A few days ago, I was browsing Amazon trying to find a new book to read. I was having a hard time finding anything that looked even remotely worth reading.
Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy (Yeah, no thanks.)
The Hunger Games (I’m not fourteen.)
JK Rowling’s new book (I’ll think I’ll pass because I can’t imagine her writing anything other than Harry Potter books.)
Then, I stumbled across page after page of self-help books. You know the ones I’m talking about. How to be more productive, make more money, easy ways to lose weight, and the list goes on and on.
Maybe the rise of self-help books is what’s wrong with our society today? We want everything now. We want to find the best “shortcut,” do the least amount of work possible and still reap the big rewards. So, author after author capitalizes on this, and writes about “how they made it.” They include a few summarized bullet points and usually a few vague examples.
Then, everyone flocks to buy these books, and devours the “wisdom.” Then, they follow the steps to a T, and ulitmately complain when it doesn’t turn into the get-rich quick scheme that they had been hoping for.
That’s the problem. There are NO GET-RICH SCHEMES or magical solutions, where you do the least amount of work possible and/or follow someone else’s guidebook.
It takes commitment, sacrifice, and long hours to get ahead and be successful. Reading one, two or a dozen self-help books won’t change that. The people, who “made it,” are the ones who put in countless hours and made a lot of sacrifices to get to that point.
So true. I found this to be the case when I started my blog. Before going “live”, I wanted to make sure I had everything setup appropriately and it was difficult to find useful information. A simple search like “Blog Tips” or “WordPress Tips” just take you to sites that promise 1,000 visitors a day in the first week or how to make a million dollars from your blog in six months. No doubt it works for some of these “authors”, but it’s purely the result of hard work and let’s be honest, a lot of luck.
I think this is exactly why there are now companies selling Twitter friends or web clicks. No one wants to work for anything anymore, they think it should just happen for them overnight.
@TechBarber You nailed it. Arguably, there is no such thing as an “overnight success.” Usually the harder you work, the “luckier” you get.
Absolutely correct! There is no short cut. One should learn from his/her own mistakes.