Born To Win: 4 Indisputable Ways to Lead a Victorious Existence

You were born to win. You were born to lead a victorious existence. You were born to become a hero in your own respect. You should never settle for less than that.

It’s my belief that you and I were both put on this earth to mesmerize the world with our achievements.

There is not a soul on earth who can convince me otherwise.

Every person who has succeeded, has simply adhered to 4 simple and undisputed principles, which I will uncover in this blog. You were born to win and to unlock your full potential and your innate greatness, you must master some simple mindsets.

First, you must possess a ridiculously stubborn belief in yourself AND your ideas. This will lead you to completely refuse the thoughts of limitation that tend to slow most people down.

Next, you must become unafraid of attempting things which may end in failure. This is the 4^th principle of the Relentless Forward Momentum formula and it is to Become Fearless.

Then, you must exclusively focus your energy on doing things that you are good at. You must learn to capitalize on your natural strengths, as outlined in my first book – Relentless Forward Momentum: a 6-step tactical approach to becoming a fearless and unstoppable goal-crushing legend.

Finally, the 4^th principle is to become annoyingly persistent, what I usually refer to as being Relentless (it just happens to be my favorite word in the English language…)

So, there you have it. I’ve outlined 4 very simple, undeniable and undisputable principles that will surely help you get to the next level, whether it’s in your professional life, in the gym, in your financial life, or in some other endeavor.

Like I said earlier, you were born to win, but that doesn’t mean you will. Victory doesn’t come knocking at your door. You have to go out and earn it. My goal with this post is to give you the philosophy and the principles but more importantly, INSPIRE YOU TO EXECUTE!

So, let’s get to work.

Step 1: Become Stubborn as Hell

Stubbornness is absolutely crucial to your success.

Being stubborn as hell isn’t a bad thing, as it’s often labeled. In fact, it can be your greatest asset, as it has been for me.  Stubbornness is simply a refusal to give up on yourself, your ideas, your passions and your personal-development.

To me, being stubborn is sticking to something, regardless of what people are saying or the amount of success you are having with it.

I was the absolute worst baseball player on my team at the age of 9.

I was Terrible (with a capital ‘T’).

I hit .115 and was scared to death of being hit with a 5-ounce baseball every time I stepped into the batter’s box.

Yet, I was stubborn as hell.

In fact, I was so stubborn that I didn’t quit baseball, even though it made all the sense in the world at the time.

Everybody, I’m sure even my parents, was convinced that this just wasn’t the sport for me.

There is no doubt that I “should have” quit.

But, that stubbornness paid off in a very successful high school and college baseball career.

More importantly, that stubbornness resulted in learning how to overcome fears in my life beyond the baseball diamond.

If I would have followed conventional wisdom, I would have quit baseball. I would have never faced my fear of being hit with the baseball. I would have watched my friends continue playing baseball while I kicked myself constantly, wondering if I could have.

Worst of all, quitting would have then become acceptable for me.

Even though you were born to win and overcome challenge, you still must exercise your stubbornness. I always saw myself as a baseball player, even when I struck out looking almost every single at-bat when I was younger. I knew that I couldn’t give up on this vision. I had to stay dedicated to fighting through the challenges and being stubborn as hell.  

That’s exactly how you tap into your innate greatness. You have to be stubborn. When you can’t stop thinking of a dream, then don’t. Keep fighting for it. It might not come easily for you, but baseball never came easy for me.

Most great things that happen in your life, won’t come easily. Don’t forget that.

If you can learn to ignore the opposition and ignore that voice inside your head that will tell you to quit, you can overcome the seemingly insurmountable challenges that lie ahead. You just have to stay committed to the process.

As stubborn as I was as a baseball player, I might be even more stubborn as a writer. Have I made a $1,000,000 writing yet? Nope. Not even close.

In fact, in the last 4 years I’ve spent more than $20,000 of my own, hard-earned money to develop myself as a writer and to build the Relentless Forward Momentum platform.

People say that is stupid and maybe, you agree. Who knows?

But, I don’t.

And that’s because I’m stubborn as hell (you knew I was going to say that again, didn’t you!?)

A lot of people are surprised to hear how much money I’ve spent (and continue spending) to learn, educate myself, build a brand, publish blogs and reach new followers.

But, I’m willing to take it even further. I’m willing to spend another $100,000 without batting an eye to make this dream a reality. 

And, I will.

Every writing session I stubbornly struggle through, every dollar I invest to grow my audience and reach new readers and every single minute spent reading, thinking, creating and delivering new content brings me closer to this dream I’ve stubbornly held in my heart for almost a decade now.

Enough about me though. This message is about you.

It’s about helping you unlock the stubbornness inside of you. The stubbornness that knows, deep down, you were born to win. 

The true depth of your greatness is unfathomable and it’s only through sheer stubbornness that you can fully unlock it.

Like I said earlier, you were born to win, but you still must work for victory.

Winning doesn’t just happen. To win, you have to learn to become stubborn as hell, never allowing negative thoughts to rule you, never allowing irrelevant people to influence you and never allowing your failures to prevent you from becoming all that you can be.

Winning is your duty. It’s your obligation.

It all begins by simply becoming stubborn as hell.

Step #2: Become Unafraid of Catastrophic Failure

First off, I don’t believe in catastrophic failure. Not one bit. You can always recover from a seemingly “catastrophic” failure.

Call it confidence. Call it a bit of stubbornness (like we just talked about). Maybe even a little bit of naivety, but you must eliminate failure from your thought-patterns.

You can’t waste time on it.

Think about a group of lions in the Safari (I promise I’m going somewhere with this example!). They go out hunting and fail far more times than they actually succeed. There are many nights that they go home dinner-less (is that a real word?!). This happens a lot. They fail at what they set out to do, for whatever reason.

Maybe the Buffaloes are too big and working too well as a unit, or maybe the gazelle simply outruns the lion, or the lion takes the wrong angle on the attack to have the prey slip through his claws (Can you tell I watch a lot of lion documentaries?!).

All of these scenarios can be considered failures. However, lions don’t become depressed, getting all down on themselves.

They can’t. If they did, they wouldn’t survive. They have to have an attitude that forgets failures fast, just like I talked about in this video awhile back.

Lions stay focused on the next opportunity. They don’t see failure. It’s all part of their process. Some hunts are successful, others are not.

As humans, we have this terrible habit of getting down on ourselves when we fail.

It’s probably the worst trait you can possess. It prevents you from future attempts and it completely strips away your self-confidence.

It imperative that you learn to be unafraid of catastrophic failure.

Just because you were born to win, doesn’t mean you will never fail. Failure is part of the process of learning and developing yourself. You must learn to embrace it, just as you did in your childhood.

Look at most children and you will recognize that they are absolutely fearless in their attempts. They will fall off that bicycle a thousand times until they succeed. They are what I call fiercely determined.

Somehow, most of us lose touch with this childhood fearlessness as we get older.

To lead a victorious existence, you must reconnect with this mentality. You have to stop worrying what other people think. You have to stop dialing back your goals to be more “realistic”. You have to stop worrying that failure might be final, because it NEVER IS.  

The surest ways to living a disappointing life is to let your fire burn out. It’s to start acting like the rest of society. It’s to slowly become more and more “realistic”.

Being “realistic” isn’t exciting and excitement is what sets the human spirit on fire. 

It’s imperative that you have something that excites you in your crosshairs…at all times.

And, it doesn’t even matter if you ever reach it. It simply serves as a target for progress and the creation of momentum.

Bruce Lee once said, “A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”  

It’s crucial that you have something to aim at in life, and it’s just as important that you are fearless in your attempts. Too many people let the possibility of failure stop them from even attempting.

What these people don’t realize is that with every attempt you gain strength. With every failure you move closer to victory. With every setback you find a better way to reup.  

To make something incredible of your life you must begin embracing failure. You must welcome it with open arms. It must become part of the process of BECOMING all that you are capable or being.

It must be the key to unlocks the victor inside of you.

It always brings me comfort knowing that any setback or failure I experience, is not catastrophic. I have developed a deeply-rooted belief that no matter what happens, I can ALWAYS bounce back.

I believe that wholeheartedly and you need to as well.

I don’t believe that anything can stop my progress. Some things can slow it, temporarily, but nothing can STOP it.

As long as you are taking action and have your sights set on some target that will push you, there will always be progress taking place deep within you.  

Every day I believe that I am getting smarter. I believe I am making connections between disparate pieces of knowledge. I believe that I am understanding myself at a deeper level and refining my craft as a writer, business person, man, etc. This is taking place constantly.

This is what gives me the courage to tackle big goals repeatedly.

Do I always succeed? Hell, no.

Do I ever fail? Of course…

…but, life isn’t about the wins and losses it’s about who you are becoming in the process.

This is why it’s crucial that you develop a mindset that is complete unafraid of catastrophic failure. It doesn’t exist. Nothing is catastrophic unless you accept it as such.

Just remember that every challenge, every setback and every failure can pay a huge dividend to you.

If you allow it to.

Work to develop a powerful vision of exactly who you want to become; work to create absolute clarity about the things that you want in life and watch them begin to materialize.

The point of this section is to have you begin welcoming failure into your life. Failure means that you are EXECUTING, which puts you way ahead of the procrastinating majority, anyways. 

Failure is going to occur anyways, so you might as well be mentally ready for it. That doesn’t mean you plan for it, but don’t be surprised by it. Take the opposite approach and profit from your failures!

Once you become unafraid of catastrophic failure, the world will open its doors to you. Nothing will be off limits anymore. Nothing will be able to slow you down.

From there, it’s a matter of directing your energy into the most profitable areas. It’s a matter of focusing exclusively on what you’re good at, like I will discuss in Step 3.

Step 3: Focus Exclusively On What You’re Good At

Call them strengths. Call them skills. Call them gifts. It really doesn’t matter what you call them. We all have them.

You were blessed with a set of natural strengths, unique to you, that if fully applied, will create remarkable, maybe even unbelievable results, in your life. 

This is a huge challenge for a lot of people. There are so many influences around us that most of us never really hone in on what we are ACTUALLY good at.

Maybe you have developed the habit of listening to your parents, peers, and teachers, putting more weight on their opinions than your own. This is a big mistake. You were born to win and to achieve incredible levels of greatness.

To make this a reality, you must discover who you really are; you must reach a high level of self-awareness to understand your strengths. More importantly, you must take action on your strengths. This is where most people fall short. Most people don’t take the time to study themselves and direct their actions based on these findings!

How many people do you know who hate their job in this world? Why do they “hate” it? Do you ever stop to ask yourself why?

I believe it’s simply an inharmonic relationship between a person’s inner-self and their environment. Of course, this is an oversimplification, but I think that’s it. Most people are not doing something that aligns strongly with their natural strengths!

Don’t discount your feelings as being “irrational”, either. A lot of times people play the “tough-guy-card, saying things like, “I need to stick it out in this job because nobody REALLY likes their job.” That’s a cop-out. Don’t make a rash decision and completely eliminate your livelihood, but if you are feeling discontent or a lack of energy, there IS a solution or remedy to overcoming that.

It’s creating more harmony between yourself and your environment. It’s putting your natural strengths to work! It’s seeking enjoyment and pleasure in something. It’s reconnecting with childhood energies and desires.

Don’t look to the outside world. Don’t try to get opinions from others, even though they have your best interests at heart, they don’t have all the information. They don’t know what brews deep inside of you. They don’t know who you are at your core.

This is deep stuff and it takes a lifetime to master. Shoot, you might never “master” it, but listen to your emotions and feelings. They are based on deeply-rooted passions that have directed your life since childhood. They are constantly seeking to reconnect you with who you really are, at your core.

When you reconnect with your childhood desires and begin finding enjoyment in everything that you do, life is no longer a tiresome routine. It becomes an exciting journey of self-discovery and personal-development.

I’m sure at some point you have met somebody who seemed at peace with everything. Somebody who was brimming with contagious energy and positivity. This person seemed full of life and genuinely happy.

This isn’t a coincidence.

This person has simply found a deep connection with who they REALLY are and has created an environment that supports this connection fully.

This person has created a perfect alignment between their natural strengths and their environment. More than likely, they stopped caring about what other people wanted for them and they started listening to themselves.

And that’s exactly what you should do…

Step 4: Become Annoyingly Persistent

Once you master your strengths and create an environment that supports them, victory is right around the corner. The 4^th step is to become annoyingly persistent, or, the term I most frequently use, Relentless.

I can think of no greater example of this than a gentleman I met a few years ago, who went by the name, “Nizz”, or Nate. He is what society would call, “a criminal”. There’s no way around it. Nizz was charged with 70-something felonies in 1 night as an 18 year old and had spent the majority of his late teens, 20’s and early 30’s in and out of prisons, halfway-houses and rehab facilities.

He wasn’t an awful human being, he just ran around with the wrong crowd and fell victim to the gang-life. I just remember Nizz telling me about a fight he got in once, and apparently, he got his butt kicked. I guess the guy who beat him up was much bigger than him.

I’ll never forget what he said after telling me about the stitches, black eye and the broken nose that he endured, he said, “I’m not scared of anybody. A guy can kick my ass once, that’s fine. But, I’ll be back tomorrow and he has to do it again. And the next day. And, the next day too. Eventually, I’m going to wear that guy down.”

That, to me, is the epitome of being annoyingly persistent. This guy was willing get his ass kicked a hundred times rather than give up.

Some people have this same type of persistence, but have learned to apply it constructively.

Nizz, did not.

His life was a series of bad choices, compounded by more bad choices. It’s really a sad story.

Someone who has the type of relentlessness that he did, could do some incredible things in this world. I hope that he finds it in himself to still do that. I hope he recognize how to apply this annoying persistence in the most constructive of manners.

I have to say that I really respected the mentality that Nizz had. It’s something I understand completely.

It’s a common trait among successful people; it’s the ability to refuse the existence of failure as a possibility, in any endeavor, whether it occurs or not. It’s a short-memory that enables them to focus on trying once more, even when failure HAS occurred.

Talent is rarely the reason for success. It’s usually, almost exclusively, the person who is the most relentless. The person who is annoyingly persistent, refusing to give up, no matter how insurmountable the obstacles may seem.

Your greatest asset can be your persistence. It can be your refusal to give up and your dedication to making your vision a reality.

The truth is that setbacks and failures are unavoidable. So many things will happen that you have absolutely no control of.

So, why waste time worrying about things that are out of your control? Why waste time focusing energy on anything that is out of your control?

Develop a plan centered on mastering habits that are relevant to your vision.

Then, it’s simply a matter of outlasting the setbacks, the days full of self-doubt and the moments where progress seems to have stalled.

A person who is annoyingly persistent is unbeatable, just like Nizz, who I talked about earlier.

Develop a “it’s not over until I win” philosophy and imbed it in your subconscious mind.  

You were born to win, as I’ve said over and over again in this blog, but it takes effort on your part. It takes a commitment to the 4 principles that I’ve outlined in this blog.

Let’s Review

We all possess an innate greatness that makes us born to win. We all have skillsets that are unique, perspectives that uniquely ours and thought-patterns unlike any other person who has ever walked the earth. It’s time we realize this and begin putting it into practice.

To truly unlock the your inner greatness, you must master the 4 principles that I recently laid out.

First, you must Become Stubborn as Hell.  Stubbornness in this context is a sign of confidence, not naivety. It’s a commitment and dedication to the ideas that fire you up and make you smile.

To become stubborn as hell you must refuse to allow the opinions of others to sway you, one way or another. You have to trust yourself, trust the path you are on and trust that you will figure out the way to make your dream a reality.

Stubbornness is simply refusing to give up on yourself and your ideas, despite the criticism you may experience. Everyone who has done something incredible has heard the proverbial “be more realistic”, or “what makes you so special?”

Sometimes, these words come from the people you love most. It doesn’t mean that they don’t love you to death, because more than likely they do, as outlined by their words. They just don’t want you to get hurt! They don’t want you to experience pain, rejection or failure.

But, this kind of advice can be detrimental to long-term victory. You have to learn to smile and nod when you hear things like this and get back to work.

You have to be stubbornly committed to your own vision. Nobody else’s.

Second, you must learn to become fearless, which means you are unafraid of catastrophic failures. You are unafraid of catastrophic failures because you know they don’t exist. You have developed a level of self-confidence and mastery that gives you a comforting feeling, knowing that you can recover from any **seemingly catastrophic** failure.

That alone opens up a world of opportunity for you. Once you are able to attempt without fear, the barriers of limitation come crumbling down. Once you lose your fear of failure, your energy can be fully focused on victory.

Reconnecting with the childlike enthusiasm that most people lose connection with will be instrumental. When you were younger, you were unafraid of experimentation. You were unafraid of failure.

Failure wasn’t real in your younger years and it shouldn’t be now. When you fell of your bike as a child, you got back on and tried again. Or, if you were anything like me, you would stay outside all night launching 3-pointers from the middle of the street until you finally buried one. I did this because it was fun to make one. I didn’t care that it took me hundreds of attempts!

So, stop worrying about failures. Stop worrying about the “what ifs”. Stop wondering how you’ll meet emergencies that arise in the future.

Things won’t always go as planned and that’s fine. That’s what makes the journey of personal-development so challenging and fun. Learn to embrace it.

Third, Focus Exclusively on What You’re Good At.

As simply as I can possibly put it, you have way more potential to develop your strengths than you do at “fixing” your weaknesses. Too many people have this backwards. Self-awareness is the starting point. Discovering and understanding what you are good at.

Then, in the words of Charlie Parker, “Master the instrument, master the music, then forget all that shit and play”. Once you recognize your strengths, you have to immerse yourself in the development of them, constantly finding new and better ways to express them and utilize them to make your vision a reality.

Unhappiness often comes from a lack of connection to your strengths. Certain tasks make you come alive. Others suck the life out of you.

Take mental notes of what is bringing you the most energy and DO THAT.

It really can be that simple. It doesn’t have to be complicated. When you notice yourself constantly dreading something, eliminate it. Your life depends on it!

You will never live up to your full potential doing something you hate.

Think to a time where you just felt alive. What were you doing? What made you feel so alive? How can you replicate that environment more frequently?

This is a simple starting point. Find your natural strengths and fight like hell to bring them into their fullest expression.

There is something that you were born to do.

You have a gift unlike anyone else in the world. You just have to find it.

Finally, the last principle is to become annoyingly persistent, or Relentless.

This means you don’t give up. It means you always find a way.

If a door doesn’t open, you build one.

Too many people, with enormous potential, give up at the first sign of failure, or worse: resistance! Don’t forget that everybody who has done something remarkable, experience pain, setbacks and plenty of failures along the way.

We always see the end results of so many people’s efforts that it skews our thinking. It leads us to believe that success comes easily, or without challenges, but it doesn’t.

It’s only the people who are strong enough mentally to endure all of the obstacles that they face, who end up victorious in their pursuits.

You were born to win, just like me, but the surest path to victory is to keep trying, especially when you experience failure.