How to study successful people: 5 life-changing lessons from this week's best insights
Learning from winners isn't just about copying their strategies—it's about understanding whether you actually want the life that comes with their success.
Most success advice focuses on outcomes without examining the daily reality that creates them. We're told to "grind harder" and "push through the pain" without understanding what that actually looks like in practice.
There's a fundamental problem with this approach: it assumes all success is worth pursuing, regardless of the cost.
This week, five insights completely shifted how I think about success, decision-making, and daily productivity. These aren't your typical "wake up at 5 AM" tips. They're deeper principles that can transform how you choose your path forward.
🧠 Here's what studying winners really looks like—and why most people get it completely wrong.
The winner's paradox: when success looks like failure
Before diving into any competitive field, smart people study the top performers. Their win rates look impressive. Their bank accounts appear healthy. But what about their lifestyles?
Consider professional poker players. The top 1% earn substantial money, but many spend eight hours a day alone in casinos. No meaningful relationships outside the game. No hobbies. No life beyond cards and calculations.
This observation reveals a crucial principle: "Before you play the game, study the winners. If you don't want their life, don't play their game."
The pattern appears across industries:
→ Restaurant industry: Successful restaurant owners work 70-hour weeks, miss family dinners, and live in constant stress about razor-thin margins.
→ Investment banking: Top performers earn massive salaries but sacrifice weekends, relationships, and mental health for decades.
→ Startup founders: Many successful entrepreneurs spend years isolated, stressed, and emotionally drained before any breakthrough. “ask me about it”
→ Professional sports: Elite athletes dedicate their entire youth to training, often missing normal social development and educational opportunities.
This doesn't mean these paths are wrong. It means being honest about what you're signing up for.
The most common mistake is studying only the highlight reel. Social media shows the vacation photos, not the 60-hour work weeks that paid for them. LinkedIn celebrates the promotion, not the years of 6 AM meetings.
The ones worth emulating aren't necessarily the most "successful" on paper—they're the ones whose daily reality you actually envy.
Before committing to any path, spend time with people who've achieved what you want. Ask about their typical Tuesday, not their best achievement. Understand their regrets, not just their victories.
The morning and night decision framework
Here's the simplest decision-making tool you'll encounter: "Do what makes mornings exciting and nights peaceful."
Most decision-making advice focuses on ROI, opportunity cost, or logical analysis. But this approach cuts straight to what actually matters: how will this choice affect your daily emotional state?
The framework works by connecting logical decisions to emotional outcomes. You might rationalise a choice that looks good on paper, but your morning energy and evening peace are honest indicators of whether it's right for you.
Business decisions: Will taking this client make you excited to start work tomorrow? Will you sleep peacefully knowing you're building something aligned with your values?
Career moves: Will this role energise you for daily tasks? Can you maintain this pace without constant anxiety?
Daily choices: Will saying yes to this meeting energise you for the rest of the day? Will working late on this project leave you satisfied or anxious when you try to sleep?
Relationship decisions: Does spending time with this person make you look forward to future interactions? Do you feel calm and centred after being with them?
💡 This simple test eliminates more bad decisions than any complex framework.
The beauty isn't in its complexity—it's in its honesty. Most people ignore their emotional responses to decisions, focusing only on logical benefits. But emotional sustainability determines long-term success more than any spreadsheet analysis.
Try applying this framework to your last five major decisions. How many passed both tests? The correlation between framework alignment and satisfaction is usually striking.
The 3 PM energy cliff and state change strategy
Every professional knows the 3 PM slump. Energy crashes. Motivation disappears. Productivity plummets.
Most people fight through it with coffee, willpower, or guilt. But there's a smarter approach: designing an intentional state change routine.
Research shows that 3 PM represents a "biological breeding ground for depressive thoughts and low agency." Instead of pushing through low energy periods, successful people engineer deliberate breaks.
The key insight: you can't think your way out of a low energy state. You have to physically change your state.
Effective 3 PM routines include:
Physical movement:
20-30 minute walk outside
Quick gym session or bodyweight exercises
Stretching or yoga routine
Dancing to favourite music
Mental reset activities:
10-20 minute meditation
Reading fiction for 15 minutes
Creative activities like drawing or writing
Listening to podcasts or audiobooks
Social connection:
Quick call with a friend or family member
Coffee chat with a colleague
Brief video call with remote team members
Even texting someone you appreciate
Environment change:
Working from a different location
Rearranging your workspace
Changing lighting or background music
Moving to a café or outdoor space
The specific activity matters less than the intentional interruption of declining mental state. This approach can increase late-afternoon productivity by 40% or more. More importantly, it eliminates the afternoon anxiety spiral that can derail entire days.
The inflation reality check: tracking what actually matters
One fascinating observation was someone tracking inflation specifically on dry-aged rib eye steak—12% annual inflation, up 62% in five years.
Most people would dismiss this as absurd. But there's genius in tracking specific, meaningful indicators rather than abstract data that doesn't affect your life.
This principle applies beyond financial metrics. What you measure in your personal and professional life reveals what you actually value.
Most people track vanity metrics that don't correlate with satisfaction:
Social media followers instead of meaningful relationships
Income instead of financial security and freedom
Hours worked instead of meaningful impact created
Achievements unlocked instead of skills developed
Meaningful measurement requires specificity and personal relevance.
Consider tracking indicators that reflect your actual priorities:
Professional growth:
Problems solved rather than tasks completed
Skills developed rather than hours logged
Positive feedback received rather than emails sent
Creative ideas generated rather than meetings attended
Personal development:
Days feeling genuinely excited about work
Quality conversations with important people
New experiences or learning opportunities pursued
Moments of genuine contribution to others
Health and wellbeing:
Energy levels throughout the day
Sleep quality rather than just quantity
Stress management rather than stress avoidance
Physical activities that bring joy
The steak inflation tracker understands something crucial: meaningful measurement requires choosing indicators that actually affect your life, not what you think you should be measuring.
The compound effect of daily micro-decisions
These insights might seem disconnected, but they share a common thread: small, consistent choices compound into dramatically different life outcomes.
Studying winners before choosing your game saves years of misaligned effort.
Using the morning/night framework eliminates thousands of energy-draining decisions.
Managing your 3 PM energy state improves half your productive hours.
Tracking meaningful personal metrics keeps you aligned with your actual values.
The most successful people aren't just talented—they're intentional. They've figured out which games align with their desired lifestyle. They've developed frameworks for making decisions that serve their long-term wellbeing. They've engineered their days for sustained energy rather than short-term productivity sprints.
Most importantly, they've learned to measure what actually matters to them, not what looks impressive to others.
The path forward
The most successful people didn't accidentally stumble into their careers. They studied the winners, understood the true cost of success in their chosen field, and made conscious decisions about whether they wanted that specific life.
This isn't about finding the "perfect" path—it's about finding the path that aligns with your authentic priorities and energy patterns.
Success requires sacrifice. The question is whether you're willing to make the specific sacrifices required for your chosen definition of success.
Before you commit to any game, study not just the winners' achievements, but their daily reality. If you don't want their life, don't play their game.
➡️ Your future self will thank you for being honest about what you actually want, not what you think you should want.
Success without alignment is just expensive misery.