If you can\u2019t judge a book by its cover, I don\u2019t know how much mileage you\u2019ll get out of a mere title. But we\u2019ll do a quick drive-by anyway. Here\u2019s a title I spotted in a bookstore: \u201cWhat Would You Do If You Knew You Could Not Fail?\u201d<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t tell you anything about the contents since I just glanced at the cover as I hurried by. So the book, it stayed on the shelf. But the title, it leapt into my head.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still there. It is, after all, a great question.<\/p>\n
The problem with great questions is that they demand great answers. Well, I\u2019m all out of those, for the simple reason that I\u2019ve never had any of them to begin with. So let\u2019s make do with some mediocre answers tossed around at random.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll start here: Most of the people I\u2019ve known who accomplished impressive things didn\u2019t start out comfortable enough to have inactivity as an option.<\/p>\n
For them, the biggest failure would have been the failure to try something. So, since they had to go for something, they went for something big.<\/p>\n
A hallmark of our gilded age, by contrast, is sinking into so much comfort that there\u2019s never a need to take a big leap, or even a medium one. After all (and just to inflict yet another analogy on you) if we can afford a lifetime ticket as spectators it\u2019s sure a lot easier than getting bruised out on the playing field.<\/p>\n
But after the sun sets on that gig, and it does set on all of us, I think the players have a lot more to look back on than the watchers do.<\/p>\n
Of course, there\u2019s always a difference between taking reasonable risks on one hand and being impulsive and reckless on the other. That\u2019s one of those invisible disclaimers that is better heeded in advance than in arrears. Not everybody gets that memo, though, which is why the Grim Reaper likes working on commission.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat would you do if knew you could not fail?\u201d is a more effective way of asking, \u201cWhat do you really want out of life?\u201d With the first question, we can focus on what we\u2019d really like, instead of what we think we can settle for. That\u2019s a big difference.<\/p>\n
After all, it\u2019s pretty common for people to sell themselves short. And it\u2019s even more common for a swirling galaxy of finger-waggers and naysayers to convince you that you can\u2019t do, or shouldn\u2019t do, what you really want to do.<\/p>\n
On that latter note, I\u2019m glad that I never listed to any of the finger-waggers when I was a kid. If I had listened, I would never have gotten anything done. My band of pals was the same way. We would never eat poison, so why would we listen to it? What you let into your mind is just as important as what you let into your body.<\/p>\n
So, while my pals and I may not have had much, if any, sense, even we could discern what the sages of the East wrote 2,500 years ago: \u201cKnowers don\u2019t talk. Talkers don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m glad that we reckoned that one early, since things move so fast that there\u2019s no time to waste.<\/p>\n
Stepping back to the book angle, here\u2019s some information from Amazon.com: \u201cWhat Would You Do If You Knew You Could Not Fail?\u201d was written by Nina Lesowitz and Mary Beth Sammons, and in paperback the list price is $15.95. Though I didn\u2019t have time to look through the book, if you do take a look at it and want to share your observations, feel free to pass them along to me.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, I\u2019m going to get old school here and mention a book that is one of my longstanding favorites in this realm. Come to think of it, it\u2019s one of my favorites, period. This is \u201cSuccess Through a Positive Mental Attitude\u201d by Napoleon Hill (a writer) and W. Clement Stone (a business magnate). I\u2019m sure that many editions have been issued, and re-issued, over the decades, so instead of chasing that trail I\u2019ll just point to it. To the extent I\u2019ve ever managed to do anything right, this book was largely the reason.<\/p>\n
The book is within a few years\u2019 time of hitting the 60-year-old mark, and, though it might seem a bit dowdy by today\u2019s standards, it still enjoys quite a following.<\/p>\n
A positive mental attitude means working to make yourself better, not trying to pull the other guy down. It is, in other words, the opposite of the crab-bucket outlook, which is right up there with coconuts and typhoons as things that don\u2019t require explanation on Saipan.<\/p>\n
As for what I would do, well, I\u2019ve settled on having a cheeseburger today. I know I can\u2019t fail at that. Toss in some fries and there\u2019s no better way to end a Friday, and it\u2019s not a bad way to wrap up a column, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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