My grandfather was quick with advice, but it’s a poem about self belief that stayed with me | Josh Nicholas

My grandfather was a prolific collector of aphorisms and inspirational quotes. “Failing to plan is planning to fail” is tattooed on the brains of my entire family, he said it so much. But it was one poem (of the many) he often recited about self-belief that has really stayed with me.

If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don’t
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t
It is almost a cinch you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’ve lost
For out in this world we find
Success begins with a fellow’s will
It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you’re outclassed, you are
You’ve got to think high to rise
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win that prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the one who thinks he can.

You could interpret it many ways, not all of them great: That you need to “fake it ‘til you make it”, for instance, or that self-belief is all you need to succeed. My grandfather wouldn’t have advocated either of these ideas.

He was more concerned with preparing us so that no matter the situation we’re faced with, we wouldn’t defeat ourselves. Your strengths (and weaknesses) are irrelevant if you’ve already lost in your mind.

My grandfather grew up in a small town called Balapitiya, outside Colombo in Sri Lanka. His father was a qazi (Muslim judge), owned a shop and had one of the few cars around. My grandfather got to study in English and he always talked about the big library they had at school, where he probably discovered many of the quotes he subsequently bombarded us with.

But by the time he finished school his father was broke: with little more than his parent’s blessing, he had to find his own way. He managed to book passage on a ship to England to study.

I’ve always found inspiration in what my grandfather was able to accomplish when he returned. He became one of the first Sri Lankan directors at one of the country’s largest British companies, built one of the first beach hotels and was awarded a Deshamanya, one of the highest civil honours.

In large part due to my grandfather, I grew up with a lot more privilege; but the poem became vital when I had a bad seizure in my final year of university. I subsequently discovered I had a brain tumour, and a combination of surgery and medication ruined my memory.

That final year at uni stretched into several more years. Most of my friends graduated and moved on. Meanwhile, my memory was so bad I had to be picked up from random train stations a few times when I’d forgotten where I was going or what I was doing.

I started keeping a journal to try to remember. I wrote down everything I read, did and thought. I started each book by copying out the poem on the front page. I went through so many journals it got to a point I could recite the poem even though I often couldn’t tell you what I’d done that day.

It became a refuge when I was down over how much time I’d lost, how much I couldn’t do any more. That last line became a mantra: sooner or later the man who wins is the one who thinks he can.