The Winner Effect

The Winner Effect: The science of success and how to use it  – Ian Robertson

This brilliant masterpiece gives us lot of insights into winning and losing, domineering partners (and how couples get into such a 1-0 situation) and much much more. It is especially delightful because each of the subtle insights from neuroscience research are nailed down with very vivid descriptions using scores of real-life examples from well known personalities/events (Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Picasso, Sarkozy, Einstein, Napolean, Hitler…..) and experiments. Because of all these vivid illustrations – the below summary is at best a drab and colorless outline.

Ø  Are Winners born or have to earn their success? 

Insights:

·        Breeding/Born-into-right-family and even Wealthy definitely helps. But at the same time:

o   believing that one is endowed with winner’s qualities can leave some people demoralized and psychologically crippled !

o   the rich, born-to-win children spent more time either on their own or with adults other than their parents (than the poorer children) and they therefore also felt less emotionally close to their parents (who have much higher opportunity cost for their time).

o   Motivation is a crucial ingredient for success in life. Once the internal motivator is activated, people put their body and soul into their work with little thought for how much they are paid. However for the internal motivator to be switched on as a child – it needs some cajoling/encouraging/string-arming/forcing from parents & teachers. Without this external spur – the child may never get over the hump to reach a stage where achieving the activity becomes intrinsically rewarding. Knowing the presence of a huge fortune – can sabotage this initial effort/goalpost to climb up the hump making this motivation internalized.

o   Setting demanding but attainable targets (neither too high nor too low) consistently does the trick for winners in general.  If your parents are geniuses how can you set goals that don’t look trivial? Definitely an issue in cases of kids with overzealous parents. It helps if parents:

• explain the arduous path to their success instead of ‘hiding the ladder’ (to boost their own ego that they were born genius) so to speak!
• make kids see the activities as learning-focused rather than performance-focused (comparative performance, passing a judgment on their self-esteem rather than just the activity).
• help kids achieve an ‘incremental’ attitude – by replacing ‘I am no good at Maths’ thought to ‘I didn’t like Maths at school and lost interest in it’, or ‘I am no good at sports’ to ‘I need to find a sport that suits my abilities’.
• rather than praise them for being ‘bright’, praise them for their consistency of efforts and grit (both these are within their control – and help them improve upon going forward as well !).

Ø  Feeling and behaving like winners – already boosts our chances of success!  The body language of a winner is apparent to others as well immediately further adding to the winning spirit !

Ø  Having a stack of wins before the big match always helps……so its a good idea to take and crack some easier exams before coming to grips with the real challenger ! The winning streak is not just an emotional or positive attitude thing effecting the conscious and unconscious mind, it actually changes the physical constituents enabling the success formula in the brain/body!

Ø  Having belief that you have control on your life protects one from the ravages of stress. Those who believe this will use their power to manipulate both internal as well as external resources so as to remain in control. Winners also live longer because it strengthens their belief in their self and their control over the world and this belief inoculates them against the effects of stress on their bodies!

Ø  One of the major burdens always weighing on the mind is acceptance by others. Winning  allays this stress from a threat of rejection by others and removes a major stress from the lives of Winners.

Ø  Power blinds people to the societal needs and overall good – making them ego-centric and making them believe in their godly status and fall for the ‘Gamblers fallacy’ – going by their infallible gut feel, their killer-instinct: at the cost of common sense. Its always good to have old friends and family members have a check on oneself – if one is still being sane ! This is no laughable matter –as illustrated by the colossal damages caused by the demi-gods running the show at Enron, RBS and Lehman Bros (and to quote historic events – ‘The Russian solstice’ of Napolean and later by Hitler). Overnight the decisions and behavior of these once revered figures – look astoundingly ridiculous in retrospect, possibly even to these very guys. But when the heat is on – all the crème-de-la-crème are part of this group-think and set out to out-run each other at the new game, while ostracizing any sane/questioning voices that may come up.

Ø  The opposite effect is also true – our best performance is indeed limited to the glass ceiling we unconsciously develop about our abilities over a period of time. This again is the ‘Winners born’ attitude in a negative way. Question all your conscious and unconscious limitations! With focused practice you could crack that high-score now just to yourself if not for anyone else!

Ø  Finally, the win for the ‘I’ is a race that can never be won because ‘I’ itself is a combination of all the reflections of one’s network of relationships and interactions in this world. So going after the ‘I’ brings with it all the unconscious prejudices and stereotypes in our own and others’ brains. Real winners thrive on being able to have an impact and do not cripple themselves by believing their success to be due to inherited, unchangeable qualities.