The problem people often face is due to previous negative experiences, which makes them cautious about new prospects.

There is a fine line between not applying previous lessons learned and looking for issues that have not arisen yet because you are too worried about getting it wrong again, you crystallise them in the present.

The reality is that the longer you look for something, the more likely you are to find it, sending you into a defeating self-validating loop toward the negative. It is better to start with a neutral stance and approach issues with good faith, addressing them as they arise, with an adequate response level based on your preferences.

Expecting a bad outcome with an individual because you fear failure will translate into your behaviour with an apprehension that is not welcoming towards the other person. This will create an equal closing off with them. The energy does not lie.

You are exhibiting a loser's behaviour because you project the anchored past into the future in your mind. Winners keep on getting positive outcomes because success is a self-fulfilling positive feedback loop, where their previous attempts were met by success; therefore, they will interpret things positively, and in case of a doubt, they will give you the benefit of the doubt.

That is why people with positive energy lift others, while those with negative energy drag them down. Positive energy is an excellent indicator of where someone is coming from. The reality is that if you are on an upward slope, you will see the burdens that a lot of people are because they are so stuck in their past losses.

Natural leaders are accustomed to having people follow them, as they inspire respect, admiration, or other positive attributes. So when you do, holding everything else equal, you convey a positive past. It is also a great litmus test to see whether they deem you worth following, and thus if you are pre-selected.

On the contrary, if you are permission-seeking, you are subcommunicating that you have always been a follower seeking the approval of someone higher than you to do something. Why would someone want to follow you if that is the case?

Saying outrageous things suggests to the other person that you are accustomed to getting away with it. It also tells them you must have a certain status to do so.

Whether in business, life, or dating, the most daring get rewarded, not the ones playing it safe, who are so worried about downside protection that they limit themselves from upward projection. This does not mean you must not have risk management set-ups to address potential hiccups, but going full defence mode only caters to your comfort-seeking bias.

Visionaries and Innovators Dominate.

Conservative companies get bought out.

Offensive teams win leagues.

Defensive teams get relegated.

Extroverts win many people over.

Introverts are stuck in scarcity.

The reality is more nuanced, but I exaggerate for a reason. You are not getting the outcomes you want because you have reframed your weaknesses as strengths. If you were to get these outcomes, then these weaknesses would be strengths.

If you are a guy reading this and you have dealt with single women over 30 years old on apps. In that case, you can see and feel how much of a loser they are because they try to minimise risk as much as possible, by controlling the interaction to the most minor details, like a Bank running Anti-Money Laundering checks. It is less about value assessment than fear of the unknown and ensuring an outcome, as time is of the essence. They liked you for a reason, but they're conducting a first date like a multi-billion-dollar merger and acquisition due diligence. The loser mentality is at its finest, playing to avoid losing instead of playing to win.

Do you see how dealing in bad faith, expecting the worst, only manifests itself by enticing the person to mirror? Charismatic people are so magnetic because they embody a winner's mentality and have a history of positive outcomes.

This is not to say you always have to play offence, be innovative, or be an extrovert. You can be on the other side too, but you must recalibrate more towards the middle of the spectrum because you are too far out to reach your goals.

Having lived in both the US and France, I can clearly see the stark difference in mentality: one looks towards the future, while the other looks to dust off the museum it has become.

Ask an American to go into a venture; he will go all in.

Ask a Frenchman; he will start looking for the scam. One country is economically leading, while another is being overtaken.

The fear of being called a failure and the trolling of other underperforming Frenchmen is what holds back the weak-minded person looking to improve their outcomes. The Americans will brush it off and move on to the next day. That is why there is a brain drain from France to more entrepreneurial countries, when high taxes don't already deter them. The UK is undergoing a similar trend, despite being less socialist-inclined than its archrivals from the other side of the Channel. Civil Servants overpopulate France, the US has many entrepreneurs, and the UK is midway between the two.

This is where you must embrace uncertainty as a prelude to success, rather than retreating out of insecurity by trying to control every blind spot. You will never know everything before investing, whether it is emotional or financial. You manifest confidence in your comfort towards uncertainty. Yes, you don't have to go blindly into everything, but you will develop good instincts the more you expose yourself and the more you fail, so consider it part of the learning process.

Fear eventually holds you back, as much as you worry about failures as you do about success. Either you are too stuck in the past, so you think it will always be the future. Or you are too stuck in the future, creating problems that have not arisen yet.

So when you go into your new venture, believe in yourself to think you are going to win, and even if you don't believe in yourself, believe in your ability to get back up for another fight.

On the positive side, I follow and trade tennis, and an interesting trend I saw happening since the end of the Big Three (Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal) is that the gap in level between the 10th ranked and the 150th has shrunk drastically. This comes from the radical self-belief of the younger generation, who don't feel less because of their ranking, and now there are many more upsets to take advantage of.

It is also interesting to see some players being held back due to their choking tendencies, which often prevents them from winning Grand Slams (Zverev) or titles (Davidovich Fokina).

More often than you think, you are your own worst enemy.

Audacity is a gamble with an outsized return, and unlike a bankroll, mindset has no limits.