How to Win (100 Cheat Codes for Life)

The 100 cheat codes for winning at life boil down to five habits: upgrade your environment and people, take full responsibility, play long-term games, build wealth through ownership and tools, and protect your peace. They are lessons we collected over more than a decade, written down so you can save this page and come back to it. Here is how the 100 are grouped.

The 100 cheat codes at a glance

Theme	Codes	Core idea
Environment and people	1 to 12	Upgrade the soil, not the seed
Purpose and goals	13 to 24	Write the goal, grow
Persistence and long-term thinking	25 to 36	Decades, not days
Money, work and tools	37 to 48	Consistency and tools
Relationships and loyalty	49 to 60	Judge by actions
Wealth, taxes and emotions	61 to 72	Own, stay calm
Mindset and growth	73 to 84	Apply, do not store
Peace, freedom and gratitude	85 to 96	Time is freedom
Final cheat codes	97 to 100	Enjoy the process

Prefer video? Watch the video version below.

Environment and people: codes 1 to 12

1. Where you live may be the most important decision you make. It shapes your beliefs, friends, values, work and often who you marry.
2. Take care of the soil, not the seed. Upgrade your environment, because your environment upgrades you.
3. A flower does not chase the bee. It flourishes and the bee comes.
4. You do not have to fight for true love or true friends. Both come naturally. Stop chasing butterflies and plant a garden.
5. You are the average of the five people you spend most time with, so choose them carefully. You cannot change the people around you, but you can change the people around you.
6. You only need one or two real friends, not many.
7. Stop taking advice from people less successful than you, unless you are listening to learn what not to do.
8. Try never to be the smartest person in the room.
9. A sinking ship can save no one. If you want to live a life that matters, start with yourself.
10. Stop pointing fingers and take the blame for everything in your life. That moves the responsibility to you, and now you can get better.
11. Be brutally honest with yourself, and try with others. Every lie incurs a debt to the truth.
12. Your life is boring because you are boring. Nobody is coming to save you, so save yourself.

Purpose and goals: codes 13 to 24

13. Solve boredom with curiosity. Find a way to monetize what you cannot wait to do in your spare time, and the world becomes your playground.
14. If you lack purpose, remember that the purpose is to grow. Growth lets you understand, see, enjoy and explore more.
15. Take care of yourself first, then your inner circle, then your local community. Now you have a purpose; go execute it.
16. Define a big goal, make it explicit and write it down in detail. It is your north star. Studies often cited in goal-setting research suggest that people who write down goals are more likely to achieve them.
17. Stay in your lane. You are not competing with others; you are competing with poverty and who you were yesterday. Seek progress, not perfection.
18. The worst position is no time and no money. If you have time, you can trade it for money; once you have money, you can trade it for time. Learn this arbitrage.
19. Better beats more beats new. Shiny objects are traps that make you stop what you are doing.
20. There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. Do what you do and keep getting better. Mastery takes years of deliberate practice.
21. The only free cheese is in the mousetrap.
22. Success boils down to doing the obvious thing for uncommonly long periods of time.
23. Be careful of unearned money or knowledge, as there is usually a price. The lottery is a tax on people who cannot do math.
24. Every day do one thing that gets you closer to your big goal. Boats are safe in the harbor, but that is not what boats are for.

Persistence and long-term thinking: codes 25 to 36

25. Do not quit. Everyone who won simply did not give up. Problems are life’s way of checking whether you are ready to level up.
26. Work in the dark for your light to shine. The nights are long, but the years are short.
27. Measure in decades, not days. You are paid for your ability to see into the future: employees see a week ahead, managers a few months, and executives a few years.
28. If life is a simulation, self-confidence is a cheat code. People invest in those who present themselves well, so look after yourself: shower, dress well and groom.
29. Never assume the answer is no before you ask. Let them say no, and when they do, ask what would have made it a yes.
30. Stop acting richer than you are. Flexing shows how much money you can afford to waste. Impress yourself instead.
31. Let them hate. Nobody throws stones at a tree without ripe fruit.
32. Stop expecting them to see what you see or to act as you would. When you talk growth with people who do not want to grow, it sounds like bragging.
33. Accept people as they are, but place them where they belong.
34. Others see your decisions, not your choices, and your outcomes, not your effort.
35. Chase experiences rather than escape from reality. Be careful with anything that can cause addiction or long-term damage.
36. The only real test of intelligence is whether you get what you want out of life. If you are so smart, why aren’t you rich or happy? Figure it out.

Money, work and tools: codes 37 to 48

37. Once the work is done and the lesson learned, trust that the money will follow. Markets do not determine how hard you work, so if you outwork them you can outearn them.
38. Learn to multiply your effort: tools, technology and, in 2026, AI tools that can speed up research, writing, coding and planning. Your life is cheap because you think investing in yourself is expensive.
39. Use money to hire others for boring repetitive tasks. The hard part is not the work, it is bringing in revenue. Never do what others can do for you.
40. Start early. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best is today.
41. You do not win by being better; you win by doing what others do not consider valuable. You already know what you should be doing.
42. Great is just good repeated. Consistency beats talent when talent is not consistent.
43. Choose between two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.
44. Stress is the gap between reality and expectations. Either bring reality up to your expectations or expectations down to your reality.
45. Direction is more important than speed. Find a good enough idea and work hard on it.
46. It does not get easier, you just get better. Do it every day and the results will hook you.
47. Good enough now is better than perfect never. Move, then adjust based on what you learn.
48. Between 1% and 2% the difference is 100%. Small daily choices compound into who you become.

Relationships and loyalty: codes 49 to 60

49. Once you get burnt, do not put your hand back in the fire. The lesson will repeat itself until you learn it.
50. The price for making everyone happy is making yourself miserable.
51. People want you to do well, but not better than them. Pay attention to who does not clap when you win.
52. Beware those who only show up when you cut the cake.
53. If someone talks about others behind their backs, they will talk about you too.
54. Judge people by what they do, not what they say.
55. An insincere apology is a second insult.
56. Smart people treat life as a strategy game. Mediocre people sit back as if it were a movie.
57. Reality is negotiable. Anything anyone has done proves it is possible if you gather the ingredients and follow the recipe.
58. Truth is, few people get rich by being employed. You get rich by owning something that increases greatly in value. They say it takes money to make money so you will not quit your job.
59. Some of you are not broke, you are pre-rich. Money does not buy happiness, but it repels unhappiness.
60. You get rich by taking large risks with small amounts of money. You stay rich by taking small risks with large amounts.

Wealth, taxes and emotions: codes 61 to 72

61. You make yourself rich by selling. You make yourself wealthy by not having to sell. These are two different mindsets.
62. Pay all your taxes and make your money in the light. It has never been easier to make a lot legally.
63. Avoid emotional altercations. Nobody remembers a situation where losing their temper helped. Getting out of a conflict at a loss is often cheaper.
64. When emotions go up, decision quality goes down.
65. Once words are spoken, they are no longer only yours. People may forgive you but never forget how you made them feel.
66. Learn to be where your feet are. Most people live in the past or the future and miss the present.
67. Do not be a slave to the person you used to be. Forgive your past and move on. It takes a strong person to admit they need help, and professional support can help.
68. Do not die with the music still in you. Find your gift and learn to monetize it. Most decisions can be reversed; regrets cannot.
69. Find your voice. Nobody can beat you at being you. Undifferentiated products compete only on price, which is a race to the bottom.
70. Be courageous. The trip starts when you take the first step, not when you think about it.
71. It is never the first mistake that ruins you, it is the series that follows. Be honest about where you stand.
72. There is no such thing as your truth. Truth is reality; what you have is your perspective on it.

Mindset and growth: codes 73 to 84

73. To avoid repeating a mistake, base decisions on your past experience rather than your current emotions.
74. You do not expand by becoming someone else; you expand by becoming more of yourself.
75. The greater the monster, the greater the hero. New levels bring new devils.
76. The cost of public failure is the ticket to the life you want. The fear of embarrassment holds many people at average. You can be your greatest obstacle or your biggest fan.
77. If you do not build your own dream, someone will hire you to build theirs.
78. Being busy is not a flex. It often means you do not control your life. Do not confuse busy with productive.
79. Stop opening new tabs in your mind. Your brain is for generating ideas, not storing them.
80. Anything you can do for a limited time that has lifelong returns, do it.
81. You do not need more advice, you need to finish your to-do list. Finish the books you bought before buying more.
82. Learn from the past and you will seem like a genius of the present. Knowledge is useless unless applied: you cannot read about push-ups and build muscle.
83. Use knowledge as soon as you get it. Its value decreases with the number of people who hold it.
84. If you feel undervalued, change location, because location changes value. A bottle of water costs $0.50 in a supermarket, $2 in a restaurant and $5 on a plane.

Peace, freedom and gratitude: codes 85 to 96

85. You are not undervalued, you may just be in the wrong place. Sometimes the lifestyle you want is not available in your region.
86. Feeling stupid is a signal that you just got smarter. Do not believe everything you feel.
87. Too many options stop you from acting. When you know what to do, knowing when to do it becomes the hard part.
88. The world you were born into no longer exists, so open your mind for the future. Planning ahead beats staying the course.
89. Be an intellectual athlete. End-to-end thinking is a superpower.
90. Doing what you want is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.
91. Be careful whom you follow. Put a clown on a throne and the kingdom becomes a circus.
92. Do not mistake an expensive lifestyle for a happy life. It is okay for others to have more than you, as long as you have more than enough.
93. Time does not heal everything; it piles up new memories and distractions.
94. Strive for peace more than happiness. Both come from freedom, and control over your time is the greatest measure of it.
95. If you died tomorrow, would you be proud of how you lived? Add more life to your years. Living every day as if it were your last is terrible productivity advice.
96. Life has seasons. Do not have a destination mindset: the one who loves the process goes further than the one who loves the result.

Final cheat codes: codes 97 to 100

97. You win at life when you enjoy the passing of time. Pick the lifestyle you want and build a business that supports it.
98. Sometimes more money is too expensive. If it costs your peace of mind or your sleep, you do not need it.
99. The reward is better when you earn it. There is beauty in the struggle.
100. The goal is to no longer have any goals. Decide that you have already won. What you are playing for are bonus points, and gratitude replaces the misery of not having more.

Bonus: what should you do next?

You are probably smart enough to know what needs to be done. What you need is six months of focused, productive routine, where every morning, before anything else, you chip away at your dream. Write one page a day. Write one block of code. Get it done consistently. Make a promise that for the next six months not a day goes by without progress on your goal, and come back to this page often. For daily practice, try the Alux app.

Question: which of the 100 sparked an aha moment for you? Tell us in the comments.

Keep reading

• 15 rules to win at life, part 1: a shorter set of rules to start with
• 15 rules of success: the principles behind many of these codes
• 10 signs you’re winning at life: a way to check your progress

FAQ

What does winning at life mean?

In this list it means freedom over your time, enough money, healthy relationships and the peace to enjoy the process.

What is the most important cheat code?

Many readers pick the first: where you live and who you spend time with shape your beliefs, work and values.

How do I use these 100 cheat codes?

Pick one or two, apply them for a week, then add more. Save the page and revisit it regularly.

Why does consistency matter more than talent?

Great is good repeated. Small daily actions compound, so consistency beats talent when talent is not consistent.

Should I avoid taking risks?

Take large risks with small amounts of money to get rich, and small risks with large amounts to stay rich.

How long should I focus to see change?

Six months of daily, focused work is often enough to change your trajectory.

Last updated: October 2026.