One of my favorite shows on TV of late is Shark Tank.

The show cen­ters on aspir­ing, brave, and some­times down­right idi­otic inven­tors and entre­pre­neurs who pitch their ideas in front of a group of mer­ci­less, seem­ingly heart­less mul­ti­mil­lion­aires, beg­ging for invest­ment capital.

Some of the advice that come from these “sharks” are pretty obvi­ous and com­mon­sen­si­cal, espe­cially to peo­ple who’s been in busi­ness for as long as I have.

But a lot of it is bril­liant. Bril­liant, but also brazen, unabashed, and bru­tally hon­est. It’s not for the faint of heart. If you don’t like see­ing peo­ple, along with their hopes, dreams, and busi­ness ideas being shred to pieces on TV, then this show is cer­tainly not for you.

The more I watch that show, the more I learn. It’s not just a fas­ci­nat­ing pro­gram, it’s a million-​​dollar edu­ca­tion in just one hour a week. And for free to boot. If you ever get a chance to watch that show, do it. You’re going to learn so much. It’s an amaz­ing show.

If an idea or busi­ness is dumb, dead, or down­right dread­ful, they will say it. Often, in no uncer­tain terms. They have to. After all, their money is on the line.

But then again, so should it be with you.

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Seems I’m rant­ing a lot these days, and a lit­tle more opin­ion­ated than the norm. Per­haps it’s my bro­ken back, which is killing me, that’s mak­ing me more sen­si­tive or irri­ta­ble. I don’t know.

But some­thing some­one recently said in my copy­writ­ers forum irri­tated me. And it’s not what this per­son said specif­i­cally, but the mind­set behind it that’s both­er­ing me.

In a thread about an Inter­net mar­keter who was recently arrested (yes, it had some­thing to do with forced con­ti­nu­ity, but it had more to do with refus­ing refunds and avoid­ing cus­tomers than it had to do with forced con­ti­nu­ity itself), one mem­ber said:

“There is NO such thing as an hon­est busi­ness man. (…) Ask any accountant.”

Now, I have no clue as to why this per­son said this. And my opin­ion here is not about this per­son specif­i­cally. Again, it’s about the think­ing process that some peo­ple have when they make such assertions.

Per­son­ally, I believe this view of busi­ness peo­ple is skewed, off, and wrong. It’s destruc­tive, too.

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Michel Fortin: No, I think if you want to look at opti­mism in the best way is to look at it as an edu­ca­tional process. Learn­ing is part of it… sit­ting down with peo­ple, talk­ing with them, spend­ing time with them, read­ing books, spend­ing your time on learn­ing as much as you pos­si­bly can.

You will be able to go down the right road. Fast or slow doesn’t mat­ter and that’s not opti­mism. That’s just being. That’s just fol­low­ing your con­science. That’s just being a real­ist. It’s not being a pes­simist. It’s not being opti­mist. It’s prob­a­bly an opti­mal point of look­ing at it, an opti­mal point or way to look at things, but it’s not nec­es­sar­ily optimistic.

Ralph Zuran­ski: Do you think it takes courage to pur­sue new ideas?

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“Peo­ple say that what we’re all seek­ing is a mean­ing for life. I think what we’re really seek­ing is an expe­ri­ence of being alive, so our life expe­ri­ences on the purely phys­i­cal plane will have res­o­nance within our inner­most being and real­ity, so we can actu­ally feel the rap­ture of being alive.”

“Fol­low your bliss.”
–Joseph Camp­bell

Over the years, I have read many books on mind power, self-​​empowerment, time man­age­ment, suc­cess and achieve­ment, phi­los­o­phy, and spir­i­tu­al­ity. I’ve attended many sem­i­nars, lis­tened to moun­tains of tapes, and took numer­ous classes. And the one com­mon thread I have found in all that I have learned was that they all taught in some way that a person’s outer world is some­how con­nected to his inner dimension.

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In the autumn of 1996, I still remem­ber that faith­ful week and a half when it all hap­pened. My busi­ness went belly-​​up. They came to repos­sess my car. The land­lord, evic­tion notice in hand, came knock­ing on my door. And my ex-​​wife packed up her things, say­ing, “I’m leaving.”

But through­out this time, I had a flash of insight. One that changed the way I was think­ing but didn’t real­ize it until later.

You see, Drop Your Goals And Man­age Your Life is the result of years of writ­ing in my jour­nals, both prior to that event and fol­low­ing it. Why? Because…

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A fair warn­ing: this post delves into some­thing I’m pas­sion­ate about, which is some­what philo­soph­i­cal in nature. So if you’re of a cer­tain reli­gious per­sua­sion and eas­ily offended by oth­ers, then please skip over this blog post. If not, read on…

“The Secret” is tak­ing the entire world by storm. It deals with the “Law of Attrac­tion,” in that we attract to our­selves what we think and feel, and that our per­cep­tions mold our reality.

As Earl Nightin­gale pro­claimed in “The Strangest Secret,” one of the first self-​​help pro­grams I’ve ever bought: “We become what we think about.”

You may have seen it talked about on Larry King, Oprah, and many other talk shows. It’s the most suc­cess­ful Inter­net launch of any prod­uct. It hit Alexa #1 soon after its launch, and pro­pelled to the Amazon.com’s #1 best sell­ing book and DVD within a few months.

It appeared in The Wall Street Jour­nal, New York Times, and Time Mag­a­zine, and even on the cover of Newsweek, which came shortly thereafter.

But is “The Secret” truly worth the buzz? Or is it just an old-​​world phi­los­o­phy pack­aged in some new­fan­gled mar­ket­ing? The answer to the for­mer is def­i­nitely “yes.” But for the lat­ter, it’s “yes” and “no.” Let me explain…

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This book is prag­mat­i­cal, not philo­soph­i­cal — a prac­ti­cal man­ual, not a trea­tise upon the­o­ries. It is intended for the men and women whose most press­ing need is for money, who wish to get rich first, and phi­los­o­phize afterward.

It is for those who want results and who are will­ing to take the con­clu­sions of sci­ence as a basis for action, with­out going into all the processes by which those con­clu­sions were reached.

It is expected that the reader will take the fun­da­men­tal state­ments upon faith, just as he would take state­ments con­cern­ing a law of elec­tri­cal action if they were pro­mul­gated by a Mar­coni or an Edi­son, and, tak­ing the state­ments upon faith, that he will prove their truth by act­ing upon them with­out fear or hesitation.

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