Success is a side benefit of winning at the game you are playing, and these fifteen rules, from having a clear target to repeating small actions daily, are the habits that make winning more likely. Success means different things to different people: the job you always wanted, your own business, or a simple, happy life. It defines success as turning your desires into reality, and says most people get it wrong by treating it as a destination. You do not set a goal of being successful. You become really good at something, and others see you as successful as a result.
What follows are fifteen rules from the video, in its order, plus a bonus rule that it gives to people who watch to the end.
Watch the full video here, or skip to the breakdown below.
The 15 rules at a glance
- Have a vision and a plan or all you will be left with are dreams (0:52)
- If you do not ask, the answer is no (1:27)
- 80% done now beats 100% never (2:23)
- Time will pass anyway, so you might as well use it (3:45)
- Nobody is coming to save you, so you have to save yourself (4:23)
- Be grateful for what you have, but always want more (6:14)
- Success comes from putting order into chaos (7:45)
- Hardships test how badly you want it (9:32)
- Wake up with purpose (10:51)
- Monetize your passion (12:05)
- Find people walking in the same direction and walk together (13:38)
- Where your focus is, your reality follows (15:15)
- For your life to be more, you need to be more (16:17)
- Success is managing existing resources efficiently (17:30)
- Success is the sum of small actions repeated daily (18:48)
- Bonus: Be kind
1. Have a vision and a plan or all you will be left with are dreams
People who do not know where they want to go get swept up by the current and their lives stop being their own. Other people choose for you who you are, what you do, what you like, whom to marry and what to do with your spare time, until nothing is left of the person you thought you were.
You need a north star: a clear target on which all your efforts are focused.
2. If you do not ask, the answer is no
You miss every opportunity you do not go for. Even when you do not get the answer you wanted, you usually end up in your current state, so you lose only a bit of time. In gambling terms this is a free roll: a small chance to win and no downside to trying.
The real secret is that it is a numbers game. When the Alux team started out, people said it was unlikely they would make it because 9 out of 10 businesses fail. Their answer was to build 10 businesses. It did not take ten tries, since what became Alux was their fourth.
You only need to get it right once and your life changes.
3. 80% done now beats 100% never
Perfectionism is why little gets done. People obsess over the smallest details and get stuck until they abandon the effort. The world is better off with a little value put out than with none, and releasing early teaches you more about the world and yourself than anything else.
The team could have spent another month on a Sunday motivational video with more animation and polished graphics, but the 80% of the value lies in the information. Decoration is fun, yet people want the cake, not the candles. In tech this is called a minimum viable product, a bare-bones first version that is good enough to use. Put it out, then build on the feedback.
Good enough when you need it beats perfect but too late.
4. Time will pass anyway, so you might as well use it
Everybody thinks they have time to waste. Reality hits when you notice time speeding up as you get older. Think about how fast the first half of the year went, or the last ten years.
Time will pass anyway, so in five years you might as well have the degree, the business or the career you want. The choices you make now decide where you will be in ten years, so make the ones today that will get you there.
5. Nobody is coming to save you, so you have to save yourself
Sorry to break it to you: you cannot escape the hard work. You may look for shortcuts or a cheat code, but at some point you stand in front of the track and run the race yourself. By its own account, this list is the value found in the team’s own race, handed over on a silver platter, and even here hard work is still on the menu.
People will motivate you, cheer for you and help you past obstacles, but they have their own paths. Choosing to swim in the deep waters of uncertainty, risk and reward means you had better start swimming, because there is no guarantee a lifeguard shows up in time.
It is great to have valuable people around you, but unless you are solid on your own feet you are unlikely to break through to the next level.
Take ownership of your present and your future.
6. Be grateful for what you have, but always want more
People have told the team more than once, “You’ve done so much, you have enough, you should take a break.” The reply is that there is no limit to how much good you can do, and the more you work, the more chances you have to help. Why stop when you are winning and your work is making life better for you and others?
Some people grow up believing resources are limited and the pie is finite, so if you take two slices, little is left. The answer given is that there was no pie to begin with: you baked it, and you can bake more than one and hand them out.
Live with appreciation for the good life you have now, since it can always get worse. But it is fine to want the next level, because there are levels to what you can do, how many people you can help and the impact you can have. Your job is to find out how far you can go.
What is your high score?
7. Success comes from putting order into chaos
When life is chaos, success is left to chance, and luck is not a strategy. Every successful person, it says, got there by putting order into chaos, which is what solving problems actually is, since problems are chaotic. Find chaos and order it.
Check how chaotic your life is right now. How clean is your room, your house, your car? How clear are your goals? The mind cannot focus in a chaotic environment because it is distracted by noise. Start small: clean your room, make your bed, empty your phone and write a to-do list for everything that has been stressing you out. Then do the things on the list, and you will feel powerful, having taken control.
The order spreads. Keep your word and be on time, which lowers the level of chaos around you into predictable order. Nobody likes people who bring their chaos into other lives.
8. Hardships test how badly you want it
Sometimes life throws big roadblocks in your way, and the video compares them to a boss fight in a video game. When things get hard, life is testing what you are made of and whether you are ready to grow. Reaching this point means you are likely on the right path.
A hardship is hard because you are not yet strong or ready enough, which is exactly why you need to face it. Overcoming it forces you to become more than you are. Each problem tests whether you are worthy of what lies beyond it, and most people fail to get past, so they miss the prize. This ties to the saying that 9 out of 10 businesses fail: the one that survives is the one that earned the prize.
Do not be fazed by obstacles, because solving them proves you worthy.
9. Wake up with purpose
This rule is about mornings and how you organize your day. People of purpose usually wake up early because they need more time for the things they know will move the needle. When you wake up with a clear, actionable goal, you stop lingering through life.
A purpose is not a wish or a dream. It sounds like: I woke up today to get this done and will not go to bed until I do. Lacking direction, or wanting someone to hold your hand and walk you toward what you need, comes from lacking purpose, in the video’s view. A clear purpose defines clear steps, so you do not wonder what to do next, complain or procrastinate.
It notes that people have survived wars and labor camps because of the purpose of seeing their family one more time.
10. Monetize your passion
You have heard it as “find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life”, but society shows how well known and how rarely followed this is. It says everyone super successful has used this rule, and everyone we look up to has worked out how to monetize their passion.
There are so many people in the world that, statistically, someone has already figured it out, and you probably already know them because you naturally gravitated toward them. Study how they monetized it and follow their footsteps. Nobody keeps going this long without a payout unless they are having fun and are passionate.
The cheat-sheet has four questions, each needing a different kind of expertise:
- Is it a product or a service?
- How much will you charge?
- How will you reach people?
- How will you take their money?
By the time you solve these four puzzles, you are already winning.
11. Find people walking in the same direction and walk together
A major rule of success comes from the people you associate with. You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with. If they are successful, you probably are too, and if they are not, you probably are not either. Hunting for goals is easier in packs, where people motivate each other and call each other out.
An old African proverb fits: if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. However strong you think you are, without a team of people going your way you risk burning out, being taken by the current and eventually drowning. Nobody is really self-made, because everyone sought help along the way.
Surround yourself with people moving the same way you are.
12. Where your focus is, your reality follows
Your focus determines your destiny. How do you spend your time, what do you do each day, and where does your attention go? Be honest, because that is why your reality is the way it is.
To change your life, you first have to change yourself. Some people want the change without making any changes. The saying goes that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Where the results are what you want, keep going. If not, re-evaluate, because the future is around the corner. Learn to point your effort in the right direction.
13. For your life to be more, you need to be more
It expands the previous point with a blunt statement: there are tiers to life. There are experiences, places, people and events you cannot reach in your current condition. Everyone wants to date a supermodel, but nobody wants to work hard enough to be in that position. Everybody wants an amazing partner while being mediocre themselves, and everyone wants incredible memories without the effort to get there.
The more you develop personally, the more doors open, and behind them are rooms you did not know existed. This is what “invest in yourself” means: use your time, money and resources to grow, experiment and learn to become more than you are. You first put in the work and then the awards follow, not the other way around.
14. Success is managing existing resources efficiently
Life is a strategy game. You begin with limited resources: time, a little money and a few tools. You may have more than you think, since you are reading this on a device. You have to choose where each resource goes.
Readers are told not to rant about people born rich before checking themselves, because some people started with far less and have achieved much more by your age. Everyone has a different pace and starting hand. Maybe you were born into a decent family with opportunities at your door, and maybe life was hard from the start. You can give up or play the game, since you are already in it. Ask how the things around you can bring more money and more time.
The problem is rarely the lack of the best resources, but not using the ones you have.
15. Success is the sum of small actions repeated daily
Becoming successful is fairly easy: you do what you need to do every day until you get there. The hard part is consistency. Getting in shape is simple, and the hard bit is ignoring the cake for a couple of months.
The challenge posed is this: what is the one thing that, done every day for 1,000 days, would definitely get you there? Take your time choosing it, because it matters. Once you find it, do it and do not stop.
Bonus: Be kind
The bonus is to be consistently kind and to make an effort to give back. Call it karma, the universe or the law of attraction, but every time the team gave to someone else, it says, it came back tenfold. For the past ten years they have provided food for elderly or less fortunate people and donated over 50% of their clothes and money, and during the pandemic they gave bags of supplies to the grandparents they knew.
They admit they also do it for selfish reasons: giving feels good, almost like a high. Anyone not feeling generous still has a free option, which is to not be unpleasant to people.
The team coined the idea of kindness arbitrage: it costs you a little and gives someone else a lot. A 15-minute call to your grandmother costs 15 minutes and can make her week. $200 is not much to them, but for a family struggling to buy food or toys during the holidays it is a big difference.
Little acts of kindness go so far that the trade is always worth it.
Which one clicks?
Put the fifteen rules together and they point at the same thing: a clear target, early delivery, honest effort and steady repetition. Mix them with kindness, as the video suggests, and it says you have everything you need.
The closing question is which rule clicked with you most, and which one started an idea. Pick that one and start with it today.
FAQ
What are the rules of success?
Fifteen are listed, including having a vision and a plan, asking for what you want, shipping at 80%, using your time, taking ownership, putting order into chaos, waking up with purpose and repeating small actions daily.
What does 80% done now beats 100% never mean?
Perfectionism stops people from releasing anything. Putting out a good-enough first version, like a minimum viable product, teaches you more and lets you build on feedback.
How do you put order into chaos?
Start small: clean your room, make your bed, empty your phone and write a to-do list of everything stressing you out. Then do the items, keep your word and be on time.
What is kindness arbitrage?
It is when something costs you a little but gives someone else a lot, such as a 15-minute phone call to your grandmother or a small donation to a struggling family.
How do you monetize a passion?
Work out four things: whether it is a product or a service, what you will charge, how you will reach people and how you will take payment.
Keep reading
- 15 Rules of Success
- 15 Daily Rituals for Cultivating a Growth Mindset
- 3 Essential Rules for Long Term Success
