What separates the truly exceptional from the merely good?
After spending the last three years meeting and investing in extraordinary entrepreneurs, and countless hours studying high performers across domains, there’s one trait I see over and over again: obsession.
The best of the best are simply obsessed about their craft. They’ve dissected their field to a degree that feels almost incomprehensible to the rest of us.
Take 6-time major championship winner, Phil Mickelson. He can break down every single variable that impacts a golf shot from time of day, moisture, grass length, grass gain, wind, and more:
Phil has turned the game into a science. He’s dialed in every shot based on all available conditions. And, importantly, he can explain his process exactly.
And, to be extremely clear, this level of depth is not simply the difference between any professional golfer and an amateur.
Most golf professionals are not near this level. Former PGA professional and 2x Major winner, John Daly, debuted just one year before Mickelson. He said of his preparation:1
“When I came out on tour, it was like, hey, you know, let’s go out and eat and have a few drinks, we play golf, practice a little bit and we can start drinking. That’s the way golf was played.”
Clearly Daly and Mickelson are playing different games.
Now take someone in a different field like Ryan Coogler, Director of Sinners and Black Panther.
Coogler is obsessed about the craft of filmmaking. In the video below, he talks for 10 minutes about aspect ratios. Yes, 10 minutes!
Just like Mickelson, Coogler goes into excruciating detail about something none of us probably think about. I’d argue few directors probably think about film at this degree of detail.
It’s this obsession that makes athletes like Mickelson and artists like Coogler the best of the best.
The same goes for founders and it’s why I look so carefully for this trait.
Top 1% founders possess a entirely different level of knowledge about the problem, the market, and their customers than most founders. They know the history of their field. They’ve studied what worked and why. They can also just as easily tell you what didn’t work and why.
This shapes their mental model for their business and provides a wealth of context that informs every decision.
Like Mickelson lining up his next shot, they’re not just standing over the ball mindlessly, ready to swing. They’re calculating every possible scenario to determine their next move.
These examples prove that the question is never whether you're talented or hardworking — many people clear that threshold.
The question is: are you obsessed enough with your craft to dissect it until you understand it at a level others don't even know exists?
Shoutout to my friend Grant Gregory who I know shares my obsession with obsession. He first pointed me to the Coogler video in this post.