Good ways to hamstring yourself

Continuing with my current theme of trying to be helpful, here are some things that you should not do, if you want to be “successful”. How we define success is important. To me, “success” means “making a significant contribution”. To others, it might mean “scraping up some bits after wrecking something”. For this article I will focus on my own definition.

1. You can’t make a successful business by pretending that it’s successful. Example: you tell everybody that your business is already popular, when it isn’t … and then you expect your desired reality to follow the artifice. This type of thing doesn’t work. I expect you’ve discovered that by now.
2. Lying about the value of your business doesn’t work. You can’t create something just by saying that it’s so. This is a psychotic view of reality. What’s in your own mind doesn’t translate into actual facts. So be careful of that.
3. Eliminating truthful criticism of what you’re doing, by blocking your ears or shutting them down, doesn’t render what you’re doing as something better than it is. Pretending that nobody has said anything critical, doesn’t actually erase the criticism. Again — there is a reality which is external to what’s in your head. Try to keep this in mind.
4. Working backwards from your imagined version of reality isn’t a good strategy. In other words, let’s say that you imagine a different version of a modern city, one in which you are a wealthy mastermind of a new technology. You then put information out there that this is new reality is definitely going to happen, with the expectation that simply by saying it, you can make it so. Trouble is, you skipped over the entire process of what’s involved in actually making this scenario happen. This is like trying to do a magical spell. Magic is not a good business plan however.
5. Manipulating statistics and data to make it SEEM like your business plan is working, doesn’t actually create this reality. It takes more than your wishes and your lies to come true. Doing this type of thing demonstrates that you have a toddler’s view of reality, one in which you’re the centre of the universe and everybody else just revolves around you. Newsflash: other people are the centre of their own universes, and maybe they just think you’re a goof. If you keep relegating other people to the sidelines, you’ll never know.
6. You being a very smart person is not enough — no matter what your Mom said. Your have to actually touch in to what other people want, rather than pretending that they want the same thing that you do. Time to grow up.

I apologize if the above comes across as arrogant to you. I’m only trying to help. On a final note, pretending that you have not read the above doesn’t erase it from reality, and it doesn’t change the truth of what I’m saying. You are not all that there is. Please believe me.