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March 12, 2006
The Evil Bookstore Conspiracy Against Us All: "Think and Grow Rich", "Fish!", "The Road Less Traveled", "Good To Great", "The 7 Habits of..."
I'm back East for 2 weeks in my real stomping grounds of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and DC, where the earth is starting to show signs of Spring: re-birth, renewal, energy, hope. And in the bookstores as usual there are writings on growing your business, self-improvement, and how to succeed at something--even if it's just Life Itself. The titles alone give you clues--about some key or "secret" that everyone knows but you. So everyone else reads them, gets rich and buys a second home in Nantucket next to Jack Welch's, marries a modern-day Julie Andrews or Alan Alda, has fine, healthy kids headed for Dartmouth, MIT or Tufts, and then they all do a victory lap around you by appearing on CNN with Larry King. You, however, just keep worrying that your retirement funds will somehow vaporize, that your eldest son's resume reads too much like a police blotter, that your best clients will leave you tomorrow morning and that you will peak in life when you get a guest shot on "Small Business Horizons" on the local PBS channel.
Meanwhile, there's all these, well, "titles", programs and signposts: Dale Carnegie's "How to Make Friends and Influence People", Napolean Hill's "Think and Grow Rich", great stuff by Norman Vincent Peale, Deming's 14 points, "Fish!", "What Clients Love", "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", "The Road Less Traveled", John 14:17, The Upanishads, The Prophet, "Who Victimized My Cheese?" and "The 7 Common Sense Habits of Highly Thought-Of People Who Know Things You Don't and You Better Read This or You Will Fail".
But, seriously, I know what they all mean now. Two things:
(1) It is ALL inside you right now, and
(2) If you visualize it, plan it and work for it, you get it.
Period. So if you don't think you are successful right this minute-- in your worst or best moment--you may never be. The way you think and feel is everything and indeed must be made into a habit. Make it a good one.
Posted by JD Hull at March 12, 2006 09:09 AM
Comments
the way you think and feel is everything . . ., unless you understand the economic rules of "path dependence"
Path dependence is the dependence of economic outcomes on the path of previous outcomes, rather than simply on current conditions. In a path dependent process, "history matters" -- it has an enduring influence. Choices made on the basis of transitory conditions can persist long after those conditions change. Thus, explanations of the outcomes of path-dependent processes require looking at history, rather than simply at current conditions of technology, preferences, and other factors that determine outcomes.
http://www.eh.net/encyclopedia/article/puffert.path.dependence
Add in a healthly measure of a lack of self-confidence and you have most lawyers, today.
Posted by: Moe Levine at March 12, 2006 09:48 AM