Welcome to The Vault.
Every Sunday, I send out ten pieces of winningcore—insights, lessons, and stories to help you win in business, sports, and life.
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On Walking
Nietzsche once said “never trust a thought that occurs to you indoors”. Pay attention to your mind and you’ll quickly realise that’s excellent advice. All the best thoughts occur outdoors, and usually whilst walking. So walk more.
On Mentors
I have three mentors. When I'm stuck on a problem and need their help, I take the time to write a good description of my dilemma, before reaching out to them. I summarize the context, the problem, my options, and my thoughts on each. I make it as succinct as possible so as not to waste their time. Before sending it, I try to predict what they'll say. Then I go back and update what I wrote to address these obvious points in advance.
Finally, I try again to predict what they'll say to this, based on what they've said in the past and what I know of their philosophy. Then, after this whole process, I realize I don't need to bother them because the answer is now clear... None of them know they are my mentors.
On Agency
The bouncer may have said you can’t get in tonight. You can accept this social statement as gospel — or you can ask: What would I do if I had 10x the agency? And watch creative ideas pop into your head. You could bribe the bouncer, get in through the back door, contact the owner of the venue, disguise yourself in a new outfit, get your friends to bring a full camera studio and pretend it’s TMZ capturing the club denying entry to an A-list celebrity.
Imagine you have an evil identical twin whose sole job is to have 10x the agency of you. What ideas would they have? This thought experiment allows the mind to explore creative ideas you'd never think of.
— George Mack (@george__mack)
Sometimes we need a “prompt” like this to expand our ideas about what’s possible. I think “What would I do if I had 10x the agency?” is a great one.
And if you’re not sure what that means, think about it like this…
"What would someone do if they felt total ownership, total power, and zero helplessness over this situation?"
You're trying to tap into a version of yourself (or an imagined person) who:
Believes the outcome is 100% in their hands.
Doesn't wait, hesitate, or blame.
Sees options and opportunities everywhere.
Acts immediately, creatively, and boldly to shape reality.
Maximum responsibility, initiative, and courage — instead of fear, doubt, or passivity.
As you do this, you’ll probably come up with some things then notice your mind going “yeah but I couldn’t do that because x, y, and z”. That’s the rational, fearful mind. Shut that down for a minute. This is just a hypothetical, you’re just exploring. See what you come up with. Then act.
On The Competitive Spirit
On Hard Things
“It’s not ‘poor me’, it’s ‘poor everyone else who’s gonna have to fucking try”
On Destiny
PSA: You don’t need to think it through again. You don’t need the perfect strategy. You don’t need to have anything figured out. What you need is a BIAS FOR ACTION. All the information you’re looking for will be revealed through doing.
On Christopher Nolan
People will say to me: There are people online who are obsessed with Inception or obsessed with Memento.
They're asking me to comment on that, as if I thought it were weird or something, and I'm like, Well, I was obsessed with it for years.
Genuinely obsessed with it. So it doesn't strike me as weird.
Every film I do, I have to believe that I'm making the best film that's ever been made. Films are really hard to make. They are all-consuming.
So it had never occurred to me there were people doing it who weren't trying to make the best film that ever was. Why would you otherwise?
Even if it's not going to be the best film that's ever been made, you have to believe that it could be.
You just pour yourself into it and when it affects someone that way, that is a huge thrill for me— huge thrill. I feel like I have managed to wrap them the up in it way I try to wrap myself up.
— Christopher Nolan
On Endurance
It is far easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.
— Julius Caesar
This hit me hard today. I’ve been in a major rebuild phase for the last 9 months and it’s felt a lot like “enduring pain with patience”. Most simply won’t do it, which is why you should.
On Turning Pro
The following is an excerpt from Steven Pressfield’s second book, Turning Pro:
I didn't talk to anybody during my year of turning pro I didn't hang out. I just worked. I had a book in mind and I had decided I would finish it or kill myself. I could not run away again, or let people down again, or let myself down again. This was it, do or die.
I had no TV, no radio, no music. No sex, no sports.
I didn't read the newspaper. For breakfast I had liver and eggs. I was like Rocky.
…
One day, I typed THE END. That's the moment in The War of Art when I knew I had beaten Resistance. I had finished something.
The manuscript didn't find a publisher and it shouldn't have. It wasn't good enough. I had to go back to a real job, in advertising in New York, and save up again, and quit again, and write another book that also didn't find a publisher because it also wasn't good enough. Neither were the nine screenplays I wrote over the next X years, I can't even remember how many, before I finally got my first check for thirty-five hundred dollars and promptly went back to writing more screenplays that I also couldn't sell.
During that first year, I sometimes thought to myself, "Steve, you've got it lucky now, no distractions, you can focus full-time. What are you gonna do when life gets complicated again?"
In the end, it didn't matter. That year made me a pro, It gave me, for the first time in my life, an uninterrupted stretch of month after month that was mine alone, that nobody knew about but me, when I was truly productive, truly facing my demons, and truly working my shit.
I love this because it’s so f*cking real. It didn’t work out like you see in the movies where the main character starts taking his life seriously and all of a sudden his “big break” comes. Pressfield isolated himself for a year “turning pro” and it was objectively a failure. But not to him. He became the person who had a shot at winning. And sure enough, he eventually produced something the world loved.
On Diabetes of The Mind
Just like high-volume, low-nutrient food makes your body fat, high-volume, low-nutrient information makes your head fat. Allow too much distraction by technology and you will end up with diabetes of the mind.
— Darren Hardy, The Compound Effect
The majority of people you see walking the streets have “diabetes of the mind”. They can’t think straight. Can’t focus. Can’t get motivated. Their brains are COOKED, and their time is being stolen. That is a LOSING combination. The plus side is that by simply putting down your phone and working without distraction, you immediately position yourself in the top bracket of competitors. It’s so easy to win when you focus.
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