Over the past few years I’ve dedicated much of my words on Vladville towards calling out the BS I saw as a threat to many people I do business with. As with all fraud, it all comes apart given the time. And with most of my nemesis long gone to mediocre jobs, prison or being a tricycle BBQ “chefs” – combined with my time taken up by new business ventures – I wanted to offer this eulogy.
It’s hard to sell people mediocrity unless you can convince them that everything they are doing and everything they have ever done is wrong.
But once you’re able to appeal to someone’s emotional insecurities, instead of their rational mind that can do basic math, there is no limit to the number of clichés you can string together to slowly bleed them dry with consulting, books, groups, seminars that push the notion of accepting inadequacy with a hint of who to blame for it all.
As one of the most miserable business failures recently said in a video (paraphrased): “I’ve never been happier than I am now and it’s because I’ve stopped trying to make money.”
This, in a nutshell, is the mentality that drives business failures insane: They try so hard to deny the proven value of hard work, discipline, accountability, cost savings, tradeoffs and long hours and their fantasy world inevitably always leads them to failure. Of course they feel this enormous relief when they stop trying to scam people and can finally be honest with themselves: next time I’ll try harder.
The Only Proven Repeatable Success Story
Hard work.
Unless you play poker or are remarkably good looking with terrible morals, there are no shortcuts.
Nobody is going to write a book about this. You won’t see a New York Times Bestseller “How I Became Wealthy By Working Myself To Death” at the airport. It’s not fancy. It’s not glamorous. There is no “MTV Cubes” show with Robin Leach fawning over someone’s business book bookshelf or papers on their work desk. It’s not a fantasy – it’s reality – one that people so desperately want to escape from.
Why? Because they are building nothing. Because they have no passion for what they can accomplish. Because they, ultimately, do not believe in it. If you don’t believe what you’re dedicating your limited time on this earth is valuable and worthwhile then it’s going to fail. Sorry. Don’t like the truth, go buy a Subway franchise.
But never, ever, put down the value of hard work. I hereby humbly submit this eulogy to all those who thought they could cheat and fraud their way to the top, may the hotel bars give you some peace that you never found in convincing people they don’t need to dedicate every ounce of effort towards realizing their dreams.
To hard work and people that actually do stuff. I salute you.
P.S. While I’m sure a scammer is born every day, I’ll dedicate more of my time on this blog towards things I’m actually doing these days. But if you ever need a WWVD just ask them how working less is going to make you more successful and enjoy the fantasy.
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