The Madness of Excellence: Why Every Exceptional Person Gets Called Crazy
By Derek Neighbors on August 3, 2025
They called Galileo crazy. They called the Wright Brothers delusional. They called Steve Jobs a madman. They call Elon Musk insane for sleeping in Tesla factories and obsessing over Mars colonies.
Every exceptional person in history has faced the same accusation: “You’re crazy.”
Here’s what they didn’t understand: the madness of excellence isn’t mental illness, it’s mental clarity that others can’t comprehend.
But here’s what I’ve learned after years of studying breakthrough achievement: the madness of excellence has two faces. There’s vision madness, seeing possibilities others can’t perceive. And there’s execution madness, doing what others won’t do to make those visions real.
Both will get you called crazy.
Vision Madness: The Historical Pattern
The pattern is always the same throughout history:
Someone sees a possibility that contradicts current reality. Society calls them delusional, dangerous, or insane. They persist despite overwhelming opposition. Reality eventually catches up to their vision. What was “crazy” becomes “inevitable.”
Galileo saw that Earth wasn’t the center of the universe. The Catholic Church imprisoned him for heresy. Today, heliocentrism is basic science.
The Wright Brothers saw human flight as possible. The New York Times declared it would take mathematicians and engineers “one to ten million years” to solve the problem of flight. They solved it in four years.
Steve Jobs saw computers as tools for creativity and individual empowerment when the industry saw them as business machines. He insisted on controlling every detail of the user experience when everyone said open systems would win. He killed successful products to pursue “insanely great” ones when Wall Street demanded predictable profits.
Elon Musk saw Tesla not just as electric cars but as reimagining the entire energy landscape; solar, batteries and transportation. He saw SpaceX not just as rockets but as the path to making humanity multiplanetary. He saw Neuralink connecting human brains to computers. He saw the Boring Company solving traffic by drilling tunnels under cities.
Each time, the vision appeared insane to conventional thinking. Each time, the visionary was vindicated by results.
But here’s what’s changed: crazy visions are more socially acceptable now. Everyone talks about “disrupting industries” and “changing the world.” Vision madness has become trendy.
It’s the second type of madness that society increasingly judges as insane.
Execution Madness: The Modern Judgment
The real madness that people judge today isn’t the vision, it’s the commitment required to achieve it.
Elon Musk sleeping on the Tesla factory floor during “production hell.” Working 120-hour weeks. Missing family events. Risking his entire fortune on companies that could fail.
Kobe Bryant’s 4 AM workouts. Training through injuries. Obsessing over every detail of his craft while other players partied.
The trail runner who chooses 20-mile training runs over social gatherings. The entrepreneur who works weekends while friends relax. The artist who sacrifices financial security to perfect their craft.
I know this madness intimately. When I left my stable government job to start my own company, people called it insane. “Why risk security for uncertainty?” When I took the profits and started Gangplank, an incubator investing in other startups, friends (and employees) questioned my sanity. “You’re gambling with success.” When I bought a dilapidated warehouse to renovate and rebuild, even I questioned whether it was madness.
The execution madness was real. Multiple nights sleeping at the office, walking out when the sun came up. Finances so tight I didn’t know how we’d make payroll. Everyone asking why I was pushing so hard.
The madness extended beyond business. At nearly 40, morbidly obese, I discovered CrossFit and became obsessed. Every day for 52 weeks. Multiple sessions for years. Powerlifting. Olympic lifting. Lost massive weight, gained serious strength. When my shoulders couldn’t handle CrossFit anymore in my 50s, I shifted to trail running. Now I’m putting 40 miles a week on mountain trails, targeting 25+ mile desert races with serious elevation. Down 65 pounds. Doctors say I’m reversing aging.
People look at me and say, “Dude, you’re 50. What are you doing?” But I wake up every day and hit the mountain or gym when most days I don’t want to. Because I’m more alive than ever.
But here’s what I learned: every breakthrough in my life came from moments when others (and sometimes I) questioned whether I was making the right choice. The madness wasn’t in the decision, it was in the commitment to see it through despite the doubt.
This is execution madness: the beautiful imbalance required for excellence.
And our “work-life balance” culture judges this as unhealthy, obsessive, or insane.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: people don’t just judge visions they can’t see. They judge commitment they’re unwilling to make.
When someone achieves breakthrough results through extreme dedication, mediocre people have two choices: admit they’re not willing to do what it takes, or call the achiever crazy.
Guess which one protects their ego?
The shift from judging visions to judging sacrifice reveals something profound about our current cultural moment. We’ve become comfortable with big dreams but uncomfortable with the big work required to achieve them.
Everyone wants to be a visionary. Few want to be obsessed.
The Greek Tension: Golden Mean vs. Arete
The ancient Greeks understood something we’ve forgotten: there’s a difference between character virtue and excellence pursuit.
Aristotle’s Golden Mean teaches that character virtues exist between extremes. Courage sits between cowardice and recklessness. Generosity sits between stinginess and waste. These are about who you are, your character.
But arete (excellence) in what you do often requires what looks like beautiful imbalance.
The master craftsman who spends 10,000 hours perfecting their skill. The athlete who trains while others rest. The entrepreneur who risks everything for their vision.
This isn’t character imbalance, it’s craft excellence. The Greeks knew the difference.
Character should be balanced: you should be neither cowardly nor reckless, neither cruel nor naive. But excellence in any domain requires seasons of focused intensity that appear extreme to balanced people.
The confusion comes when we apply character rules to craft pursuit. When we judge the seasonal extremes required for mastery by the standards of everyday virtue.
A surgeon who spends 80 hours a week in residency isn’t character-imbalanced, they’re pursuing excellence in their craft. A writer who isolates for months to complete their masterpiece isn’t antisocial, they’re honoring their art.
The ancient Greeks understood that virtue and excellence operate by different rules. Character requires balance. Craft requires whatever it takes.
The Modern Balance Trap
But our culture has made “balance” the highest virtue. Work-life balance. Balanced diet. Balanced approach to everything.
I learned this lesson brutally when I bought that dilapidated warehouse. My mentor, a successful businessman I respected, pulled me aside: “Derek, you need balance. This obsession with renovation is unhealthy. You’re missing family time, burning through savings, working 16-hour days. Be reasonable.”
His balanced advice nearly killed the project. Following it would have meant half-measures, contractor shortcuts, compromised vision. The warehouse would have remained mediocre. Instead, I doubled down on the “unhealthy” obsession. The result? A transformation that became the foundation for everything that followed.
This mythology of balance has become the enemy of greatness.
The “healthy lifestyle” police judge anyone who sacrifices comfort for excellence. They call extreme commitment “unhealthy” and seasonal imbalance “unsustainable.”
But excellence is unsustainable by design. It’s supposed to demand everything you have. This is why playing it safe becomes the riskiest strategy, comfort is the enemy of growth.
The character cost of letting balanced people define your potential is profound. When you seek approval from people who’ve never risked anything for excellence, you guarantee mediocre results. This is why the unlimited courage question matters: what would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail?
Balanced people don’t understand why you’d choose 4 AM workouts over sleep. Why you’d risk failure over security. Why you’d sacrifice social acceptance for authentic achievement.
They call it madness because they lack the character to attempt it themselves.
But here’s what they miss: the madness of excellence isn’t about losing your sanity. It’s about finding clarity that others can’t comprehend.
When you see a possibility worth everything and commit fully to achieving it, the line between madness and clarity becomes irrelevant. What matters is whether your madness serves human flourishing or destroys it.
The Two-Faced Madness
Excellence demands both types of madness.
You need vision madness to see beyond current reality. To imagine possibilities that don’t yet exist. To believe in solutions that seem impossible.
And you need execution madness to do whatever it takes to make those visions real. To sacrifice comfort for growth. To choose difficult excellence over easy mediocrity.
But here’s the dangerous truth: not all madness leads to excellence. Some visionaries crash because their execution lacked practical wisdom. Some executors destroy themselves and everyone around them in pursuit of goals that weren’t worth the cost.
The visionary without execution remains a dreamer. The executor without vision remains a worker. Excellence requires the madness to see what others can’t and the courage to do what others won’t.
This is why every exceptional person gets called crazy twice: once for their vision, once for their commitment.
The accusers are right. Excellence is madness. The question is whether it’s the madness that builds or the madness that destroys.
Excellence is a form of madness. It’s the madness of refusing to accept current reality as final. The madness of believing you can achieve what others call impossible. The madness of sacrificing everything comfortable for something great.
But madness without wisdom becomes destruction. I’ve seen entrepreneurs destroy their families chasing visions that weren’t worth the cost. I’ve watched athletes break their bodies pursuing records that meant nothing. I’ve been there myself, pushing so hard that the pursuit of excellence nearly cost me my soul.
During the Gangplank years, my execution madness turned toxic. I was working 18-hour days, sleeping at the office more than was healthy. I missed my daughter’s school events because “the company needed me.” I justified every sacrifice as “building something great.” My marriage cracked under the weight of my obsession. My health deteriorated. I told myself it was temporary, that the vision justified everything.
It didn’t. The madness that built the company was destroying the relationships that made success meaningful. I was becoming excellent at business while failing at being human. That’s when I learned the difference between madness that serves flourishing and madness that devours it.
The question isn’t whether pursuing excellence makes you crazy. The question is whether you have the wisdom to distinguish between the madness that builds and the madness that destroys.
Final Thoughts
The madness is coming whether you choose it or not.
You can embrace the madness of excellence, the temporary monster who devours comfort to build something meaningful. Or you can accept the madness of mediocrity, the slow rot of potential unrealized, dreams deferred, character weakened by endless compromise.
Here’s your brutal question: What are you sacrificing by refusing to sacrifice?
That business you won’t start isn’t protecting your security, it’s killing your potential. That skill you won’t develop isn’t preserving your time, it’s wasting your life. That standard you won’t hold isn’t keeping others comfortable, it’s keeping you weak.
But remember my Gangplank lesson: madness without wisdom destroys what it’s meant to build. The question isn’t whether to embrace madness. It’s whether you have the practical wisdom to know when excellence serves flourishing and when it devours it.
The choice isn’t between sanity and madness. It’s between the madness of excellence and the madness of mediocrity. One forges character through difficulty. The other rots it through comfort.
Every exceptional person in history faced the same choice you’re facing right now: embrace the madness of excellence or accept the madness of settling.
What’s your choice?
Ready to embrace the madness of excellence? MasteryLab is the forge for people done with balanced mediocrity. Join others who’ve chosen the beautiful imbalance of pursuing greatness.
