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If you develop a self-help bug while in an airport, you’re in luck: they’re everywhere. All airport bookstores are like bestseller lists reified, and if you close your eyes and just grab, you’re likely to make contact with a book on how to succeed.
No one is going to give you any grief for indulging in one, either–the assumption is that you’re out to kill time, and more “pedestrian” activities are suddenly forgivable: you can read Teen Vogue cover to cover, go back for seconds at McDonald’s, and prop a self-help book in front of your face while popping Junior Mints because that’s just the way we get by. Don’t get me wrong–I’m actually a giant fan of the self-help genre, and even love reading it in public for the reaction (this is probably a DSM entry, I know), a la my public consumption of Codependent No More at Chili’s.
Five years ago, I was flipping through an Esquire when I stopped at this prescription for success: “In order to succeed, you need an enemy and an arch rival.” I thought that sounded about right. At least more than the prognostication that those whose doodles featured upward-pointed triangles were likely to be high achievers. Are there any postulates about success you find yourself sharing for amusement–or following with sincerity?
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My prescription for success is simple: read Becky’s posts daily and you’re sure to come out on top.
posted by David on 9-5-2007 at 6:10 pm
Earl Nightingale said that “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.”
When I am _forced_ to play golf at outings with clients, I tell them (as well as remind myself) that, assuming that the goal of putting the ball in the hole is a worthy one, then any shot (no matter how badly duffed) that gets the ball closer to the hole is a successful shot.
Sometimes it takes a lot of little successes to finish the hole, let alone the rest of the day…
Dave.
posted by DaveR on 9-5-2007 at 6:32 pm
That article was written by Chuck Klosterman, probably the greatest living pop culture writer today. Makes Rob Scheffield of Rolling Stone sound like a 3rd grader.
posted by Jared on 9-5-2007 at 6:40 pm
Only two:
Dress for the job you want, not the one you have. – my father
Everything you can imagine is real. – Pablo Picasso
Those two concepts have done right by me so far.
posted by Jack on 9-5-2007 at 10:19 pm
If you are pointy-haired, you’re most likely to end up as boss.
If you read quite often self-help books, you most probably need them.
posted by JJ on 9-6-2007 at 10:11 am
No one will ever know you’re an idiot if you don’t tell them.
posted by DW on 9-6-2007 at 10:14 am
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
-Sir Winston Churchill
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”
-Thomas Alva Edison
posted by Lindsey on 9-6-2007 at 12:45 pm
“Wherever you go, there you are.” – Unknown, although Mr. Brady says it in the Brady Bunch movie
“When you find a fork in the road, pick it up.” – Yogi Berra
“I won’t belong to any club that will have me.” – Groucho Marx
I work in the education department of a large company so I have to sit through these motivational speeches and read a lot of quotes meant to show me the light.
posted by Dusty on 9-6-2007 at 1:39 pm