30 April 2007

I don't need a self-help guru

SUCCESSFUL people, when asked to tell of the 'secret of their success', tend to have a little anecdote about where the inspiration to be successful has come from.

In the case of actors and the like, it quite often involves the classic story of being disappointingly cast in a school nativity play as third angel on the left, despite being better than Stinky Pants Jenkins in the auditions.

The tale takes a turn, though, when our protagonist is thrust into the limelight on the day of performance because Lucy Jenkins, who was to be Mary, had run weeping to the loos in a fit of showbiz nerves.

As you may imagine, the Holy Mother should never be portrayed in discomfort and certainly not smelling of wee-wee.

It's then our heroine (or hero, depending on how desperate the circumstances were) is called upon midway, attaching cotton wool halo and wings and is immediately whisked to the main dressing room (the staff room) to undertake the greatest female role of all time - unless you count Roxy in Chicago, of course.

In the case of sports people, it seems all their medals, fame and glory could not have fallen into their perfectly formed laps without the assistance of a suitably gnarled sports master who, like them, had as a child all the raw talent but hadn't applied himself.

Without these cautionary tales from PE teachers up and down the country, many of Britain's top sportsmen and women would have been lost to glue sniffing and bus stop demolition.

For business leaders, it's often a classic rags-to-riches tale - born into poverty then being brought up in desperate circumstances forms an irresistible work ethic and never-say-die attitude that propels them to the upper echelons of corporate life.

Either that or they were born into a fabulously wealthy family and, despite being as thick as two short planks, daddy knew someone on the board of a plc who needed their services and for as long as daddy kept quiet about those 'indiscretions' he was aware of about his pal from the club everything in the garden would be rosy.

For me, success has not come easy, in fact, it hasn't come at all.

Nose out

However, if in years to come I'm being interviewed by some chat show host, and the reasons for my success are to be discussed, I know exactly what I'll say: "Keep your nose out."

It's one of the most infuriating things that mere idiots like ourselves are subjected to, isn't it? Being told by people with loads of money and big houses and fabulous lifestyles, just how easy it is. It's not easy, nothing is.

Everything worth having in life needs to be earned in one way or another. The golfer Gary Player was once putting balls on a course in Texas when a local challenged him to hole the next shot for 50 dollars, which he did, and the next one and the one after that - all for 50 dollars a pop, and as the man handed over the cash he remarked, "Boy, I've never seen anyone so lucky in my life." To which Gary replied, "Well, the harder I practise, the luckier I get."

It's unfair to suggest, however, that luck doesn't play its part, but it seems to me successful people tend to be the ones who are hard working, diligent and honest, on the whole.

It's not like there is a fail-safe plan for having the perfect career. If there was, we'd all be following it. Not that this stops `gurus' crawling from the woodwork, selling their half-baked 'strategies of life' at us.

Self-help books, neuro linguistic programming and team building days are still million pound businesses. Life courses and raft building days, designed to find the 'inner-winner' in us all to achieve excellence and blah blah blah.

Frankly one day, someone will cut through all the flannel and just write a book entitled How To Have It All In One Year, subtitled Simply Write A Self-help Book, or People Will Buy Anything - You Are Living Proof.