Timeless Secrets Of Success From Yesterday’s Bestsellers

I use one of them every day, the ‘Swiss cheese’ method of gaining control of the messes in your life

Photo by Shiromani Kant on Unsplash

My library has a wonderful policy of giving away its discards every day instead of waiting until an annual book sale.

You never know what gems you’ll find on a rolling cart just inside the front door: a great novel replaced on shelves by Alice Munro’s Nobel Prize-winning short stories, a biography of your favorite author that’s less up-to-date than another but still well worth your time.

Some of the most fascinating castoffs are former bestsellers about how to succeed at work or in life. They may have creaky tips on using fax machines or— remember it, boomers? — the steno pool.

But amid the outdated material, they may hold timeless lessons you too rarely hear now that people have turned to books like Atomic Habits and Work Won’t Love You Back.

Here are three evergreen tips and the books that include them:

‘Having the right to a job is not the same as the ability to get it’

The book: The Managerial Woman (1976)