「ビジネス書、自己啓発書ばかり読んでいるとバカになる」は、嘘！

これまであなたはこんなことを言われたことはないだろうか？
「ビジネス書とか自己啓発書ばかり読んでいるとバカになるよ」
その人が知的かと言えば、決してそんなことはなかったはずだ。
ここだけの話、むしろバカだったのではないだろうか。

もう少しまともな批判になると、ビジネス書や自己啓発書に使われているボキャブラリーが少ないと主張する人もいる。

だがこお批判も気にしなくていい。

ボキャブラリーが少ないと主張する人は、そもそも自分がボキャブラリーが少ない本しか読んでいないだけなのだ。

ビジネス書や自己啓発書の中にも、豊富なボキャブラリーの本がいくらでもある。

加えてあくまでも稼ぐ読書ということであれば、豊富なボキャブラリーよりも人とお金が集まってくるセンスを身につけるほうが遥かに大切だ。

たとえばテレビのCMや新聞広告のコピーを思い出してもらいたい。
難しいボキャブラリーなんてまったく使われていないし、厳密に言えば日本語としてややおかしいものもある。
それにもかかわらず、シンプルなコピーには人とお金が殺到する。

ビジネス書や自己啓発書で卓越したコピーとは、タイトルや見出しなどが該当する。
タイトルや見出しが優れたコピーになっていなければ、ベストセラーにならないどころかそもそも誰の手にも取ってもらえないのだ。

商業出版の難易度が相当高いから、そもそも書店に並べてもらえるだけでも気の遠くなるような競争を勝ち抜いてきた結果だ。

一冊の本を世に出すためには数多くのプロたちが関わっており、稼ぐために厳選された言葉が本に詰まっている。

断言してもいいが、稼ぎたければビジネス書や自己啓発書を読むのが一番の近道だ。

たいていは歴史や哲学の豆知識なども頻繁に登場するから、頭も良くなるのは間違えない。
ちゃんと勉強すれば見えてくるが、自己啓発書には哲学や心理学をベースに書かれているものが多いのだ。

私が大学時代にハマった某哲学者は、ビジネス書や自己啓発書の有益性とレベルの高さをすこぶる評価していた。

大学教授だった彼は自身でも２００冊以上の著書を出しているし、正真正銘のお金持ちだ。

Inspiration from America's oldest living person

Weaver is America's oldest living person and celebrates her birthday on the 4th of July.  She lives in a care facility and is said to still be relatively active.  She says its her faith that keeps her going.  "You have to follow God.  Don't follow anyone else," she told the Camden News on her 116th birthday.  "Be obedient and follow the laws and don't worry about anything.  I've followed Him for many, many years and I ain't tired."

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Some people are so poor, all they have is money.

Thought for the Day

Seeking substantial wealth is almost always a fool's game.  The statistics show that very few people ever succeed.  Most of them should never have made the attempt in the first place.  They aren't suited to it, and if that sounds defeatist, then consider the fact that the search will take up a great deal of your waking life for many, many years.

You cannot get rich without "wasting" that time.  Not unless you were born lucky-so lucky that luck has squatted on your shoulder virtually from birth.  You would not need to get rich, then.  You would already be rich, in one way or another.

Time is finite.  Which is a fancy way of saying that you only have so much of it-then it will run out  When you are young, time seems to stretch into the distance for so far that surely it will always be on your side?  When the young catch the old unawares, they may sometimes glimpse a look of naked envy, which is then instantly disguised.  And the old have reason to be envious.  Truly, truly, they do.   Ask me what I will give you if you could wave a magic wand and give me my youth back.  The answer would be everything I will ever own.  

If you are young and reading this then I ask you to remember just this:  you are richer than anyone older than you, and far richer than those who are much older.  What you choose to do with the time that stretches out before you is entirely a matter for you.  But do not say you started the journey poor.  If you are young, you are infinitely richer that I can ever be again.

Money is never owned.  It is only in your custody for a while.  Time is always running on, and the young have more of it in their pocket than the richest man or woman alive.  That is not sentimentality speaking.  That is sober fact.

And yet you wish to waste your youth in the getting of money?  Really?  Think hard, my young cub, think hard and think long before you embark on such a quest.  The time spent attempting to acquire wealth will mount up and cannot be reclaimed, whether you succeed or whether you fail.

Even if you should succeed in becoming rich, unlikely as that is, what will you have achieved?  Independence of a kind?  The luxury to choose what you wish to do with the rest of your life?  Happiness?  No, no and no.  You will not achieve any of these things.  Now when you have too much money.  Wealth makes many demands and by the time you have acquired it, you will be prey to certain habits.  You will fear to lose it and must spend a great deal more time to defend it.  No one is 'independent' of the human race.  'No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.'  

No luxury of choices for rich little you.  You will be too busy keeping the sea from washing away the sand you have spent so long collecting at such terrible cost to your health and your sanity and your relationships with others.  It is always thus.  There is no escape.  You believe (I know you do) that it will be different for you.  But it won't be.  It never is.

Happiness?  Do not make me laugh.  The rich are NOT happy.  I have yet to meet a single really rich happy man or woman-and I have met many rich people.  The demands from others to share their wealth become so tiresome, and so insistent, they nearly always decide they must insulate themselves.  Insulation breeds paranoia and arrogance.  And loneliness.  And rage that you have only so many years left to enjoy rolling in the sand you have piled up.  

The only people the self-made rich can trust are those who knew them before they became wealthy.  For many newly rich people, the world becomes a smaller, less generous and darker place.  It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?  Ridiculous and gloomy.

But then, you are to consider that I have been very poor and I am now very rich.  I am an optimist by nature.  And I have the ability to write poetry and create the forest I am busy planting.  Am I happy?  No.  Or, at least, only occasionally, when I am walking in the woods alone, or deeply ensconced in composing a difficult piece of verse, or sitting quietly with old friends over a bottle of wine.  Or feeding a stray cat.  

I could do all those things without wealth.  So why do I not give it all away?  

Because I worked too hard for it.  Because I am tainted by it.  Because I am afraid to.  All those reasons and more.  Perhaps, if I am lucky enough to become old, I will accumulate something else: the courage to give it all away before I die.  That would be a good thing I think. (When I die, it is all going to a charity called 'The Forest of Dennis'.  You see, even I do a good thing with my money, my ego insists that I name it for myself.  Not a good sign.)

Giving money away when you are dead takes no guts.  No courage.  But to divest yourself of hundreds of millions of dollars, or the greater part of your fortune, before your death?  That would be something to be proud of, don't you think?  It even makes logical sense.

For what is left afterwards but a few tears by the graveside and years of bickering and waste over a complex will?  (The wills of the rich are always complex.)  Bitter years, where lawyers count the number of fairies they believe you once thought danced upon the head of a pin-years in which they enrich themselves at your descendant's expense.  A fine legacy, to be sure.

But you must make your own choice.  I have said my piece and I meant every word of it.  This small part of my book was composed in my mind years ago.  It was easy to write.  I knew all of it before my fingers touched the keyboard.  It has troubled me for years and I thank you for allowing me to share it. -Felix Dennis-How to Get Rich

I

Thought for the Day

What's surprising about the subconscious is that it not only makes decisions for us, but often prefers less information than more. In an era when data mining has been heralded as the future of decision making, it comes as a surprise that the mind often thinks best with less. But it does. People frequently make better decisions with less information.
-Taken from Ten Steps Ahead By Erik Calonius

Thought for the Day

If Lehman Brothers can go broke, then anybody can.
- Anonymous

Thought for the Day

I've known a lot of rich people who weren't living rich lives. They may have had a lot of money, but they weren't happy; they weren't fulfilled. A good friend of mine says,"No matter how much money I make, I just never seem to be happy.". That's because he's attaching happiness to future financial goals rather than being happy and going out and making money today. The reason why my friend never feels satisfied, no matter how much money he makes, is that he has linked his happiness to something he will never achieve. Learning to manage your emotional state is what enables you to be successful in the largest sense of the world. So does detaching your emotional state from future outcomes. The secret to living a rich life is not attached to your bank statements, now or in the future. Authentic wealth is something you achieve right now, through the choices you make about your attitude toward what you already have in your life." -Christopher Howard, Instant Wealth

Thought for the Day

"How do you become more productive?" Richard Branson leaned back and thought for a second. The tropical sounds of his private oasis, Necker Island, murmured in the background. Twenty people sat around him at rapt attention, wondering what a billionaire's answer would be to one of the big questions-perhaps the biggest question -of business. The group had been assembled by marketing impresario Joe Polish to brainstorm options for Richard's philanthropic Virgin Unite. It was one of his many new ambitious projects. Virgin Group already had more than 300 companies, more than 50,000 employees, and $25 billion per year in revenue. In other words, Branson had personally built an empire larger than the GDP of some developing countries. Then he broke the silence: "Work out." He was serious and elaborated: working out gave him at least four additional hours of productive time every day.
-Taken from the "The 4 Hour Body-By Timothy Ferriss"

Thought for the Day (日本語もあり)

One time a company president who was participating in a management seminar posed the following question to the management consultant who was leading the class: "In order to be successful at managing a corporation, what should I read? There are so many books out there that I don't know which one to choose." In response, the management consultant unflinchingly stated, "The Bible is the only book you need to succeed in business. If you have that one book, it is not necessary to read any other book." I was flabbergasted that he wasn't afraid of being misunderstood when he made that bold statement. This management consultant wasn't especially known to be a fervent Bible believer. Nevertheless, I believe in the truth of what he said.
ある時、経営セミナーに参加していた会社社長が、講師の経営コンサルタントに質問をしました。 「会社経営で成功するには、何を読めばよいでしょうか？ たくさんの本があってどれを読めばよいか分かりません。」そして、その経営コンサルタントはなんと、こう言い切ったのです。「ビジネスで成功するには聖書一冊あれば、他の本は読まなくてもよいです」 この誤解も恐れぬ発言には私も驚きました。 その経営コンサルタントは、聖書について特別な信仰を持っていたわけではありません。 しかし、これは私も真理だと考えています。ー聖書に隠された成功法則、松島修より。

Thought for the Day

An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.

Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."

The tourist then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"

The Mexican said, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs."

The tourist then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."

The tourist scoffed, " I can help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat: With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor; eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York where you could run your ever-expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"

The tourist replied, "15 to 20 years."

"But what then?" asked the Mexican.

The tourist laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions?...Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

Thought for the Day

"Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: AND GREAT EARTHQUAKES SHALL BE IN DIVERS PLACES, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven." -Y'shua, Israel's Messiah and the eternal G-d in human flesh as established by his unprecedented and objectively verifiable resurrection from the dead. (Luke 21:10-11)

Thought for the Day

I believe the power to make money is a gift from God. To be developed and used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind. Having been endowed with the gift I possess, I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience. - John D. Rockefeller

Thought for the Day

If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one quarter of one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.

His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are also very out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished.

The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmaties, of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

--Mark Twain, September 1897

Thought for the Day

During the past thirty years, people from all the civilized countries of the earth have consulted me. I have seen many hundreds of patients. Among all my patients in the second half of life-that is to say over thirty-five-there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that everyone of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not gain his religious outlook.- Dr. Carl Jung

Thought for the Day

"Somewhere between childhood and the real world one of two things happen, either you start to follow the dreams of your parents, your neighbor, or someone else, or you get caught up in pursuing the dollars or status associated with a certain career. People who do this leave their passion on a shelf collecting dust and end up becoming one of the 70 percent of people who dislike what they do."

DISCLAIMER: Taken from "The Power of Focus for College Students"-By Luc d'Abadie