A few years ago I wrote a piece called Who Cares Wins.
Not “who dares wins”.
Who cares wins.
It was very well received by the 50,000 subscribers to this email.
The idea is simple: the people who care more, about their job, their craft, their clients, their team, their health, their family, their investing, usually win.
It’s why high performers often don’t need, or want, to set goals. They just do great things. Repeatedly.
The results often aren’t immediate. But over time, the edge compounds.
If you’ve ever watched the bodybuilding doco Pumping Iron, you’ll know it reveals insights from the earlier life of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It picks up the story long after the gap-toothed, oversized youth went from a bizarre and brutal family life in Austria to become one of the most famous people of all time.
From bodybuilder into, well, Terminator. Commando. Hercules. Kindergarten Cop. And so on.
In the doco, Arnold talks about how much he enjoyed being on stage, plus the confidence and the psychology of winning.
But the line that always stuck with me is his idea of what makes a champion.
“The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That’s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they’ll go through the pain no matter what happens.”
Not the first five reps. Everyone does those.
The difference is usually found in the last one or two. The ugly reps. The painful reps.
The reps where normal people rack the weight, grab their towel, and go home with an expensive protein shake, which, if you can understand some simple science, likely doesn’t work.
That’s the edge.
Eight-time Mr Olympia Ronnie Coleman had a version of this too. His whole career was basically: “That looks unreasonable. Let’s add more plates.”
Now, I’m not suggesting anyone should copy Ronnie Coleman’s training plan, unless they enjoy replacing joints like printer cartridges.
But there’s a lesson in there.
Greatness is rarely found in the obvious bit. It’s found in the extra bit.
The extra call.
The extra hour.
The extra care.
The extra question.
The extra focus.
The extra rep.
Do what others aren’t prepared to do, and you’ll zoom ahead.
Finding your lever
I’ve written to you many times about using leverage. Basically everyone needs to use leverage if they want to get ahead in this country. The current Government has made it so, so hard for anyone to get ahead financially.
But you should also know: I’ve never met one person who retired early and didn’t use some form of leverage.
For me, it’s the intersection of effort and leverage where things get interesting.
Archimedes is famously credited with saying: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”
That’s a beautiful investing idea.
A lever with some effort has a power-law result.
It’s best illustrated with an example. For the past 20 or 30 years, property was the almighty financial lever.
You could put down a deposit, borrow four or five times your deposit, buy a decent property, and let time, inflation, population growth and leverage do the heavy lifting.
Were all those investors geniuses? Hell no.
Many were sensible. But most were just lucky to be born here, and living at the time they were.
But nonetheless, the lever was enormous. A concentrated amount of input, the deposit, going to a few auctions, some basic paperwork, and so on, but a much bigger output than shares or ETFs alone.
Of course, property is not the same today, especially for younger people, following the Government’s most recent Budget proposals. This is why our financial advice is overflowing with property investors looking to sensibly move from property to shares, ETFs and super.
That old property lever still exists for some, but it is not what it was.
Prices are higher.
Debt is bigger.
Serviceability is harder.
Yields are lower.
New builds are sub-optimal investments.
Regulation is tighter.
And the idea that “just buy any house and wait” is not the cheat code it once was. The property protein shaker is empty.
So the question becomes: what is your lever now?
For some people, it’s their career.
They get very good at one thing, then use that skill to create more income, more freedom and more opportunities. Just be mindful of AI.
For others, it’s a business.
They build systems, hire good people, create intellectual property, earn trust, and slowly turn effort into scale.
For others, it’s investing.
They save consistently, avoid dumb mistakes, use time as their multiplier, and let compounding do what compounding does.
But here’s the part most people miss
Your best lever usually starts with what you care about. Your effort defines whether you benefit from it.
Arnold didn’t start bodybuilding because he had a spreadsheet showing the 30-year internal rate of return on biceps. He wasn’t yodelling in the Alps looking for levers. He felt it.
He cared about something. Obsessively.
That obsession became his edge only thanks to his effort. There were plenty of good bodybuilders in the 1960s and 1970s.
Then he leveraged it again into business, property, Hollywood, politics and global fame. He started bodybuilding at 14 and was a millionaire by 25, which is equivalent to a US$7,547,815 net worth today, by the way.
Most people do the opposite.
They look for the lever before they find the care.
They chase the hot thing.
Property. Crypto. AI. Small caps. ETFs. Side hustles.
Whatever the internet is yelling about this week.
But here’s the rub: if you don’t care, you won’t stay long enough to be great.
And if you don’t become great, you won’t ever use the lever properly.
So here’s the practical bit for this week.
Ask yourself three questions
That lever might be extra study because you like reading.
It might be a promotion because you like being ambitious.
It might be starting a business. We have a free Business 101 course.
It might be buying shares every month because you love studying investing legends. Hint: start with our free Value Investor Program.
It might be creating content.
It might be cooking.
Start with what you like or love, since the effort comes naturally. Then narrow it down and ask yourself how you can benefit most from it, to build a lever.
The truth is, being good is fine.
Good pays the bills. Most people are good.
Great changes the trajectory.
And the difference between good and great is often not talent. It’s not luck. It’s not what you think you know. It’s not even IQ.
It’s care, applied consistently, with the right lever.
That’s the extra rep that makes you great.
Onward & upward,
Owen Rask
