About this quote

Victory is never a matter of luck or brute force. It comes down to a clear-eyed assessment of your own limits and the obstacles in front of you. Most people fail because they lie to themselves about their capabilities, or they underestimate what they are up against. Strip away your ego. If you map out your weaknesses and study your competition with cold objectivity, you eliminate surprise.

When to use it

• Before going into the salary negotiation, I researched the company's tight quarterly budget and wrote down my exact market value. Knowing my worth and their financial limits helped me get the raise without a fight.
• I watched three tapes of our opponent's defense to see where they struggle, but I also made sure our team practiced our weak passing. We won the game because we did not lie to ourselves about our own flaws.
• I kept failing my diets because I ignored my late-night sugar cravings. Once I admitted my personal trigger times and threw out the junk food in advance, staying healthy became easy.
• Instead of just studying blindly, I looked at the professor's old exams to understand her testing style and marked the chapters I struggled with most. I aced the final because I targeted both my weaknesses and her specific trap questions.