Winner Traits: Introduction
Explainer
I am writing a new book.
As an experiment, I am going to be publishing chapters (as they are edited & ready for publishing) here on the site. When it is complete, you will have all chapters hosted online and I will likely leave it here for free consumption.
Some links may be inactive until the final chapters are written.
Introduction
“You are under no obligation to remain the same person you were a year ago, a month ago, or even a day ago. You are here to create yourself, continuously.” —Richard Feynman
Let's get this straight right away. I'm not going to offer you a grand masterplan that'll turn you from complete loser to absolute winner in five simple, bulletproof steps.
Sorry.
If this is what you've been looking for, you're going to be very disappointed.
But here's the thing: everyone who does offer you such a master plan is a charlatan.
Plain and simple.
They're trying to sell you on this fantasy that it's possible to come up with a neat step-by-step plan that going to take you from where you are to where you wanna go.
And of course, I get it. This is an incredibly attractive promise. Deep down we all want to believe that there's some guru who got it all figured out and sees the exact path we have to take amongst the chaos out there.
But this is not how things work in the real world.
You need a rough idea of where you're going and how you're going to get there. But that's about it.
Trying to map out every minute detail is not only a waste of time but actually harmful. The moment you realize your grand master plan isn't going to work out exactly as predicted is when you lose all motivation and give up.
A better approach is to focus on making steps in the right direction every month, every week, every day, and one step at a time.
There will not be some big moment where the change happens. It takes time and many little changes.
And no one is able to predict all steps that will help you right from the start.
You have to constantly reassess where you are and where you wanna go and then come up with ideas for your next steps.
I know this isn't nearly slightly as sexy. But unlike that grand master plan, it's effective. It's what allows you to make continuous progress.
Another thing I want to emphasize right away is that I'm, by no means, a perfect embodiment of all the winner traits I'm going to outline in this book. In fact, no one is except for fictional characters in Hollywood movies.
And that's perfectly fine. We all fall somewhere on the spectrum between loser and winner. The exact spot on the spectrum often varies wildly from day to day.
Everyone got a winner and loser inside of them and it's entirely up to you who you feed through your actions. The more you feed one of them, the more powerful of an influence it will become in your life.
The loser inside of you will tell you to keep chilling on the couch. You deserve it after a hard day at work. He will tell you to eat that bag of potato chips. You've earned it and it'll definitely make you feel a little better. Why risk embarrassing yourself by getting up and talking to the guy over there? C'mon, what are the odds that this little interaction will actually make a meaningful difference in your life? Let's do some more research on how to write amazing cold emails before hitting the "Send" button! Don't like 99% of all startups fail? So why even bother trying?
The winner inside of you, on the other hand, will encourage you to take risks and seize the opportunity. He will remind you that embarrassing moments are fleeting, while the reward of making meaningful connections last a lifetime. He will remind you that failure is a part of the journey and that no one ever succeeds without taking risks. He will urge you to get up, walk over to the guy, and start a conversation. To build a minimum-viable version of your startup idea and put it live next week, no matter how embarrassing it might look initially. To publish that draft even so it's far from perfect. Who knows what amazing things can happen if you just take that first step? He will push you to get up from the couch and head to the gym even though you feel tired. He will constantly remind you that even though each individual action might seem insignificant, all great things are the result of many small steps in the right direction.
If the winner inside of you is strong enough, you will smile whenever the loser demands attention and recognize it for what it really is: self-sabotaging behavior.
The choice is yours – will you let the loser inside of you take over or will you be brave and let the winner take the lead?
So, on some days, I got my shit together. On other days I don't. Sometimes I feel like a winner, and sometimes like an absolute loser. Just like you, just like everyone else.
That little loser inside each one of us will never go away. It’ll shrink and become quieter. But it’ll never vanish completely.
Now what really matters is who you're paying attention to. Every single of your actions either makes the loser or the winner inside of you stronger.
Who am I becoming? A loser or a winner?
That's the real question you need to answer for yourself.
Where exactly you see yourself on the loser-winner spectrum right now is irrelevant.
But it's not enough to know what direction you'd like to move into. Obviously, no one wants to be a loser.
Far more important, is getting a clear picture of the direction you're actually moving into and then course correct whenever necessary.
And that's why I wrote this book.
The word "winner" can mean a lot of things or nothing really. So in the following chapter, we're going to fill it with meaning.
Once we’ve done this, you’ll finally be able to understand whether you’re strengthening the winner or loser inside of you through your daily actions. You will be able to analyze if you’re moving in the right direction and know exactly what to do to course correct whenever that nasty loser voice becomes too strong.
And we're going to focus on things that actually matter. Things you can actually control and make progress towards every single day.
You might picture a winner as someone living in a huge mansion, with a nice car, and a big watch on his wrist.
Cool, but not helpful.
Maybe that guy simply inherited a fortune. Does that make him a winner? Not in my book.
Being a winner is not about what you have but about how think and act. It's a mode of being.
And of course, some winners do live in nice mansions, fly private jets, and drive amazing cars.
Adopting winner traits will certainly make it easier for you to get these things.
But there also tons of winners living happy quiet lives with their families in modest houses, or wearing hoodies and happily spending their days coding away.
Just because you don't see them flexing on Instagram doesn't mean they don't exist.
A final thing I want to talk about is what I mean by “winner traits”. Rest assured that we’re not going to talk about cringy morning routines that only look cool in YouTube videos or “life-changing body language hacks” that only make sense until you actually try them.
Now, I totally get why everyone loves that stuff.
I too love watching movies and shows with some absolute baller like Tony Stark or Harvey Specter as their main character.
Secretly, we’re all hoping that some of their coolness will rub off onto us. We start moving a bit more like them, start copying their routines, or even buy the same coffee mug hoping that’ll make any difference.
It’s also why we keep watching videos about the habits and routines of guys like Elon Musk.
The bad news is that none of this will ever turn you into the winner you’re hoping to be.
Trust me, I’ve tried.
The problem is that everyone you’re seeing on these shows but also on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or read about in most self-help books is just the surface-level stuff.
What you really need to become more like these aspirational characters are the patterns that unfold beneath the surface. It’s what’s going on in their mind as they move through the day. It’s how they operate at a base level.
And that’s precisely what we’re going to study in the following chapters.
The goal is to program your brain to react to certain situations in specific ways. And we’re doing this one tiny recipe at a time.
If your mom wants to make cheesecake, she doesn’t sit down and try to figure it out every single time. She goes to her recipe, adds the ingredients, and boom she gets a predictably delicious result.
That’s the goal. That is how I want your brain to work. I want to give you the recipes that allow you to get the results you want.
Let’s dive in!