“If you’ll examine the source of all the warnings you’ve had against the idea of getting rich quick, you will find that most, if not all, have come to you from well-intentioned people who have not gotten rich at all, at any pace.”

“Our brain ignores most external stimuli, so when you tell it what to look for, it ends up seeing it.”

“Think of the ambitions swirling around the desks of any office; consider the emotions and skirmishes surrounding promotion and advancement.

In its more naked form, look at the parents howling at the sidelines of the football pitch for the victory of their seven-year-old darlings. What are they shouting for?

Winning. And they want it very, very badly. Why do we want to win so badly, and what makes a winner? That is the question that I aim to answer in this book.”

“The winner effect, then, almost certainly does not work by simply maintaining super-high levels of testosterone until the next contest - winners would likely suffer damage to their heart or risk injury because of their aggressive demeanor.

Yes, winning boosts testosterone levels and may leave them in the long term somewhat higher than before. But the real effect of winning is in physically shaping the brain, so that the brain behaves like a turbo-charged car that pushes out more power for the same amount of gasoline.”

“Knowing that your parents are fabulously wealthy can undercut these tough early stages of mastering a skill before it becomes intrinsically satisfying in itself.

‘Why should I bother studying this stuff at university when I’m going to be rich anyway?’, they may think. People need the push of extrinsic motivation to get them to the point where they start to feel competent and intrinsically motivated.

The age-old need to fend for yourself once you leave home provides that external kick of motivation to millions of children and adolescents throughout the world, but some offspring of the very successful just don’t get that kick, and so end up feeling demotivated and without direction in their lives.”

“Genetic fatalists, in short, believe that they have fixed ‘dose’ of attributes - intelligence, ability, personality, self-control, happiness - and this belief or ‘attribution’ automatically undermines any attempts they might make to change or improve themselves; hence it sabotages their ability to win.”

“But the life of a trader is never without its ups and downs, and their fortunes and their lifestyles depended on the then relatively gentle oscillations of the market.

It was during this pre-Lehman, pre-apocalyptic time of relative financial peace that a group of Cambridge scientists decided to study a group of seventeen male London traders as they placed their bets on the markets.

The researchers measured testosterone levels each morning and afternoon for eight days. The seventeen traders had some high-testosterone mornings, and some low ones, and on average they made a profit on high days and not on lows.

Testosterone thus made the traders more adventurous and combative, and this style yielded them higher profits, bigger bonuses, and perhaps a contribution to the cost of their next Porsche.”

“The lesson is clear: no matter what I feel inside, if I behave as if I feel the way I want to feel, the feelings will likely follow. Then I might enter a positive feedback loop, where other people respond to me in such a way as to confirm or support these initially faked emotions.”

“If trivial increases in power can shift the sense of control over events, then it is pretty clear that absolute power must enormously magnify the sense of control over events in the brains of people like these two dictators - arguably to a delusional extent.

Napoleon and Hitler, then, may have experienced a fundamental change in brain function as a consequence of the vast power they held over millions of people.

Such a change has two major consequences on judgement: first, it makes people less inclined to see events from other perspectives than their own, and second, it makes them subject to the illusion that they can control events which are too vast and complex to be controllable.”

“Testosterone changes the brain because it alters its chemistry. In particular, it boosts levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is a key element in motivation - in getting clear in our minds what we want, and setting out to get it.

Winning changes how we feel and think by racking up testosterone and the dopamine-sensitive brain systems responsible for an action-oriented approach. And we need leaders who are motivated and goal-focused in this way - these are the essential qualities of leadership in politics, business, and war.

A political leader like Winston Churchill, a business magnate like Rupert Murdoch, and a military general like Dwight Eisenhower would not have achieved their respective victories without this action-oriented approach to imposing their will on world events.”

“When the right prefrontal cortex is alerted to potential threat, it widens the focus of attention - like a broad radar-sweep of the skyline to check for danger.

Powerlessness is a sort of threat, so it makes sense that people without power should be more inclined to scan the horizon for the threat of unforeseen events that they cannot control.

The left prefrontal cortex does the opposite when geared up for action - it focuses attention on the goal, in a similar way to that in which power puts on the attentional blinders.

Power, then, may unbalance our very ability to recognize risk, as well as our inclination to take heed of it.”

“One of the biggest dangers for the world comes from that surge of testosterone coursing into the blood of the high-power-need leader after he wins. That hormonal surge is intoxicating.

Like the mountaineer seeking the fix of the next and more dangerous peak, the power-primed politician finds it hard to cope with the mundanity of day-to-day politics - he yearns for that chemical high that winning triggers in him. Unfortunately, like all such highs, the next stimulus has to be stronger to get the same effect.”

“Democracy, one of civilization’s inspired inventions, evolved to serve one major purpose - to protect us and our children from the brain-altering chemistry of power and its consequences.”

“And that is the proposed solution to the mystery of the Oscars - winning an Oscar may offer a powerful and near-everlasting ‘safety signal for self’ - a sort of lifelong insurance policy that protects ‘me’ against the terrible stress of other people’s negative evaluations.

Winning an Oscar may be one big lifelong ‘all clear’ air-raid siren - a permanent safety signal that your self is secure. That is perhaps why winning an Oscar makes you live so much longer - by protecting your self, it defends your body.”

“A large chunk of the world’s economy revolves around sex and gambling.”

“Power makes us smarter, focused, and unempathic for a reason: if it didn’t, then no leader could function properly, because of the huge stress leaders come under.

If they are guiding the fate of hundreds, thousands, or millions of people, they simply cannot afford to put themselves in the shoes of individuals most of the time.

Otherwise they would be paralyzed, because the big policy decisions leaders have to make inevitably hurt some people while helping others.”

“Real winners enjoy the benefits of power - the testosterone-fueled drive, smartness, creativity, and goal-focus - and enjoy influencing other people by dispensing resources that other people need and want.

They thrive on being able to have an impact, and they do not cripple themselves by believing their success to be due to inherited, unchangeable qualities - intuitively, winners know that the greatest obstacle to success can be self-handicapping beliefs.”

“Leaders with too much unfettered power will never be able to have the sort of insight that would lead them to recognize their troubled behavior - just as drug addicts at first, or in some cases for ever, lack insight into the terrible mess their lives have become.”