The Ultimate How-to Guide to Winning

“It’s not whether you win or lose,
it’s about how you play the game.” 

Whoever said this clearly never competed for anything worth winning. Sure, if you lost at thumb-wrestling, pat yourself on the back for being such a good guy. But when the love of a sweet, charming, talented, happy, intelligent, gorgeous woman is on the line, “I played well” will be small consolation for watching your friend kissing the girl of your dreams.

When you’re all-in and the chips are down, you play to win. Period.

Fortunately how you play usually determines whether you win or lose. Here’s the definitive how-to guide to winning.

"Welcome to the Moral High Ground"

Integrity

Cheating is recognized the world over as an excellent way to win. I advocated cheating in a previous post, and I maintain my position. Nothing will help you win like ignoring inconvenient barriers to success. The other guy may be able to claim the moral high ground, but the moral high ground is for losers. Rules are for the weak. If the rules aren’t helping you, dispense with the rules.

Character

Never underestimate the power of personality to win a contest of character. It isn’t really about quality or having the stronger will, it’s all about presentation. Look the part, act the part. People will assume you are exactly what they want. For example: girls complain that only cute girls get asked out. This is patently false. The girls going on dates are the ones who do routine cosmetic maintenance and flirt like there’s no tomorrow. Guys will imagine the rest. Cute girls with lousy presentation sit at home on Friday nights.

Confidence

Nothing compensates for your inability to win like confidence in your ability to win.  Behavioral scientists might correlate confidence with incompetence, but to the average person, confidence is the standard for desirability. Who cares if about skills? Success depends on impressing people, and people are impressed with those who excel at masking their own incompetence.

Compassion

Being nice is a good strategy…for getting walked on. Don’t get distracted trying to make people like you. In fact, don’t let people distract you at all. Focus on winning, not collecting losers who like you. Being able to empathize with losers won’t get you into the winners’ circle.

If you find yourself being chronically nice, use it as a soul-crushing tactic. Use “nice” to draw in losers, make them love you, and then sweetly crush them with non-commital niceties. Nothing improves your appeal like a trail of mangled hearts in your wake. Magnificent! If you want to win, stop being nice.

Honor

Finally, give up on your false moral code. People encumber themselves with supposed “rules” which only prolong the agony of losing. For example: in Monopoly there’s no rule against robbing the bank. Simply exploiting this little loophole turns an hour of excruciating boredom into five minutes of hyperinflated fun. And you win, which is the important thing. Roommate taboos, double-dipping, commitment, “sticking with it” it will all just slow you down. A skilled winner knows which laws are real (like gravity) and which are contrived (like not putting the moves on your brother’s girlfriend). Discerning the difference is the key to success.

Changing your game may be hard. You’ll probably feel guilty the first time you propose to two girls on the same night or hide aces up your sleeve. You’ll feel like a fake the first time you pretend to be hot, but you’ll discover a funny thing: no matter how bad you feel, you’re winning. And winning is it’s own reward.