The Winner’s Mindset

“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”

― Fyodor Dostoevsky

There’s always been a kind of conundrum surrounding successful people, because we can never truly come to grips with what makes them thick. You could surmise and speculate of their abilities and habits and thoughts, but when you really come down to it, you can’t properly lay a finger on it because the implications are often too complex. Successful people have numerous common qualities, but they have numerous differing qualities which award their distinction. There are many people who have been endowed with a strong work ethic, for instance, who aren’t necessarily successful in the sense we usually ascribe to it. That tells us that industriousness alone is not adequate to success, but it sure is necessary. 

On the other hand, there are people out there, not at all comparable to the ordinary man, who have been graced with a fertile intelligence and a supreme aptitude in a chosen skill, who seem to have a knack for influencing the world in their favor, who go above and beyond, not only laying hold of anything they want, but cultivating it to their liking. This is not to account for their good fortune, which appears to faithfully follow them anywhere they go and anything they set their mind to – the question underlying this phenomenon could never sufficiently be answered. 

However, we ought not to concern ourselves so much with that, and instead pivot our attention to what is clear and true. Winners have one common and definite trait, and it stands the test of time: it is their frame of mind, their established set of attitudes – it is precisely this that shapes their reality in accordance with their aims. Their way of looking at the world is such that regardless of the failures and setbacks they happen to trip on along the way, they will remain ambitiously and purposely  fixated on that one transcendent goal, and until it is justifiably reached, the idea of quitting is non-existent – even the thought itself is self-defeating to a winner, it doesn’t dare cross his mind. And this is the point at which we start to discern a striking resemblance, for all winners in any field have mastered the art of persistence. There is no mistaking that. Persistence is hard stuff. It calls for a will so firm and resolute that it fails to succumb even when everything that encircles it is falling apart. 

There is, however, a clever means to make persevering more tolerable and deep-rooted; you must single out a skill you are truly passionate about, a skill which you enjoy so profoundly it hardly feels like work when you’re carrying it out. It is more like playing. You become so deeply and intensely engaged in the skill, that you slowly start to lose yourself in all its finer characteristics – there’s no thinking while executing, no sense of time, no lingering boredom, everything’s flowing as you dance in accordance with the melodies of art. Gradually, it starts to turn into an unending obsession, where every passing thought circles around that path toward mastery you are summoned to undertake. Oddly enough, you do catch glimpses of your genius at childhood, but often to your detriment, it is pushed aside or subdued by a parent or other who doesn’t actually understand the implications of doing so. 

Naturally, the art of persistence does not single-handedly guarantee conquest. It necessitates the aid of three other invaluable assets: intelligence, judgment and of course, testosterone. I do have to remind you, though, that while the latter could be cultivated, the former is unchangeable and thus a gift of divine grace. We could conjecture of multiple intelligences, a myriad forms of learning or what have you, but if we dispensed with our prejudices, we would perhaps soon realize that such theories are in vain. If you have been endowed with superior intelligence, and have adapted your paradigm for maximal leverage, you are almost certain of victory, if not at present, in the near future. 

For, a man of intelligence already holds a trump card, he already has an edge over the rest, and he didn’t even have to work for it, either. If you take it a step further and pair his intelligence with a towering testosterone, you have sculpted a monster of a man who not only has prowess, skill and power, but will be risk-taking, stress-tolerant, ambitious, ruthless and disciplined – that almost accounts for everything a man necessitates apart from passion and talent for grand conquest. Many people seem to overlook the importance of testosterone in a world that evidently lacks it. No man who is deprived of testosterone is properly attuned to his most basic instincts, and this has become an issue even on a global scale, where estrogen-infused junk is sabotaging our well-being, weakening our drive, and making of man a lazy coward, who plays video games without intermission and eats takeout every other night with his girl-friends.

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The ramifications of high testosterone couldn’t be more emphasized as indispensable for the flourishing of man’s inherent potential. Now, factor in the value of a fertile judgement, which separates the victor from the failure. A sharp perception transforms even the pangs of rejection and suffering into art, helped along by an aesthetic taste which beautifies everything it lays eyes on. A strong regard for things which are objectively significant and beautiful characterizes a rare quality among man, for there is no way to be more acquainted with truth than to suffer for a noble cause – another quality shared among men who have a pronounced capacity to not only recognise and reject ugliness, but also to arm themselves with the voice of reason even in times of acute hardship, rendering themselves competent in any situation, able to synthesize wisdom and appropriately wield it however fits. The victor is not only marked by what regards with deep contempt, but by what he stands and is willing to die for. Marked by a deliberate audacity, he confronts danger, speaks carefully and ensures – to the best of his ability – to execute his duties without the faintest hesitation.

So, who succeeds in the end? Put simply, it is intelligent people who work hard – who have everything going for them because they utilized their gifts and didn’t permit them to go to waste. And more often than not, they arrive there before everything else – they not only solve hard problems and ask the right questions, but they arrive at the solution before everyone else. Good fortune, then, is more generous with the intelligent and industrious because they fail often, learn quickly and move faster. 

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

― Fyodor Dostoevsky

This does not mean that people who were previously losers are doomed to failure – I digress from this assumption with great gravity, actually. In truth, winners have lost frequently and continue to lose, but few people come to know about them, because their victories tend to supersede and eclipse any of their previous failures, making their success seem almost effortless. What does this tell you? Well, it must mean that a loser is one who failed and immediately cut his losses without giving himself a chance. Carrying a feeble soul, he allowed a single loss to determine his frame of mind and course of life, which is tenfold more destructive than building the courage to try again. An incurable loser keeps shooting himself in the foot, and then wonders why reality is fundamentally brutal to the weak; it has to be cruel, if it weren’t that way, the alternative would be far worse – a state of affairs that presupposes a perpetual negligence towards everything under the presumption that you can keep getting away with it. This can’t ever truly lead you towards self-mastery. 

Loss doesn’t make you a loser, taking a loss personally and refusing to endure it makes you a loser. Sometimes, you ought to set your petty ego aside and admit defeat, for that is the only way to destroy your delusions and cultivate what is truly your own. Losers who don’t change their mind can’t ever become winners, because they already know in their heart that they are doomed by fate to eternal defeat. 

I would like to close off this piece by leaving you with a superlative comment by Jung himself… “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”