Nathan Cleary puts every success down to his past failures.
And every bit of praise? He keeps in mind criticism from the early stages of his career.
"You've got to (maintain) that equilibrium," Cleary said.
"What you believe in yourself, and then what you believe of the opinions of those close to you."
Cleary can on Sunday become the first halfback since Peter Sterling in 1983 to win three premierships by the age of 26.
Victory over Brisbane will also take him past Andrew Johns and Johnathan Thurston for grand final wins.
Cleary looks certain to finish his career among the greats.
Of halfbacks to have played more than 100 NRL matches, only Cooper Cronk, Arthur Halloway and Bobby Bugden sit above his 70.5 per cent win record.
But it hasn't all been plain sailing.
"People were complimenting me when I first came in ... but then it flips pretty quickly," Cleary said.
"A lot of the time when you get compliments, it's so people can build you up just to drag you back down."
A debutant at 18, Cleary's first great showing was conjuring a comeback win over Manly at Brookvale in only his second game.
In his second season he became the youngest player since 1913 to top the NRL's point-scoring charts and debuted in State of Origin before his 21st birthday.
But there are failings Cleary often draws on to fuel his performances.
The most obvious scrutiny came in 2019, when his father Ivan arrived at Penrith.
The Panthers went 2-8 to start the season, and Cleary's spot in the NSW team came under fire after he went his first four State of Origin games without a try or a line-break assist.
"My experiences from a young age have helped me, particularly my failures," Cleary said.
"I've been lucky enough to experience that at a young age and learn ways to deal with it and (the) outside noise - which is probably something I didn't handle the best early in my career.
"The majority of time, criticism is warranted, but I'm also critical of myself. I'm trying to assess my own game and grow from that.
"I don't think there's a successful person that hasn't gone through some failures and learned from them."
Cleary is a different player now to back then.
While his output was built on game management in the early years, he is happy to concede his strength was not in providing try scoring opportunities for others.
In the four years since 2020, he has set up close to 100 tries for Penrith while maintaining the kicking game that made him the NRL's most clinical half.
"You've got to keep growing. If you stay the same then people work you out pretty quickly," Cleary said.
"That's an important thing to do, but it's a journey.
"You've got to adapt to the game. Even from last year to this year the game style has changed with what's working and what's not.
"Confidence has played a big part for me over the past three years.
"I've been willing to try things and trust what I'm seeing. That's been the biggest development of my game."
