You Have To Be A Killer

As tradition requires, every new year, you wish people a happy new year and this year, 2026 wasn't any different but wishing my brothers a happy new year, I sent them two screenshots. The first from "Succession," where Logan Roy said you have to be a killer. The second from "Silicon Valley," where Gavin Belson says he doesn't want to live in a world where someone else makes the world a better place better than they do. And that leads me to my theme for the year: You have to be a killer.

In Succession's Season 2 finale, "This Is Not for Tears," Logan tells his son Kendall those exact words. "You're not a killer. You have to be a killer." He's trying to convince Kendall to be the blood sacrifice, to take the fall for the company's scandals. It's manipulation, pure and simple. But the line itself, stripped of Logan's toxicity, holds truth.

In Silicon Valley's "Sand Hill Shuffle," Gavin Belson delivers his line to a room full of executives at Hooli. It's meant to be absurd, a parody of Silicon Valley ego. But strip away the comedy and you're left with something real. The refusal to be second. The unwillingness to watch someone else win while you stand still.

There's something about that word that makes people uncomfortable. Killer. It sounds violent, aggressive, wrong even. But I'm not talking about literal violence. I'm talking about the kind of ruthlessness you need to cut through the noise of your own excuses.

My brothers got it immediately. No long explanation needed. Just those two screenshots and they knew exactly what I meant. The killer instinct paired with the refusal to be outworked. Because we've all been there, standing at the edge of something we want, knowing exactly what needs to be done, and still we hesitate. We soften. We tell ourselves maybe tomorrow, maybe when things are better, maybe when I'm more ready (you won't ever be ready).

Both screenshots come from shows about power and ambition. One from corporate succession, the other from tech empire building. Both featuring men who say absurd things, men you wouldn't want to be. But both capturing something true about what it takes to win. You can reject their methods, their cruelty, their manipulation. But you can't reject the core insight: if you want something badly enough, you have to be willing to be the one who goes furthest.

Logan Roy was a bastard in that show. Let's be clear about that. But he understood something fundamental about achievement. He understood that the world doesn't care about your intentions. It doesn't care about how hard you tried or how much you wanted it. The world responds to action, to decision, to the willingness to do what's necessary when everyone else is still deliberating.

I've been a killer from birth. Literally. I killed millions of sperms just to be here (same as all of you 😉). That's the first competition you win, the one you don't even remember. Out of millions, you made it. The killer instinct isn't something you learn, it's something you remember.

But somewhere along the way, society teaches you to forget. Be nice. Be considerate. Don't be too aggressive. Don't want things too badly. And you listen because you're young and you think the adults know something you don't. You soften yourself, round off your edges, learn to apologize for taking up space.

The shift back happens when you remember what you already knew. When you stop pretending that being accommodating is the same as being wise. When you realize that every moment you spend waiting for permission is a moment someone else is moving.

Being a killer doesn't mean being cruel. It means being clear. It means when you decide something matters, you don't let your own psychology talk you out of it three days later. It means you stop treating your goals like suggestions and start treating them like obligations.

I watch people all the time, talented people, gifted people, people with every advantage, and they never become what they could be. Not because they lack ability. Because they lack that killer instinct. They treat their dreams like hobbies. They give themselves permission to quit when things get hard. They let other people's comfort determine their trajectory.

The killer wakes up when they don't feel like it. The killer has the difficult conversation. The killer cuts off the dead weight, even when the dead weight has feelings. The killer doesn't wait for motivation to arrive like some divine visitation. The killer moves.

And here's what nobody tells you about being a killer: it's lonely at first. People who were comfortable with the old you don't recognize this new version. They preferred you uncertain, asking their opinion on decisions that were always yours to make. Your transformation makes them uncomfortable because it shows them what they're not doing with their own lives.

But then something interesting happens. You start attracting different people. People who are also moving, also building, also refusing to apologize for their ambition. And those relationships are different. Built on mutual respect rather than mutual comfort. Built on what you're creating rather than what you're avoiding.

My brothers understood the screenshots because we've all made this choice in different ways. The Logan Roy part, we get it. We've all had to kill some version of ourselves that was too soft, too accommodating, too willing to let life happen to us instead of making it happen. The Gavin Belson part, we get that too. We've all refused to sit back and watch someone else build what we should be building, achieve what we should be achieving, become what we should be becoming.

You have to be a killer. Not of other people. Of your own excuses. Of your own comfort. Of the voice in your head that sounds so reasonable when it tells you to wait, to reconsider, to play it safe just this once.

This year, 2026, won't be different because the calendar changed. It'll be different because you decide to be different. Because you stop negotiating with yourself. Because you become the kind of person who, when they say something will be done, it gets done. Period.

That's what Logan Roy understood. That's what every person who's ever built something significant understood. Not that you have to be ruthless with others, but that you have to be absolutely uncompromising with yourself.

So yes, you have to be a killer. The only question is what you're going to kill: your excuses or your potential.

Choose wisely and best of the year!