Someone once told me if you want something, find the people who have what you want. If you want to be rich, ask rich people for advice. Too many people get bad advice from people who have no business giving it in the first place. We all have things we want to achieve, so it only makes sense to go to seek out others who have already been successful.
The most successful people in history share a unique set of characteristics that have enabled them to accomplish things the rest of the world could never dream of doing. From entrepreneurs to championship athletes to Nobel Prize-winning academics, they all had these things in common. Let’s take a look at what sets winners apart from losers.
Winners visualize success.
Successful people believe in themselves. They visualize success and know they can accomplish the goals they set for themselves. They picture the ideal scenario and envision themselves acting successfully within it. Losers defeat themselves before they even get started by “being practical” or “getting real” by thinking negatively.
“Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.” – Henry Ford
Someone once asked Joe Montana when he won his first Super Bowl. He replied, “Twelve years old, and I’ve won a thousand of them since…I never saw a live pro football game until I played in one, ten years later. And yet I kept winning the Super Bowl regularly in my backyard.”
How can this help you? You can start by believing you deserve to have the life you want, that you will be successful with women, and that you have what it takes to get there. Visualize successful outcomes.
Winners view failure as a learning experience.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” –Thomas Edison on the light bulb
What makes winners more successful than losers is their inability to be defeated by failure. Winners view failure positively, and use it to fuel their drive towards success. They see failure as an opportunity to learn, adjust their approach, and trudge on. Losers, on the other hand, view failure as a sign to quit. They often move on to something easier.
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
“The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.” – Napoleon Hill
How can this help you? See every “sour” interaction with women as being just one step closer to your goals. It’s practice for the next one. With enough practice, things will become easier and you will continue moving steadily towards success. Need more proof? Look up Abraham Lincoln’s failures.
Winners don’t blame others for the things that go wrong.
When something doesn’t go right, most people will formulate some excuse to cushion the reality of the situation. This often involves blaming other people for their failures, which is a lot easier than admitting them. People will always take credit for their successes and pass off the failures to other people. Winners don’t blame others. Have you ever seen an athlete blame his coach when he loses? That’s not what winners do. A winner will say, “I’m going to work harder.”
“We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – you can blame anyone but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change, you’re the one who has got to change. It’s as simple as that, isn’t it?” – Katharine Hepburn
How can this help you? When you start being honest with yourself, it increases your self-respect. You make faster progress because you’re able to adapt and overcome. You can waste time beating yourself up or trying to pawn things off onto others, or you can see things as they are – a simple mistake on the road to greatness .
Winners don’t focus on all that can go wrong, but on all that can go right.
People who focus only on the things that can go wrong never get the courage to take the action necessary to get anything worthwhile done. Winners focus on everything that is possible, which allows them to move forward consistently instead of walking on eggshells around any and all perceived hiccups.
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill
How can this help you? You choke when you think of all the things that can go wrong. You start to second-guess yourself and what happens then? You don’t even take the shot. You are guaranteed NO success if you don’t take the shot. Focus instead on thinking positively, visualizing what can go right.
Winners put forth effort.
“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
They say it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master any skill. Those who put in this amount of time are consistently shown to be experts in their craft, while their “good” counterparts have been found to have only put in 8,000 hours of work. The difference is in their drive. Winners in all arenas work harder, and it shows through in their performance.
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” – Muhammad Ali
“Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.” – JC Penney
How can this help you? It may help knowing that every one of the men you look up to worked hard to get good at what they do. They are no different than you are, and they were once standing where you are today. What you put in is what you get out. You determine whether you are successful or not based upon the effort you expend. The more time you spend doing it, the faster you will progress.
Winners know what they want to achieve. They set goals and they take action to achieve them.
All successful people set goals. Without a sensible goal, you will never know when you have reached your success level. They always have a clear picture of what they want and they formulate a plan to attain it. Without any of these things there can be no success. Winners dream, plan, and act. Nothing less than that will suffice.
“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.” – Frank Lloyd Wright
How can this help you? Know what you want. Do you want to be a great PUA? Do you want to meet the girl of your dreams and marry her? Do you want to have sex with loads of beautiful women? Knowing this is the first step to being able to form the plan that fits your goals. Once you know this, you can then take off in the right direction. And be sure to remember to take off, because sitting there thinking about it isn’t going to get you anywhere.
Winners take risks.
Winners are bolder than losers because they are not afraid of failure. Because failure is inevitable on the path to success, they take risks others wouldn’t dare take, and they attain success faster because of it. Winners are not afraid to fall down, because they know they will rise again. Losers do not share this same philosophy.
“You have to risk going too far to discover just how far you can really go.” – T.S. Eliot
“You must lose a fly to catch a trout.” – George Herbert
How can this help you? Facing your fears is the best way to conquer them. By being bold, you don’t give yourself time to talk yourself out of things, and pretty soon you realize there was nothing to be afraid of all along. By taking more risks – getting out of your comfort zone – you’ll get to where you want to be a lot faster than inching along trying not to make mistakes. The time spent out of your comfort zone is proportionate to the speed in which you achieve success.
Winners create opportunity.
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” –Milton Berle
Winners don’t wait around for opportunities to come knocking. They set out on their plans and create opportunities for themselves. If an opportunity does come along, they seize it. They learn to see opportunity in everything – success, failure, the completely unrelated. By setting out on their plan and seeking out opportunities for themselves, they bust down doors that were closed to them and create them where there were none before.
How can this help you? There is never any guarantee that an opportunity will come your way, just look at all the guys that stand in the corner hoping to be approached by the woman of their dreams. Meanwhile, some other guy with balls is already taking her home. Don’t wait around. You create your own opportunities.
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Just a note on this particular article – while the content is geared specifically towards interaction with women and getting better at it, these principles can be applied to anything…
I had a relatively interesting conversation last night with some guy playing Pool at the bar and some cute chick I’d just started talking to about…nothing in particular.
The pool guy has obviously been playing for awhile, and he said the one thing that helps his game the most is him simply not giving a shit about the outcome. If he worries about it, he creates his own failure out of his worry, but when he doesn’t, he tends to win.
I just thought it was an amazing principle you can apply to just about anything in life. That’s exactly why I was talking to said cute girl in the first place, cuz I wasn’t really even thinking about the possibility of failure, I just started talking like it was no big deal – I didn’t care what the outcome was, and that was the honest fact.
And I think the best part is, eventually this “not giving a shit what happens” mentality can quickly become second nature, especially on the short-term if you can spend even 5 minutes feeling that way, cuz you’ll just build enough momentum to make the rest of your night awesome.
Felt that little point had some relevance to your article here.
I completely agree. Too many guys get wrapped up in what could go wrong (it’s all fiction, not even real, but they make it real — I do this sometimes still) or they get trapped inside their head overthinking stuff. Thanks for posting that story.