Help Yourself to Writing Success
“I had no idea we were surrounded by so many birds until I started looking out the window.” My photographer wife said this to me the other day and I immediately thought, there’s an article, or a life lesson, in there somewhere.
Opportunities can be around us all of the time but we don’t see them because we weren’t specifically looking for them.
I once spoke to a New York publisher who said the world didn’t need more self-help books. Clearly the sentiment is not true but I do understand it is harder to get them published these days, unless you’re a doctor, psychologist, or a celebrity. And even then…
I hear that Arnold Schwarzenegger is having trouble promoting his latest self-help book because he’s old school. He believes in self-determination, making something of yourself. This astonishing guy worked his ass off to get what he got. From bodybuilding to learning English to schmoozing with Hollywood producers and politicians.
Arnie’s whole life is an advert for successful self-help. And yet because the newly woke claim it’s unfair to say you are responsible for your own destiny, he can’t advertise his book properly. He has to maintain his message is about helping others, being of service, which I suppose in a round about way, it is. But primarily his book acts as a warning that if you’re not excited by your life, it’s likely because you haven’t taken responsibility for your own actions. You’re just hanging on in quiet desperation.
At least it’s now politically correct to do that.
But is a life of unfulfilled dreams what you want?
Funny world we live in. It’s become wrong to say that we have the innate ability to change our lives. Self-help has become tainted by the “woke” generation who say you can’t tell people that focus and hard work is the answer because success is apparently not possible for everyone.
Okay, I accept that some will never make something of themselves because they’re disadvantaged. But is it wrong to encourage the rest of us to make better decisions?
The self-help genre certainly helped me. Reading motivational books in the past helped me understand that failure, a life of drab acceptance, was a choice. That losing touch with our dreams and our potential was often the result of bad decision-making.
Without self-help books I would never have started my own business or written my books and courses. Or discovered that helping people achieve their dreams is the best thing I could have done with my life. Self-help books and their authors taught me so much about myself. I would never have been the person I am today without the lessons I learned from the greatest motivators of the 20th Century.
People like Anthony Robbins, Napoleon Hill, Susan Jeffers, Wayne Dyer, Joe Vitale. These people inspired the heck out of me. Now - allegedly - they’re close to cancellation for making people feel insecure, giving false hope, because reality does not reward the majority.
So what?
Does that mean we shouldn’t at least try to better ourselves?
Why does modern PC politics want to make us all the same? Isn’t that Communism? What happened to self-improvement? Ambition? Dreaming? Wishing? Hoping?
They say it’s unfair to make people aspire to goals that will never happen to them. That’s realism they say. But isn’t that the point? You can often only achieve your dreams if you are unrealistic. All great artists and inventors and visionaries are unrealistic. That’s how they achieve their extraordinary results.
Sure, not everyone can be Arnie but at least he’s providing a road-map if we wanted one. Surely not everyone thinks that super-success is impossible.
What would be the point to a world where everyone wanted to be average?
Some people see different things when they look out of the window. Especially when they’re shown there are different things out there. Better ways of running your life, of interacting with people, of showing compassion, working together to create superior futures.
Artists, creators, and entrepreneurs tend to want to change the world, improve on it, and that’s a good thing, right? The fact is self-help gurus never say that everyone can change, that every single person on Earth can be successful. No, they only ever try to appeal to the minority who want to improve themselves, those who demand more from themselves. Plus, in a sense, you might argue that most self-help writers are actually just writing for themselves. I think in publishing, this phenomenon is a given.
Let’s face it. The people we look up to never accept ordinary - and we know it.
Focus, hard work, and making your own luck really are the secrets to success.
Actors know it. Musicians know it. Even plumbers know it.
I have my own simple success motto:
Always keep your promises, especially the one you make to yourself.
That’s it. Easy to remember too.
Author success is about writing, publishing, marketing, filling your hours with creative activity, focused on the main goal, and not stopping until you’re there, wherever you want to be.
And if by chance you don’t make it, at least you had a bloody good go.
That’s surely what matters.
After all, we only ever regret the things we didn’t do.
Keep Writing!
Rob Parnell’s Writing Academy
I once spoke to a New York publisher who said the world didn’t need more self-help books. Clearly the sentiment is not true but I do understand it is harder to get them published these days, unless you’re a doctor, psychologist, or a celebrity. And even then…
I hear that Arnold Schwarzenegger is having trouble promoting his latest self-help book because he’s old school. He believes in self-determination, making something of yourself. This astonishing guy worked his ass off to get what he got. From bodybuilding to learning English to schmoozing with Hollywood producers and politicians.
Arnie’s whole life is an advert for successful self-help. And yet because the newly woke claim it’s unfair to say you are responsible for your own destiny, he can’t advertise his book properly. He has to maintain his message is about helping others, being of service, which I suppose in a round about way, it is. But primarily his book acts as a warning that if you’re not excited by your life, it’s likely because you haven’t taken responsibility for your own actions. You’re just hanging on in quiet desperation.
At least it’s now politically correct to do that.
But is a life of unfulfilled dreams what you want?
Funny world we live in. It’s become wrong to say that we have the innate ability to change our lives. Self-help has become tainted by the “woke” generation who say you can’t tell people that focus and hard work is the answer because success is apparently not possible for everyone.
Okay, I accept that some will never make something of themselves because they’re disadvantaged. But is it wrong to encourage the rest of us to make better decisions?
The self-help genre certainly helped me. Reading motivational books in the past helped me understand that failure, a life of drab acceptance, was a choice. That losing touch with our dreams and our potential was often the result of bad decision-making.
Without self-help books I would never have started my own business or written my books and courses. Or discovered that helping people achieve their dreams is the best thing I could have done with my life. Self-help books and their authors taught me so much about myself. I would never have been the person I am today without the lessons I learned from the greatest motivators of the 20th Century.
People like Anthony Robbins, Napoleon Hill, Susan Jeffers, Wayne Dyer, Joe Vitale. These people inspired the heck out of me. Now - allegedly - they’re close to cancellation for making people feel insecure, giving false hope, because reality does not reward the majority.
So what?
Does that mean we shouldn’t at least try to better ourselves?
Why does modern PC politics want to make us all the same? Isn’t that Communism? What happened to self-improvement? Ambition? Dreaming? Wishing? Hoping?
They say it’s unfair to make people aspire to goals that will never happen to them. That’s realism they say. But isn’t that the point? You can often only achieve your dreams if you are unrealistic. All great artists and inventors and visionaries are unrealistic. That’s how they achieve their extraordinary results.
Sure, not everyone can be Arnie but at least he’s providing a road-map if we wanted one. Surely not everyone thinks that super-success is impossible.
What would be the point to a world where everyone wanted to be average?
Some people see different things when they look out of the window. Especially when they’re shown there are different things out there. Better ways of running your life, of interacting with people, of showing compassion, working together to create superior futures.
Artists, creators, and entrepreneurs tend to want to change the world, improve on it, and that’s a good thing, right? The fact is self-help gurus never say that everyone can change, that every single person on Earth can be successful. No, they only ever try to appeal to the minority who want to improve themselves, those who demand more from themselves. Plus, in a sense, you might argue that most self-help writers are actually just writing for themselves. I think in publishing, this phenomenon is a given.
Let’s face it. The people we look up to never accept ordinary - and we know it.
Focus, hard work, and making your own luck really are the secrets to success.
Actors know it. Musicians know it. Even plumbers know it.
I have my own simple success motto:
Always keep your promises, especially the one you make to yourself.
That’s it. Easy to remember too.
Author success is about writing, publishing, marketing, filling your hours with creative activity, focused on the main goal, and not stopping until you’re there, wherever you want to be.
And if by chance you don’t make it, at least you had a bloody good go.
That’s surely what matters.
After all, we only ever regret the things we didn’t do.
Keep Writing!
Rob Parnell’s Writing Academy
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