You Can Win

Shiv Khera presents a self-help guide built around the premise that attitude is the primary determinant of success. The book is organized as a system of principles, stories, and action plans designed to help readers build positive habits, set goals, and live with purpose.

Khera opens with a parable about a balloon seller whose black balloon rises just as well as any other color, because what makes a balloon fly is not its surface appearance but what is inside it. This metaphor frames the book's central argument: Internal qualities, especially attitude, determine how far a person rises. Citing a study attributed to Harvard University, Khera claims that 85 percent of job success stems from attitude, while only 15 percent comes from technical knowledge. He retells the story of an African farmer named Hafiz who abandons his diamond-rich farm to search for gems abroad, only to die penniless, while the new owner discovers the land is covered with diamonds. Khera identifies three factors that shape attitudes: environment, experience, and education. He notes that attitudes pass between generations and that people resist change because negative familiarity often feels more comfortable than unfamiliarity.

The book presents eight practical steps for building a positive attitude. These include focusing on the positive (using industrialist Andrew Carnegie's analogy of digging for gold rather than fixating on the dirt), acting now rather than procrastinating, cultivating gratitude, pursuing education grounded in moral values, building self-esteem, avoiding negative influences, doing necessary tasks even when unpleasant, and starting each day with positive material. Khera tells the story of a successful hotdog seller whose college-educated son warns of a coming recession, causing the father to scale back his business until it declines as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The chapter closes by contrasting winners and losers: Winners see solutions where losers see problems, and winners make commitments where losers make promises.

Khera defines success using motivational speaker Earl Nightingale's formulation: "Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy goal" (52). Success is a journey rather than a destination, an internal experience rather than an external status, and worthiness is determined by one's value system. He introduces the winning edge concept, noting that a racehorse may win by only a nose yet earn rewards many times greater. Struggle is essential: A biology student who helps a butterfly out of its cocoon inadvertently kills it, because the struggle was necessary to strengthen its wings. Abraham Lincoln serves as a central case study. Lincoln failed in business, lost multiple elections, and endured personal tragedies for decades before being elected president at age 52. Other examples include inventor Thomas Edison, who failed approximately 10,000 times before inventing the light bulb; Colonel Sanders, who was rejected over a thousand times before selling his fried chicken recipe; and animator Walt Disney, who was rejected by newspaper editors before creating Mickey Mouse.

The book identifies ten attributes of successful people. Desire is illustrated through the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates pushing a young man's head underwater to teach that success requires wanting it as desperately as air. Commitment means playing to win with inspiration rather than playing not to lose from desperation. Hard work is exemplified by swimmer Mark Spitz, who trained 10,000 hours between the 1968 and 1972 Olympics. Character, defined as the combination of integrity, respect, and responsibility, sustains what ability earns. Positive believing goes beyond positive thinking: It is confidence grounded in preparation. Persistence is the single most essential quality, supported by former US President Calvin Coolidge's statement that persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. Other attributes include responsibility, generosity, pride in performance, and mentorship.

Khera examines twenty factors that hold people back, framing them as emotional brakes. These include unwillingness to take risks, lack of persistence, desire for instant gratification, misplaced priorities, selfishness, failure to plan, rationalizing, and fear. He uses the metaphor of monkey-hunters who trap monkeys with a box of nuts: The monkey grabs the nuts and cannot withdraw its fist but refuses to let go, just as people cling to excuses that keep them trapped.

The chapter on motivation distinguishes external motivation (fear-based or incentive-based, both temporary) from internal motivation. Khera argues that belief is the most powerful motivator: People will do much for money, more for a good leader, but most for a belief. He describes four stages employees move through, from motivated but ineffective to demotivated and ineffective, and contends that removing demotivating factors is often more effective than adding incentives.

Self-esteem receives extensive treatment. Khera opens with the story of a beggar selling pencils whose life transforms after an executive treats him as a fellow business person rather than a charity case. He catalogs low self-esteem behaviors, including chronic criticism of others, arrogance masking insecurity, and conforming to wrong behavior for group acceptance. He presents fourteen steps for building self-esteem, such as reading biographies of resilient figures like Wilma Rudolph, who had polio as a child but won three gold medals at the 1960 Olympics; volunteering for those who cannot repay you; accepting responsibility; and becoming internally driven.

On interpersonal skills, Khera argues that charisma without character becomes irritating over time. He outlines twenty-five steps for building a positive personality, covering responsibility, win-win thinking, careful word choice, genuine appreciation, discussion without argument, honesty, humility, empathy, and loyalty. He tells the story of pianist Ignacy Paderewski, who returned money to two struggling students. Years later, one of them, Herbert Hoover, who later served as US president, repaid the kindness by sending food relief to Paderewski's famine-stricken Poland.

Khera explains how the subconscious mind forms habits and character, arguing that 90 percent of behavior is habitual and that conditioning through media, advertising, and personal environment shapes the subconscious without conscious filtering. He introduces auto-suggestion as the primary reprogramming tool: positive, present-tense statements repeated with emotional visualization for at least 21 and preferably 41 consecutive days.

The chapter on goal setting distinguishes dreams from goals. Goals must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. They must also be balanced across six life areas: family, financial, physical, mental, social, and spiritual. Khera cautions against confusing activity with accomplishment, citing naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre's experiment in which processionary caterpillars circled a flowerpot rim endlessly and starved with food inches away.

The final chapter addresses values and vision. Khera proposes three tests for ethical clarity: the "Mama Test" (would your mother be proud?), the "Baba Test" (would you want your children to see?), and the "Headline Test" (would you be proud if it made the news?). He retells the story of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who read his premature obituary calling him the "merchant of death" and redirected his legacy toward the Nobel Prizes. Khera distinguishes winning as an event from being a winner as a spirit, citing Olympic sailor Lawrence Lemieux, who abandoned his race to rescue a competitor, and Reuben Gonzales, a sportsman competing for a world title, who disqualified himself at match point over a faulty shot. The book closes by urging readers to find a lifetime purpose supported by a mission and guiding philosophy, and restates its trademark principle: "Winners don't do different things, they do things differently."