Jeff Olson (1) (1958–)

This is a good book basically, although obviously to say something is good is inclusive of saying that there’s the odd sentence here or there that I wouldn’t have written. Not least because we all have our own styles and emphases.

I guess this book would be a good place to explain, like Jeff explains, that one barrier to success is that it often doesn’t take off right away. You can do the right thing for longer than you’d like sometimes before getting positive feedback. A lot of people get excited, start to do the right thing, and then don’t get rewarded and quit (a bit like one of the plants in the New Testament parable), and give up on success in business or even practically any aspect of being unusual and happy, you know. I was actually once one of those people. I guess I just wasn’t ready the first time I entered business! Sometimes life is different in the beginning, from the way we imagine. But you have to see it working out for you in the end. I guess that’s why I think that actually both the ‘belief’ books imply the power of action, and the ‘action’ books, like this one, imply the power of belief.

The other thing is that since this book is so ordinary it’s a good place to say that, business is kinda ordinary too. From early childhood days, when I was a schoolboy, a little schoolboy, there was this forbidding mystique to practical success; it wasn’t taught in school, so I took it as being radically alienated from me, and just apart from the life I understood. And of course, thought and work are somewhat different, and sometimes there can be an element of drudgery in work, although there can be an element of drudgery in anything, especially if you’re not seeing where you’re going. But basically, business and practical success /isn’t/ alienated from the rest of life, and if you can believe and take action, you can achieve. It doesn’t even have to happen all at once. It probably won’t. You just have to decide not to give up on what you have decided that you want to do, and whatever happens, whatever happens, it will be more satisfying than giving up on life, or even on big chunks of it, you know.

…. The plan you make is the beginning does NOT have to be the plan that makes you the money. You have to plan to get into action, but you can never really know what will happen.… (meer)

When I picked up this book from my book shelf, I did not want to. And that's stil an understatement. The only reason I did so anyway is because for the last 2 or 3 months, the title came up again and again from various people that I look up to in some way.

So I did...

And the first few pages were painful. I felt like I had read it before (which I'm not too sure of anymore) and that it would just be another to-do list book: a list of steps to follow to achieve this or that goal in your life. But I stand corrected.

What I got out of it was hope: hope that no matter where you start, you can finish better than where you are now. Hope that I'm not the only one who struggles with getting out of the starting blocks; that others had the same challenge and they still succeeded in life. And hope that the fear of having to have the perfect, failure proof plan can be overcome.

It was a good read. In ways it leaves me feeling the same way after watching a movie that ended on a really positive note; the feeling that the world is just beyond my doorstep and that I too can carve a piece of it!… (meer)