Be Obsessed Or Be Average Summary

1-Sentence-Summary: Be Obsessed Or Be Average motivates you to get your heart into your work and live up to your true potential by identifying the thinking patterns and work habits of the passionate, successful, and driven Grant Cardone.

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Be Obsessed Or Be Average Summary

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It used to be that your typical career involved working for 30 or so years at the same company. When you were done, you’d get some sort of retirement package and then spend the rest of your life golfing. If you think this sounds fun, just imagine how bored you’d be if bingo was the most exciting thing to happen to you all week. 

The truth is, you’re born with a yearning for more. You want more out of your career than the same old boring routine that’s been around forever. 

You’d like to truly live and feel excited and passionate about what you do. But what does it take to get to that point? How do you get beyond the mundane and live an extraordinary life?

This is what Grant Cardone explores in Be Obsessed or Be Average. You’ll discover why shooting for the moon, even if you fail, is much better than settling for mediocrity. 

Here are 3 of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned from Grant Cardone:

  1. Obsession can help you have balance and constant energy to fuel your efforts of making your dreams happen.
  2. Fears can be a catalyst for success if you learn to embrace them.
  3. If you’re going to be passionate, you will have haters, but use them as motivation to work harder.

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Lesson 1: You can have greater energy and better balance if you become obsessed.

Unless you’re some mythical creature, you regularly get tired and low on energy. Nobody’s immune to fatigue, but is there a way to generate energy instead of always lacking it?

When you’re starting to feel burnt out you have two choices, according to the author. You can either take a break or get obsessed. If you want to be average, you can just relax. But if you want to be extraordinary you’ve got to unleash the power of obsession. 

If you do this right, your work will begin to energize you instead of exhausting you. That doesn’t mean you’ll be completely free from becoming tired though. We all have to rest regularly. But if you begin to feel disconnected from your work, all you’ve got to do is recenter yourself on your purpose

Cardone had to do this when he turned 40. He was busy traveling from one speaking engagement to the next. He would even schedule talks in Canada on US holidays. But when he began to wake up not knowing which city he was in, he knew something had to change.

After some thinking, he realized that it wasn’t a public speaking career he wanted. His first passion was sales. All it took was simply reviewing his purpose and writing it down for Cardone to unlock the power of his passion. And the same can happen for you whenever you’re feeling burnt out.

Lesson 2: Embrace your fears to skyrocket your growth.

When you’re going strong following what you love to do most, not everything is easy. As you’re pushing yourself to achieve great things, you’re bound to encounter the barrier of fear. But it’s important that you let it in and try to understand it because it’s often what you need to succeed. 

First, you need to recognize that fear will come in one of two ways. You either feel like people will reject you or that you will fail. And you’ll have to learn how to handle both to come out on top. 

Rejection is something that J.K. Rowling learned about when writing the first Harry Potter book. In a speech at a Harvard graduation, she once spoke of the need to have the courage to fail. She told the students that if they never fail, they would never live. 

Rowling knew what she was talking about, too. When she was trying to get her first book accepted, she had to deal with 12 rejections before succeeding. 

Remember that it’s okay and even a good sign if you’re afraid. After all, when you’re not, it means that you aren’t growing. If you’re starting to feel complacent then it’s time to try something new if you want to get to a new level.

Lesson 3: You can use the opposition that comes from becoming passionate to motivate you to work harder.

Whatever business you are in you can count on people who don’t like you and the work you are doing. Success goes hand in hand with haters. But that’s no reason to bow down to their insults. 

Because you know that you can expect them, you also know that you can be ready for when they show up. And when they do come, don’t try to silence them. Be grateful for the free publicity. 

Try to see that one sign of your success is how many haters you have to make this a little easier.

After all, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” If someone is mocking you it’s a sign that they recognize the authority you have in your market. And hey, if you have a lot of haters on Twitter, for example, it might mean that you could be the next president!

This is also a good opportunity for you to become stronger in the face of fear. With every person that rejects you, that’s only another chance to practice resilience. 

Whether it was the jocks and mean girls in high school or the lender that wouldn’t give you a loan, every bully of your past has played a part in making you who you are. And every time you’ve stood strong in the face of rejection and hatred, you became stronger yourself.

Be Obsessed Or Be Average Review

Be Obsessed Or Be Average is a really inspiring book that will motivate you to think big and reach your dreams. I do think that Grant Cardone is a little intense for my liking and I prefer to be a little more balanced with my life. But it is nice to have people like him in the world to teach us how to fulfill our full potential!

Who would I recommend the Be Obsessed Or Be Average summary to?

The 23-year-old with big dreams that sometimes feels like they aren’t doing what’s necessary to make them happen, the 35-year-old entrepreneur that is close to a big breakthrough and wants some help thinking creatively, and anyone that wants to live a fulfilling life of hard work!

Last Updated on September 1, 2022

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Luke Rowley

With over 450 summaries that he contributed to Four Minute Books, first as a part-time writer, then as our full-time Managing Editor until late 2021, Luke is our second-most prolific writer. He's also a professional, licensed engineer, working in the solar industry. Next to his day job, he also runs Goal Engineering, a website dedicated to achieving your goals with a unique, 4-4-4 system. Luke is also a husband, father, 75 Hard finisher, and lover of the outdoors. He lives in Utah with his wife and 3 kids.