While life advice on how to succeed can be very varied and even surprising, when it comes to the opposite, sabotaging our own lives, it seems much easier to agree, and so we can draw plenty of advice from what not to do, not in order to succeed, but at least so as not to completely ruin our lives.
A while ago we gave you the 10 commandments for certain failure in business. This time we have picked the best advice for wrecking your life without failing in the attempt.
1. Get into drugs as early as you can.
It’s cool, and it will probably help you fit in better with your select group of friends. Obviously, the harder the drug, the better your chances of reaching your goal. Believe everything people say, like how coke makes you more productive and improves your performance in bed, and how meth isn’t as bad as they’d have you believe. But above all, drink. Drink plenty so you’re not that shy guy or girl. After all, alcohol is socially accepted. Don’t be the typical bore who doesn’t do what everyone else does. Having a personality of your own is overrated.
2. Chase your dreams, but don’t spend time acquiring the skills and knowledge you need.
If your goal is to be a great businessperson, don’t waste too much time learning about business. Go online and look for those articles about some guy in India who made 100 million without having a clue about business, doing who knows what. Don’t waste a minute on financial education. When you’re rich you’ll have good financial advisers, the kind who advise film stars and billionaires, like Bernard Madoff. As Emilio Duró put it, an “incompetent person with a goal” is like a “motivated fool”. A plain fool doesn’t do much, but doesn’t do much damage either. A motivated fool, on the other hand, destroys everything around him, because his capacity for destruction is proportional to his motivation.
3. Surround yourself with the wrong people.
There is no more direct route to failure than surrounding yourself with the wrong people. This works for ruining your personal, professional and business life alike. Try it… it never fails. But above all, play “a little” on the edge of the law in all kinds of matters. After all, politicians and big businesspeople do it and nothing happens to them. Try your luck.
4. When you have a problem, get into bed and pull the sheet over your head.
It’s very effective. In fact, many people do it before going to see a specialist who will give them some pills to get over the problem. Problems solve themselves. There’s a saying going around: “good things come to those who wait”. Take it out of context and you’ll be closer to reaching your goal.
5. Feed your envious side.
I’m fond of the kind of people who are always criticising other people’s successes, taking refuge in a closed mindset in which they are the smartest ones, the owners of the absolute truth, and everyone else is either stupid (if they have failed) or just lucky (if they have succeeded).
6. Get a job purely for the money, even if you don’t like it.
This is a way of reaching your goal very slowly. Look for a monotonous job where you do the same thing every day of your life for 30 years. If you find your job hard to bear, drink to try to forget the boredom still waiting for you tomorrow, next week and probably for years to come. Which brings us to our next piece of advice. Adaptable for students: study a degree you don’t like but that has good job prospects.
7. Never take risks.
Make no mistake. Taking risks is for crazy, irresponsible people. Do you know how many people have failed because they took risks and then regretted it? Embrace security and stay in that cosy place we call the comfort zone.
Never forget that headstone in the cemetery that read: “Here lies a risk-free company”. Its owner drove the company into bankruptcy because he wouldn’t risk expanding and opening up new markets… The company died quickly, but at least, unlike the others that are still alive, it died happy, without having suffered any complications. Remember that dreams are just that. Dreams. I dream that I can fly, and that doesn’t mean I’m going to jump off a building. So if you have a dream, wake up, have a coffee, and you’d better join in the dreams of those other risk-taking lunatics, like your boss, for example.
8. Spend all the money you can. Life is short.
Life is for enjoying. What, are you going to take your money to the grave? Enjoy yourself and spend everything you can in your 20s and 30s, because you might not make it to 60. If you lose your main source of income, use whatever credit you have. If you’ve already burned through your credit, go back to step 4: get into bed and wait for the problem to solve itself. Ignore all that talk about having an emergency fund, because that’s money sitting idle that we’re not enjoying. Remember that life is short for those who enjoy it, but far too long for those who can’t.
9. Use people purely for your own interests.
The idea that you should give more than you receive must have been dreamed up by a boxer. In practice, the most effective thing is to receive more than you give. Use people for that purpose, and when you no longer need them, get rid of them. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about friends, suppliers or partners… people forget quickly, and many are such idiots that, once you’ve used them, when you call them again they offer you their help all over again.
10. Never learn from your mistakes.
They say there are people who make the same mistake over and over again. “What idiots. That happens to me too, but in my case it’s just bad luck.” Keep doing what you’ve always done, especially if so far you’ve reaped nothing but failure. That’s a sign you’re on the right track.
Further reading
- The main causes of failure in life and in business
- 15 habits and choices for success
- 16 hard things we will have to do to achieve success
Featured image: Andrew Bowden, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
