How to Be a Complete & Utter Failure

How to Be a Complete & Utter Failure in Life, Work & Everything: 39 1/2 Steps to Lasting Underachievement

While many books helped me with the decision of leaving everything and go flashpacking around the world, this is the book that gave me the kick. The one that just made me do it.

Here's the story. Often in my life things come to mne without me asking for them. Especially books. At the time I was reading for work and pleasure many self-improvement books, and I got quite bored of them all. So it seemed refreshing to me to bump into a self-un-improvement book. I took it up, flicked through some pages, and got the idea than after all it was just a trick. The book was after all a self-improvement one. I put it back on the shelf.

A couple of weeks later, while buying sunday papers in the tiniest shop ever, here it is. The same book, in a different shop, but still staring at me. Picked it up again, read a couple of pages. I found myself laughing so loud a few people turned around to look at me. I bought it, it might as well be another self-improvement book, but it was damn entertaining.

Little did I know how much this book would change my life. A lot of books will tell you how you should have the courage to make your decisions, to face change in your life, and how things cannot be better if you dont make an effort. But this book will give you a kick in the butt. Yes, wait, you can always change tomorrow, you can wait. And some few days passes, and then some weeks. And then months. After all you can always blame people and situations around you, using sentences like “if only i was like this, if only it wasn't like that”, etc.

One of the best theories in the book is also the Vacuum principle: If you the New to come in your life, you have to make space for it, getting rid of the Old.

My friends know well about this principle, as i often mentioned this to them (apart from buying more copies of the book and giving it as a present)

To cut a story short, I was half-way through the book on a Sunday afternoon in a little cafe. The next monday morning I gave my dismission at work. The full story is in The Inspiration post (who was originally the first post on this blog). Of course I was thinking about doing the big step, leave everyting and go travelling for for a long time, you might sy I had already decided by then, but...

Five frogs are sitting on a log.
Four decide to jump off.
How many are left?

.
.
.
.

Answer: Five

Why?
Because deciding and doing are not the same thing.


I honestly couldn't recommend this book more. Even if you're superhappy with your life. Or are you so happy that nothing can make you happier?

Part of Books Travelling with Me Section. Read my personal disclaimer and find out about more books there.