The road to victory is a game of survival;

It is war.

You visualize yourself as a gladiator in the arena,

a Stealth Ninja Warrior ready to attack in the shadows,

a Bullfighter charging into the fury of the beast.

You see yourself choosing between winning and losing

as if they were life or death.

You win when you want it so badly, it hurts inside,

You win when you want it so much more

than your opponent does.

You win when your mindset is that nothing,

except your values,

can stop you from achieving success.

You win when your sole purpose

is to defeat your opponents.

You win by simultaneously playing your strengths

and your adversaries weaknesses

or simply by flat-out outworking them!

You win when, deliberately and quietly

You try to capture each one

of your opponent’s strengths and virtues.

You win when in your opponent’s eyes,

You are fierce and steadfast

about your game plan and execution,

and yet,

discreetly tweak and adapt in a split second.

You win when, in preparation for a contest,

you approach every task with “tunnel vision”

and such steely resolve that no one or nothing

prevents you from completing it.

Because “the art of winning” can only be mastered

by “paying every due” and “burning every candle”

as preparing to be ready to win is a long road

that has to be travelled in its entirety.

You win when you are one step ahead of your opponent

and still ask yourself,

can I do it better?

You win when unflappable, you “keep on” going back

again, and again to knock on the same door

previously slammed in your face.

You win when a “no” is nothing

but an invitation to try again.

You win when you are totally and utterly oblivious

to the word “rejection.”

You win when you know when and how

to seek, take advice and learn

from those who know how to win.

You win when you “take on” the better side of your ego

and make it your friend, your ally and your weapon.

You win when through discipline and perseverance

you acquire the knowledge and experience

that provides you the self-confidence needed

to master whatever, you want to be the best at.

A winner’s intensity and drive

is always soaked with genuine self-confidence.

The attitude of the overly confident though,

is often confused with the banality and shallowness

of arrogance and narcissism.

Such labels could not be narrower and more off target;

The self-confidence of a winner,

when authentic,

derives only,

from “knowledge and experience,”

therefore, is unassailable and unshakeable!

You win when you are willing and able

to use your anger as a source of strength,

when you morph your rage

into a burning and unstoppable desire

and when you draw from your “well of will”

the fire and the fury needed to win.

You only win after you’ve experienced

countless losses, defeats, stumbles and fumbles,

and the worse they have been,

the better prepared you are to win in the future.

But for a path to victory

one has to harness one’s very own demons,

one has to “rein in” a unique cast of “free spirited” characters

that inhabit the kingdoms of our mind and spirit.

That’s why in order to win

we have to conquer our own mountains,

break our own walls,

vanquish enemy armies,

annihilate pessimists,

ridicule the skeptical,

render mute the excusers and naysayers,

exile the slouchers,

calm the fearful, making them our allies,

turn the doubters into charlatans,

and we have to do it all within the confines of ourselves,

as we do, when in battle.

Sometimes winning requires you

to follow your gut,

your better fibers,

your most animalistic, atavistic and primal instincts,

all shaken and stirred into a cocktail of “raw passion.”

Sometimes winning requires you to follow your brain,

rational thinking, battle plans, strategy and logic.

Often you require both!

Even though on any given Sunday,

in the game of winning,

passion generally beats brains!

You win when you enjoy and share

the spoils from the act of winning,

You win when you live, appreciate and value,

the journey to victory,

You win when you bring out the best in you,

You win when it makes you better.

When you win you celebrate life.

But above all, 

You win when you are not fooled by it.

On the contrary, keep it in its right place,

as winning even though an essential component of life,

is only a “game of life.”

It is not existential or sacred

but mundane and passing,

It is not love or friendship,

neither truth nor faith;

it is not virtues or values,

but only a “will and grit” booster,

a worthy test of the intensity

with which you live your life.

Winning is not for the faint of heart

as it requires boundless courage and strength.

Winning is for those

that challenge and defy life with their hearts

and for who living a life in full,

inexorably includes winning

as an intrinsical part of the equation,

to squeeze out of life

the sublime passion of victory.