wants, needs and states. It means putting systems in place that are like a concrete corridor leading to just one place - our goal. As if it is a manufactured fate.