Own Goals
Lovable losers, Over Sharers, and One Thingers
How To Guide To Self-Defeat
I’m in the middle of an odd Venn Diagram overlap, having recently survived pulmonary embolisms and preparing for an upcoming ultramarathon adventure. Across the people I come into contact with, this dichotomy has exposed me to quite a few health and fitness outliers including some very unfit and very fit people. I’m trying to do as much as possible for as long as possible. To that end, I’ve gotten inspiration and guidance from people who’ve been particularly effective at achieving what they want. But I’ve also seen a number of counterexamples; here are some of the counterindications of success I see time and again. They aren’t the worst people, just those working the hardest without managing to win.
Lovable losers
Some people seem to enjoy the encouragement of others more than winning. It is uncanny, almost statistically freakish, how they can narrowly miss stated goals while surrounded by well-wishers. The well-wishing is darkly explainable evolutionarily — humans evolved to want less procreative competition. Thus the “healthy at any size” lie from relatively thin, attractive people to encourage competitors to become less competitive for mates.
Over Sharers
If someone is 5 degrees off course, I often notice they respond to course corrections with an enthusiasm that risks over correction. People who are already doing quite well seem to be energetic about doing even better. But people who are completely utterly lost, going 180 degrees off course have an almost comical insistence on complaining that they’re lost followed by explaining why they do what they’re doing and how that is the way to do things. They are not happy with where they are, have no plans to improve, but want to discuss the only thing that they know is a sure bet to not work.
One Thingers
I love competing. I compete every day. I compete first and foremost in the capital markets, lifting, running, fighting, and every little thing I can all day long. I love it. That means that I lose a lot. I find that the quantity of competition relieves anxiety because it is literally impossible to win at all of the above — no one man ever has or ever will. I just KBO and go as hard as I can. A lot of durability is mirth and levity — savoring every mile, enjoying the process, and staying in the moment. Any one win — a million dollar day, a barbell PR, tapping out a skilled rival — just raises the stake and puts you into a more competitive bracket. All games that matter are infinity games. But I see a lot of the inverse and I’d bet against it every time: the view that if I achieve this one thing, then everything will go from terrible to perfect. I wish there were a way to bet against it because sooner or later the burnout rate will approach 100%.
What do they have in common?
Low agency. Lovable losers, over sharers, and one thingers have this in common. They see the world as filled with things that just happen to them whether they call it luck or fate shaping their lives. One might as well marinate in encouragement, rationalize failure, and gamble on a single amorphous future because that could be the best there is.
What are you to do?
My reaction is to be grateful to learn that I’m not alone in my struggles and setbacks while not allowing my problems to become my whole personality. A little contact with those suffering in the same way you are is better than none, but it is also better than a lot. Who I need to spend time with and listen to are all the people who are winning — richer investors, faster runners, stronger lifters, and deadlier fighters than I am. And listen. Not fish for encouragement, explain why I do it my way, or hope for a future miracle. Shamelessly copy the best. Be high agency. Take control — as Jocko Willink says,
Relax. Look around. Make a call.
Even make a mistake. Once. Then make different mistakes. But don’t keep trying what demonstrably doesn’t work. Fire people (literally and figuratively) who keep making the same ones. Win or change and instantly extract yourself from anyone who doesn’t.
