I met a famous VC at a recent event. Multiple exits as a founder, multiple unicorns as a VC, and a thriving media business. On a sweltering SF afternoon (this week saw a massive heat wave across the Bay Area), his face had an extremely tired look and he could barely keep his eyes open. Yet, he took the time to patiently answer my questions.

I wake up the next day and see the same person doing a live stream discussing everything SaaS at 8 AM PT with all the passion and energy of a 20-year-old. Having seen his exhausted version just 12 hours back, I could never have imagined him bouncing back early the next day and bringing his best self to the game.

I was discussing this observation with my better half and in the flow of the conversation, outlined that this person was demonstrating what I saw as three key elements that when coming together, create a high likelihood of long-term success in any area of life:

1/ Desire – Massive internal motivation to win, to be the best at something, to become the best version of yourself. In his all-time classic ‘Think and Grow Rich‘, Napoleon Hill calls Desire the “Starting Point of All Achievement”.

2/ Energy – Backing up Desire with raw physical and mental horsepower to do the work, put in the daily reps in your field, outwork competition, and practice enough (the 10,000-hour rule) to become world-class in your area.

3/ Natural Strengths – When Desire and Energy are channeled in an area that aligns with your Natural Strengths, the ROI on the effort becomes massive. This amplification creates a snowball effect, leading to rapid daily progress which over the long term, shows up in high rates of compounding. PS: I have covered a specific facet of this snowball effect in my posts ‘The Success Flywheel‘ and ‘The Success Flywheel – Part 2 (Superhuman, Perplexity)‘.

There is a reason why I have depicted these 3 elements as a Venn diagram. They have to necessarily overlap to enable long-term success. Even if one of the elements is missing, the snowball effect might never kick in. Here’s why:

Case 1: Desire + Energy BUT no Natural Strengths

In today’s age of near-zero information asymmetry and high leverage, which leads to intense competition in any given field, the key to standing out amidst all the noise is to focus on your unique and differentiated strengths. In the context of both startups and individual careers, I call this the right-to-win.

In Case 1, while this person has the Desire to succeed and the Energy to do the work, the ROI on the effort is low given it’s not being directed in a field where the person has differentiated strengths. It, therefore, reduces the odds of them being able to grow fast and grab market share against competition in their chosen field.

Think of Case 1 as the ‘Pushing A Boulder Up The Hill’ phenomenon – requiring enormous efforts daily but without commensurate rewards in terms of progress and rate of compounding. Essentially, it’s a case of having the right intentions and ability to do the work, but with poor strategy and direction.

PS: I see this at play a lot when strong founders choose a market where they have a weak fit and therefore, an unclear right-to-win.

Case 2: Energy + Natural Strengths BUT no Desire

This case reminds me of many sportspersons who couldn’t live up to their potential over the years – the likes of Vinod Kambli and Prithvi Shaw in Cricket, Maria Sharapova, Mark Philippoussis and Richard Krajicek in Tennis, Daniel Ricciardo and Fernando Alonso (to some extent) in Formula 1.

All these sportspersons had natural strengths in the sport and had high energy due to which they got initial success, but then, the internal motivation just wasn’t strong enough to sustain it.

Desire is crucial because it leads to discipline, which is critical for continuous improvement and growth. As I had written in my post ‘Willpower is a reservoir, and that’s why focus is important!‘ many years back, humans have a finite amount of willpower. Having discipline ensures that this willpower is carefully and optimally allocated in the right direction on a daily basis.

A Case 2 persona that comes to mind is ‘The Drunk Painter’ – talented and charismatic, but long-term lazy. When this person creates, it’s magic, but unfortunately, that’s too few and far between to make this person an all-time great.

Case 3: Desire and Natural Strengths BUT no Energy

This case underlines the importance of fitness (physical and mental) to back up Desire and Natural Strengths. Without fitness, one can’t show up every day with their best game.

This, of course, becomes very obvious in sports. The hugely talented English cricketer Marcus Trescothick had to prematurely end his career due to mental health issues. Despite being the fastest bowler in the world of his time, Australian cricketer Shaun Tait could never reach his potential due to fitness issues. Australian tennis ace and Wimbledon winner Lleyton Hewitt had to end his career early due to a string of recurring injuries.

Similar examples also exist in other fields where fitness might not be traditionally considered a central pillar of success. Just after delivering an Oscar-winning performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, which should have resulted in a Jack Nicholson-like long career, Heath Ledger died from drug abuse perhaps from prior mental health issues. Despite being one of the legendary stars in Friends for a decade, Matthew Perry dealt with perpetual alcoholism and depression, leading to an underwhelming career and ultimately, a sad end.

A Case 3 persona that comes to mind is ‘The Depressed Actor’ – this person loves to act, and is pretty damn good at it, but doesn’t have the physical and/or mental fitness to regularly bring their best game to auditions, and to keep improving and doing their best work over decades.

TLDR: to summarize, if you are looking to set yourself up to chase long-term success in any aspect of life, focus on parallel-processing three things:

• Inculcate a deep Desire to succeed.
• Develop Energy to provide fuel to the Desire.
• Lean into your Natural Strengths using this combination of Desire and Energy.

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