The TRUTH About Success Nobody Tells You (And How to Win Anyway)

The truth about success that nobody tells you

What if I told you that life isn’t fair, that it’s just not that designed that way, but that there are things you can do to win despite all the challenges. 

Life isn’t always easy. 

Sometimes, you can work twice as hard as the person next to you and still come up short. 

Sometimes, you do everything right, yet someone with better connections will still surpass you. 

Sometimes, you set out to achieve your goal, build something amazing, only to fall flat on your face. 

That’s life. 

And as hard as it is to admit, life is not designed for success, and it’s definitely not intended for people starting from zero. 

How do I know?

Because I started from zero. 

Actually, below zero. 

When I was 38 years old, I was buried in debt, trying to support my family, and I had no plan on how to succeed. And, the moment I decided to turn things around, I was fired by my best friend. 

I found myself with no job and no solution.

So, here’s the truth nobody wants to say out loud: 

Life isn’t rigged for success. 

But that doesn’t mean you can’t succeed. 

In this article, I would like to share three simple concepts that helped change everything for me. 

Three powerful rules that have been used for centuries, going back to ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. 

What Defines Success?

Let’s start by looking at what defines success. 

To a degree, we’ve been misled about success. We’ve been sold this Hollywood version of success. 

If we work hard and believe in ourselves, we’ll get the storybook ending. The promotion. The big win. The perfect moment where everything clicks.

But that’s not exactly how it works in real life.

One of the greatest sports movies ever made—Coach Carter—ends not with a victory, but with a loss. 

The team makes it to the championship. 

They give everything. 

They play with heart, soul, and fight. 

And, in the end, they lose. 

Well, that wasn’t quite the storybook ending. But in a way, they won. 

And the next part of that movie happens afterward, in the locker room. 

Coach Carter looks at his players and tells them he’s proud of them—not because they won, but because they showed up. 

Because they kept fighting. 

Because together, they became something greater than they were.

That’s the part of success no one talks about. 

Because it’s not about the perfect Hollywood ending. 

It’s about who you become along the way.

So how do you win when the odds are stacked against you? I’m going to share with you three principles that have changed my life, and they come from people who faced far more unfairness than you or I ever will.

Principle One: Control What You Can Control

The Stoics, ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, had this figured out 2,000 years ago. 

They understood that most of the stress, frustration, and suffering we experience doesn’t come from the events themselves—it comes from wanting to control things that are outside of our control.

They taught that, when it comes to control and life, there are two categories:

1. What you can control — your effort, your actions, your attitude, your decisions.

    

2. What you cannot control — other people’s opinions, the past, the outcome, luck, timing, and the world around you.

They believed that true peace and power come from focusing all your energy on the first category. When you stop trying to control the things you can’t, you free up your mind, your time, and your emotional energy for the things you can influence.

In other words:

Success isn’t about everything going your way. It’s about mastering your response when it doesn’t.

Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in Rome, but even he couldn’t control everything. So he focused on what he could: his response, his effort, his character.

You can’t control if someone else has more money, better connections, or a head start. But you can control your work ethic. You can control what you learn. You can control showing up every single day when others quit.

When I was 38 and broke, I couldn’t help but feel that I’d been fired. I couldn’t control the debt. But I could control what I did next. And that’s where my power was.

Principle Two: Create Your Own Unfair Advantages

Here’s what nobody talks about: 

Successful people don’t just overcome disadvantages; they also overcome them. 

And by doing so, they create advantages others don’t have.

That’s called an “unfair advantage.”

An unfair advantage is something that sets you apart in a way that’s hard for others to imitate. 

It’s not just a skill or a talent. It’s the combination of your experiences, your perspective, your personality, the way you think, the way you solve problems, and even the struggles you’ve overcome.

It’s the thing that gives you an edge without you even realizing it.

It could be:

• The way you connect with people.
• Your ability to stay calm under pressure.
• The way you spot opportunities others overlook.
• Your willingness to work when others quit.
• The way you think creatively or see patterns that no one else sees.

Your unfair advantage is the thing that makes you uniquely effective.

The key is this:

Most people don’t recognize their unfair advantage because it feels “normal” to them.

But what feels ordinary to you is extraordinary to someone else.

Now, you might be thinking, “I don’t have an unfair advantage.”

And maybe that’s true, or perhaps you just haven’t recognized it yet. Sometimes the things that make you special feel ordinary to you because you’ve lived with them your whole life.

But here’s the good news:

An unfair advantage can be created.

It’s not just something you’re born with. It’s something you can develop.

Your unfair advantage might be:

• Being willing to do what others won’t.
• Learning the skills most people skip.
• Building unshakable self-confidence 
• Building relationships with others who are too proud or too insecure to pursue.
• Outworking the people who assume they’ve already “made it.”

When I first entered the energy industry, I didn’t have any connections. I didn’t have experience. I wasn’t the most knowledgeable person in the room. So I built my unfair advantage:

I became the one who learned faster, worked harder, and delivered better results than anyone else. Eventually, that became impossible to ignore—and it changed everything.

So ask yourself:

What will your unfair advantage be?

And if you don’t see one yet, choose one you’re willing to build.

Principle Three: Redefine What Winning Means

This is the big one. 

Here is a massive secret about success most people don’t realize: 

Most people lose because they’re playing someone else’s game with someone else’s definition of success.

In one of the latest Rocky movies, Rocky said to his son: 

“It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

Winning isn’t about never getting knocked down. It’s about getting back up. It’s about becoming the person who can handle more, endure more, and keep going when others stop.

I didn’t win by making my first million dollars. I didn’t win by finding success. That was simply a consequence. 

I won the day I decided that being fired and broke wouldn’t define me. 

I won that day, despite my debt, stress, fears, and self-doubt; despite it all, I decided I was going to make it no matter what. 

The money came later because I’d already won the internal battle.

Indeed, making a lot of money was a significant victory. However, let me illustrate how this plays out in real life, because this isn’t just theory.

Let’s take one of the biggest fast food chains in history, KFC.

Colonel Sanders was 65 years old when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken. 

Sixty-five! 

He’d failed at dozens of businesses. He was broke, living off Social Security. Although he had a fantastic recipe for fried chicken, his only restaurant had just been shut down by a new highway that redirected traffic.

Life wasn’t fair to him. 

But he controlled what he could: his recipe and his persistence. He got rejected over 1,000 times trying to sell his chicken recipe. 

One thousand times!

So what was his unfair advantage? 

He was willing to hear “no” more times than anyone else. And he redefined winning: it wasn’t about starting young or having resources. It was about refusing to quit. 

Well, he finally did get a yes, and the rest is history.

Now, let me give you another pretty well-known example:

Sara Blakely started Spanx with $ 5,000 in savings while working as a door-to-door fax machine salesperson—no experience in the fashion industry. 

No connections. 

No business degree.

Every manufacturer she approached said no because she was a woman with no experience. 

Life wasn’t fair at all! 

But she controlled her response. 

She learned patent law herself. 

She created her unfair advantage by understanding her customers better than anyone in the industry, because she was one of them. 

And she redefined winning: she didn’t need to be the biggest company, just the best at solving one specific problem.

She became a billionaire. 

Not because life was fair, but because she won anyway.

These three principles work because I have a very similar story myself.  

At 38, I had every reason to give up. Fired. Broke. A degree that didn’t matter. A family counting on me. But I applied these three principles. 

Two years later, I made my first million. 

Not because life suddenly became fair, but because I learned how to win anyway.

So here’s what I want you to take away from this.

Life isn’t always fair. 

You’re going to work hard and watch others succeed. You’re going to face setbacks that feel impossible. That’s reality.

But the only fair comparison in life is yourself, not others. 

And, despite how hard life is or how unfair it is, you have a choice. 

You can spend your energy complaining about how unfair it is, or you can spend that same energy controlling what you can, creating your advantages, and redefining what winning means for you.

The people who succeed aren’t the ones who had it easy. They’re the ones who decided that unfairness wouldn’t stop them.

So what are you going to control today? What unfair advantage are you going to build? How are you going to redefine winning in your life?

Because the truth about success is this: it’s not about the hand you’re dealt. It’s about how you play it.

So, get out there, control what you can, create your unfair advantage, redefine what it means to win, and win, win, win. 

That ultimate goal of yours, you CAN reach it. 

I know you can!

Love,