Perry Marshall: 10 Tips On How To Be Unsuccessful

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I don’t normally do “guest blog posts”, but I saw this from my friend, John Rinaldi, and I couldn’t resist.

It made me laugh and nod my head. Mid-February is “reality check” time for those resolutions you made 6 weeks ago. Enjoy.

I’m writing this early in January 2015 and if you’ve paid attention at all to television, the Internet or the newspaper in these first days of the year, you’ve seen dozens of articles on making 2015 your best year ever.

I’ve personally seen “How to be more successful in 2015,” “How to accomplish more in 2015,” “How to get rich in 2015,” and my favorite, “How to be happier, smarter, better looking and grow more hair in 2015.”

I made that last one up, but I fantasize that the action plan to accomplish all that would be to eat pizza and watch football from my couch with the twelve girls from the 2015 Hooters Calendar.

The odd thing about this annual tradition of insipidly stupid “Having Your Best Year Ever” articles is that almost nobody is going to change anything in 2015. Some of us might decide to lose weight, exercise more or work to get a promotion at work, but our will for that generally peters out long before the Super Bowl kickoff.

Unfortunately, a lot us, or even most of us, will continue to do all the same things in 2015 that we did in 2014. And a lot of those things will make us less successful, less happy and less wealthy. So as an anti-Best Year Ever service to you, my readers, here’s the list of things you should continue to do to avoid success, happiness and financial security in the coming year:

1. EAT MORE – Don’t just eat more, but eat more processed foods like salami, cookies, crackers, and pepperoni. Lie on the couch after dinner and have that bag of potato chips and that box of chocolates.
2. GOSSIP MORE – Spend the work day discussing what Emily in accounting is wearing and what a loser her latest boyfriend is.
3. USE YOUR CELL PHONE TO KEEP IN TOUCH – The average person checks their cell phone 150 times a day; that’s only every 6 minutes. Think of how out of touch they are. You can do better.
4. DO THE LEAST YOU CAN – With the pittance that you’re paid, those losers that run your company can’t expect any real effort. In fact, you’ll be too busy checking your cell phone to get much work done anyway.
5. DON’T LEARN ANYTHING – Don’t read a single book, article or webpage in 2015 that might improve your expertise, health or relationships. Avoid all that by being constantly logged in to Facebook.
6. IGNORE YOUR SPOUSE – There’s no time to talk when How I Met Your Mother, Family Guy and The Simpsons are on.
7. RAMP UP THE VICES – Hide in the bathroom at work and make out your NCAA bracket. Grab a stack of singles and head to the local gentlemen’s club or the track. Porn’s always a good option if you only have a few minutes to spare.
8. DON’T GIVE ANYTHING TO ANYBODY – It’s every man for himself. Charity is for losers. Let the old couple down the block shovel their own snow and cut their own lawn. The more you give to others, the less you’ll have.
9. FOCUS ON WHAT YOU DON’T HAVE – Make a list of all the things you deserve but don’t have in your life. Think about that list all day long.

And the final, most important way to avoid success, happiness and wealth in 2015:

1. RESENT THE WEALTH, HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS OF OTHERS – Think about how unfair it is and how those people don’t deserve what they have. Work harder on hating them in 2015.

The trouble with this kind of sarcasm is that it hits home. As I look over the list, I can pick out a couple and say, “Yeah, I’m guilty of that.” Eating too much of the things that I know aren’t healthy for me tops my list, though I’m guilty on occasion of a few others. Personally, I’m not happy about those items and I am going to work to change them in 2015. How about you?