"Winners and Losers" Each human being is born as something new, something that never existed before. He is born with what he needs to win at life. Each person in his own way can see, hear, touch, taste, and think for himself. Each has his own unique potentials -- his capabilities and limitations. Each can be a significant, thinking, aware, and creatively productive person in his own right – a winner. The words "winner" and "loser" have many meanings. When we refer to a person as a winner, we do not mean one who beats the other guy by winning over him and making him lose. To us. a winner is one who responds authentically by being credible, trustworthy, responsive, and genuine, both as an individual and as a member of a society. A loser is one who fails to respond authentically. Martin Buber expresses this idea as he retells an old story of a rabbi who on his death bed sees himself as a loser. The rabbi laments that, in the world to come, he will not be asked why he wasn't Moses; he will be asked why he wasn't himself. Few people are one hundred percent winners or one hundred percent losers. It's a matter of degree. However, once a person is on the road to being a winner, his chances are greater for becoming even more so. This book is intended to facilitate the journey.
"Winners" Winners have different potentials. Achievement is not the most important thing. Authenticity is. The authentic person experiences the reality of himself by knowing himself, being himself, and becoming a credible, responsive person. He actualizes his own unprecedented uniqueness and appreciates the uniqueness of others. (The common pronoun "he" refers to persons of either sex except when "she" is definitely applicable.) A winner is not afraid to do his own thinking and to use his own knowledge. He can separate facts from opinion and doesn't pretend to have all the answers. He listens to others, evaluates what they say, but comes to his own conclusions.