The Winner Effect

the ‘Ben Franklin effect’. The eighteenth-century American founding father, polymath and politician had problems with the animosity of a rival Pennsylvania legislator who was a sort of Sarah Palin to Franklin’s Barack Obama. This legislator’s enmity was causing the great man difficulties, so how could he bring him round? Anticipating the sales techniques and cognitive science of three centuries later, the clever Franklin did something quite unexpected – he asked his rival for a favour.

Franklin knew that the man had a rare book in his library, so he asked him if he could borrow it for a few days. He returned it a week later with a note of thanks. In his autobiography, Franklin reports with satisfaction how when they next met, his rival spoke to him for the first time in a civil and even friendly way. He went on to offer Franklin any other help he needed and gradually their relationship flowered into a friendship that lasted throughout their lives.

more you wanted to win, the more likely you were to lose

matter what I feel inside, if I behave as if I feel the way I want to feel, the feelings will likely follow. Then I might enter a positive feedback loop, where other people respond to me in such a way as to confirm or support these initially faked emotions.

success is a product as much of what they do as what they are.

colour red seems to be wired into our genes – just wearing that colour puts an opponent at a disadvantage because of the primitive associations of dominance and defeat that it triggers in the brain. Wearing it may release natural performance-enhancing drugs such as testosterone in the wearer, and reduce these in the opponent.

once you start believing that your intelligence is endowed, you will tend to cope badly with failure compared with those who believe it’s something incremental that can be worked on.

The people who actually ended up achieving the most tended to set moderately challenging targets for themselves: that is, demanding but attainable.26 Underachievement is almost inevitable if you set your sights so low that you don’t expect to win. But setting them too high, as ‘Peter’ did, can have similarly disabling effects.

‘The harder I work the luckier I get.’

a moment to consider your own success, or lack of it, in your life so far. What do you believe is the reason for that?

we all want to win, whether we are aware of it or not.