Summary: You Can Win

The GIST

You Can Win by Shiv Khera is one of the most widely read motivational books to come out of India, a plainspoken manual on how ordinary people become successful ones. Khera is an author, activist and motivational speaker, and this is the best known of his books; one account credits it with more than 2.7 million copies sold in sixteen languages. Its argument fits into a single sentence, the line the book is famous for: "Winners don't do different things, they do things differently." Success, Khera insists, has nothing to do with luck or with gifts handed out at birth. It is the product of habits and of a way of thinking, and both can be learned.

The book is built like a staircase. It begins with attitude, which Khera treats as the foundation for everything else, and then climbs through success, the things that hold people back, motivation, self-esteem, getting along with others, the subconscious mind and habits, goal setting, and finally values and vision. Each step is taught through short stories, quotations, sharp contrasts between winners and losers, and lists of things to do. Admirers call it life-changing and praise its simple language; critics find it overly optimistic and short on original ideas. Both are describing the same quality. This is a book that says familiar things clearly and then asks you to act on them.

The Big Ideas

Attitude comes first

Khera opens with the claim that attitude decides how well we do in every corner of life: at work, in business and in our dealings with other people. He quotes William James of Harvard: "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." He also cites a Harvard study which, as he reports it, found that when someone gets a job or a promotion, eighty-five percent of the reason is attitude and only fifteen percent is intelligence and knowledge of facts and figures. Skill matters, but attitude sets the ceiling. One line often quoted from the book puts it in a rhyme: your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.

He compares attitude to a paintbrush that colors the whole world we see. The positive person finds an opportunity in every difficulty; the negative person finds a difficulty in every opportunity. Positive thinking lifts people to new heights, while negative thinking pushes them toward self-destruction and narrows their lives. The essential point is that attitude is chosen. It does not depend on our past, our schooling or our circumstances, and it has to be chosen again each day.

Khera then gives steps for changing it. Become a seeker of good, looking for what is right in a person or a situation before what is wrong. Make a habit of doing things now, since procrastination feeds a negative outlook. Develop an attitude of gratitude and count your blessings, not your troubles. Keep learning, remembering that knowledge is only potential power until it is acted on. Build your self-esteem. And stay away from negative influences, among which he lists negative people, drugs, alcohol, pornography and profanity.

What success is, and what stands in the way

Khera's definition is exact: "Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy goal." Each part of the phrase carries weight. Progressive means success is a journey and never a finishing line. Worthy means the goal has to be in keeping with your values. Success is something you experience inwardly, and other people's opinions do not settle it. Elsewhere he measures it by resilience: what counts is how many times we bounce back after falling, more than how high we climb. He dismisses the idea that success is a mystery or the property of a lucky few. Successful people are not necessarily more gifted. They have better habits, they work harder, and they have accepted that there is a price, usually paid in effort and discipline. He also warns against chasing perfection; the thing to strive for is excellence.

Then he turns the mirror on the reader. What holds us back? Mostly things inside us: procrastination, low self-esteem, the fear of failure, a negative attitude, the habit of making excuses and of seeing ourselves as victims. Fear of failing, he argues, does more damage than failing does. "You may be disappointed if you fail, but you will be doomed if you do not try." He adds a warning about timing. A given opportunity knocks only once, and a decision made at the wrong time becomes the wrong decision.

Throughout these chapters run his famous pairs. "The winner is always part of the solution; the loser is always part of the problem." "The winner always has a plan; the loser always has an excuse." The winner offers to do the task for you; the loser says it is not his job.

Motivation follows action

Motivation, for Khera, is the force behind everything we do, and it comes in two kinds. External motivation is supplied by other people and by rewards. Internal motivation springs from our own desire and sense of purpose, and it is by far the stronger and longer lasting. His most useful observation is about sequence. Most people wait to feel motivated before they begin. Khera says it works the other way round: begin, and the feeling arrives. Taking the first step creates momentum, and momentum feeds the wish to go on. He also notes that motivation wears off and has to be renewed daily, much as bathing does, and that clear goals are among its best sources.

Self-esteem and the art of dealing with people

Self-esteem is how we see and value ourselves, the reputation we have with ourselves. When we feel good about who we are, Khera observes, the world looks better, we get more done and our relationships improve. People with healthy self-esteem make better decisions, take sensible risks and are not easily knocked off course by criticism.

It is built by conduct. Keeping promises, acting on our values and accepting responsibility for what we do all raise it; lying, cheating and shirking wear it away. Positive self-talk, which he calls auto-suggestion, helps. And he offers one quick method above all others: do something for people who cannot repay you in cash or in kind. On responsibility he is especially firm. Those who take on more of it, he says, are in effect promoting themselves.

From there he moves outward, because success depends heavily on how well we get on with others. "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." His advice is practical and old-fashioned in the best sense. Listen well. Make the other person feel important and understood. Think before you speak, because words can wound more deeply than weapons. Do not criticize, complain or argue; the best way to win an argument is to stay out of it. Courtesy and good manners cost little and return a great deal, since people help those they like and respect.

The subconscious mind and the power of habit

Khera likens the subconscious mind to a garden. It does not reason or judge. Whatever is planted in it, good or bad, takes root and grows. That is why he urges readers to feed it deliberately with positive thoughts and auto-suggestions. Habits are the result of repetition: do something often enough and it becomes automatic, run from below the level of conscious thought. He borrows the old saying that we are what we repeatedly do, so that excellence is a habit and not a single act. Good habits are the key to success and bad ones an open door to failure, and changing a life means patiently replacing one kind with the other. Self-discipline, doing what needs to be done whether or not you feel like it, is what makes the replacement stick.

Goals, values and vision

A person without goals, Khera writes, is like a ship without a rudder, drifting wherever the current goes. Goals give direction and purpose and a way of measuring progress. "Goals are dreams with a deadline." He teaches readers to make each goal specific, measurable and tied to a date, to write it down, to break a large aim into smaller tasks, and to review the list regularly, which also sets the subconscious to work on it. Goals should be balanced across the different sides of life as well, so that work does not swallow everything.

The last step is the one he considers the base of all the others. Values are the principles that guide what we do; vision is the clear picture of what we want to bring about. Without a firm set of values, success is hollow and does not last. He points to celebrities and billionaires who turn to drugs or take their own lives because of the emptiness they feel inside. Vision gives a life its direction and inspiration; values make sure the road there is honest. Character and integrity are part of what winning means.

Putting It to Work

• Choose your attitude each morning. Look for what is right before what is wrong, and begin the day with positive self-talk.
• Do it now. Treat procrastination as the enemy. Act first and let motivation catch up.
• Count your blessings. Practice gratitude on purpose.
• Take responsibility. Drop excuses and blame. Admit mistakes and learn from them.
• Raise your self-esteem by serving. Do something for someone who cannot pay you back.
• Treat people well. Listen, be courteous, and walk away from arguments.
• Guard your influences. Keep clear of negative people and habits, and read the stories of people who succeeded.
• Write your goals down. Make them specific and measurable, give them a deadline, split them into steps and review them often.
• Build one good habit at a time, repeating it until it runs by itself.
• Check your goals against your values. Aim for excellence, not perfection, and care about how you win.

Who Should Read It

You Can Win is ideal for students, young professionals and anyone new to self-help who wants the essentials in one place, told simply and with plenty of stories. It also suits managers, teachers and parents looking for a straightforward framework to pass on, and anyone who feels stuck and needs a push to start. Seasoned readers of the genre will meet much they have heard before, though they may still value the reminder that knowing these things and doing them are different matters.