The Lifestyle of a Winner
“Rory McIlroy” (CC BY 2.0) by TourProGolfClubs
Nobody wins all the time. Winners are also regular losers. What makes the difference is one part timing and one part attitude.
Seen from afar a winning lifestyle can all too easily be interpreted as a matter of the superficial trappings of success – cars and houses, glamourous casino nights and eye-catching company. But those things are simply the trappings of success.
No-one is going to remember Rory McIlroy for the number of bedrooms he has, or how many Ferraris Lionel Messi has in his garage. It is all-too easy to mistake those tangible indexes for what they actually point to.
Real success is less spectacular than that. It is more about the steady appreciation that not every putt will go in, that not every pass will find its mark. It is more about the workmanlike way a talent may be put to work in the quieter, more private arena of overcoming endless minor setbacks. If genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration, a similar ratio marks the signposts on the route to success.
You don’t have to be born with the innate ability that professional athletes are blessed with to work this magic for yourself. We can all build our way to success if we only have the courage and the patience to make it so no matter what the arena.
“Clamoroso in Copa America: Messi rifiuta” (CC BY 2.0) by NazionaleCalcio
A level playing field
Games of cards, and blackjack in particular, represent a perfect analogy. And since no-one arrives with that genetically built-in 1% head start, so much the better. Whilst we can all appreciate the magic of a big hitting 21, in truth the secret to success is as more to do with the careful management of resources than a single lucky strike.
As anyone who is familiar with the online blackjack by 32Red and other such mainstream providers will know, for all there are many different variants of the game, the core principles remain rock sold: beat the dealer, limit your losses and bide your time. The parallels with the route to more public instances of success are all too clear.
Small steps, one at a time
In the world of professional gambling, they talk about small ball blackjack. In a nutshell it means not going all out for a big win but being content to walk away time and again with only a minimal profit. It also recognises that not every session will finish with a winning margin, sucking up the occasional set-back is part and parcel of that 99% real-life progression.
In a ball game, beating the opposition in front of you is enough. The plaudits that come with serial wins is not something that enters the equation. Taking money away from blackjack works on exactly the same principle. Success is only very rarely a one-hit experience.
A broader perspective
The people who talk about small ball blackjack also talk about retaining the bigger picture every step of the way. Rather than letting the emotion of a short-term setback knock you off of your strategy they insist on viewing it in terms of the broader upward curve of your overall career wins.
Winning big is simply the icing on the cake. In order for that 21 to mean anything substantial you need to have put in the hard yards building up your winnings. The more times you play – so the theory goes – the more you should be able to up your stakes. It is only once you’ve done that that you can start to really capitalise on the good fortune that turning over 21 represents. Of course, anyone watching will say you just got lucky – but that’s Gary Player’s not-so-secret secret of success: the harder you work, the more they’ll say that.
Progressive mind-set
Scoring the winning goal in a big game, or sinking a tournament winning putt is merely the completion of a series of exercises that have, over time, made light of minor setbacks and capitalised wherever possible on any marginal gain.
It’s that progressive state of mind that enables superstars like McIlroy and Messi to cope with their bad days as well as their good ones. That’s what keeps them moving forward and keeps them winning. From that it should be clear that success – whether on the golf course, the football pitch or the digital tables of 32Red, Coral, SkyCasino or any other online online provider – is a matter of a certain way of being. You could even call it the lifestyle of a winner.
