Self-Help Review 11: The Official Guide To Success

Self-Help Review:
The Official Guide To Success
1982
By Tom Hopkins

Here's an idea: Find someone who hates Self-Help or Success literature, and take them to a bookstore. While there, ask them "Why do you hate these books so much?" and I am willing to bet that all they would have to do to state their case is grab a copy of Tom Hopkins' "The Official Guide To Success" and show you the picture on the cover, and that would explain it all. They wouldn't even need to crack it open, but if they did it would further hammer their point home. The only other title in the genre that I can think of that so epitomizes everything "bad," "dumb," and "cheesy" about these books just with the image on the cover is Wayne Dyer's "Inspiration, Your Ultimate Calling." So what's on the cover to this book that makes it so stomach-turning? It's a picture of Hopkins dressed in a suit, leaning against a shiny new car, with one hand in his pocket and the other running along the hood, flashing a smile like he just fucked your wife while you were working at your pathetic shit job and made her swallow his cum after pulling it out of her long-neglected snatch. He looks like that asshole you knew in high school, the one who you so badly wanted to fail in life, but he just kept making more money while you stuck to go-nowhere work, your only consolation being the thought, "At least I'm real. At least I'm not a money-hungry fake like he is."

How did Hopkins make his money? Here's more that will piss you off: He was a salesman. In fact, his most famous book is "How To Master The Art Of Selling," which is an essential textbook for those getting started in sales. Hopkins is all about money, and he makes no apologies for that. In a listing of priorities you should set when making goals, he unabashedly puts Money at the top of the list, followed by Health, then Family, then Personal Accomplishments, and lastly, shocking even to me, Status Symbols as the fifth. It was written in 1982, but it so perfectly encapsulates everything that people hate about the Reagan years that it's required reading for both angry, punk rock liberals as well as neo cons who would happily lick the mold out from the wrinkles in Reagan's shriveled dick if he were still alive.

The book is called "The Official Guide To Success," and one has to wonder how the fuck this is "official" since the only qualifications Hopkins has for writing it is that he has a lot of money and owns a fancy new car. That said, there is a lot of good advice in this book, as long as you have an open mind to it and are willing to overlook some of the blatantly money hungry and coldhearted aspects of it. While his tips on goal setting are valuable and eye-opening (his advice on planning your life twenty years into the future is a nice twist that I haven't read before), his social advice is downright frightening. I understand his point in dropping negative friends who are exceedingly pessimistic, but it doesn't seem right to me because anyone you become friends with is going to have moments of sadness, moments of depression, and moments of pessimism, and "dropping" them when they hit those low points is going to really fuck with your conscience later on. Answering a cry for help from someone you love might actually prevent a suicide, and while being with frowny people does bring you down, you can deal with that by limiting contact and trying to "catch them at their best" instead of cutting the contact entirely. Plus, if they ever tell you that you'll fail in your endeavors or that you shouldn't waste your time shooting for a goal, you can easily tell them to "fuck off" and just not talk about that aspect of your life with them. There's a reason why people become friends, and if talking about certain topics brings up ugly sides to the friendship, then stop talking about them.

Hopkins' hero is Norman Vincent Peale, the author of "The Power Of Positive Thinking," and there is a ton of positive thinking tips in this book. According to Hopkins, if you aren't thinking positive thoughts, then you're thinking negative thoughts, and there is no middle ground. I would assume that there are "neutral" thoughts, but Hopkins swears that there aren't. The book is composed of 82 tips, with nearly all of them ending in "Self-Instructions," which are merely affirmations that you are recommended to write on a 3 x 5 card and repeat to yourself three times a day. Some of these affirmations will not work, since they are in the negative, an example being "I don't let negative ideas enter my head." By the way, it just occurred to me that I should mention the book on affirmations, "What To Say When You Talk To Yourself," but instead of constantly mentioning it I should just re-read the fucker and review it this month.

Probably the most valuable information in this book is Hopkins' observation that we can't help but achieve certain goals, but our thoughts determine what it is exactly that we achieve. Hopkins uses two examples; one of a temporarily broke tycoon trying to acquire another fortune, and an alcoholic. A drunk, for example, will set a specific goal: To obtain more liquor and get fucked up. He goes out and makes that goal a reality. The same is true of all fuck-ups and failures. Why does this happen? According to Hopkins, "They'll both (alcoholics and temporarily-broke tycoons) reach their goals. Why? Because their self-instructions not only allow them to, they require them to." This means that the messages that they constantly send themselves in their minds ("I gotta get another bottle or I'll die," "If I don't get some pussy tonight I'm gonna go nuts," "I'll fail if I try that") create a drive towards the realization of their goal. To fix defective thinking, we need to constantly send our minds the correct messages in order to achieve a better goal, by means of using those 3 x 5 cards that I mentioned earlier. If affirmations aren't your thing, go fuck yourself. He also says that you should never complete one goal without having another in mind, because there is a phenomenon where people who work their entire lives to achieve a goal finally do and afterwards feel that they have nothing to live for. Very interesting. My own goal is to have a billion dollars, then to create and own a city. As you can see, I'll be busy for a long, long time, and it'll be a while before I need to come up with newer goals.

Hopkins also has something he calls "The Golden Dozen," and he ain't talkin' 'bout eggs here. It's twelve words which he says will change your life forever, as long as you keep them posted in places where you'll constantly see them. What are these words?

"I Must Do The Most Productive Thing Possible At Every Given Moment."

He follows that with these four steps, which made me laugh my ass off for some reason:

1) Tell yourself "I must do the most productive thing possible at every given moment."
2) Decide what the most productive thing is.
3) Do it.
4) When you've pushed that thing as far forward as you can right now, go back to step 1 and start over.

Possibly because he realizes how ridiculous this idea will seem to the reader, he mentions that sometimes the most productive thing you can do is to rest, or to leave something alone for awhile. For some reason I have a hard time seeing a guy like Hopkins being content to just "kick it," unless he was showing off his car, of course.

More good advice offered in this book is Hopkins' "Simple Method," which means taking time every night to make a list of the six most important things that you'll need to do the following day. You rank them 1 - 6 in order of importance, and if you don't know what the most important thing you'll need to do will be, Hopkins suggests that it's probably the thing that you least want to do. Instead of avoiding doing things, Hopkins says you should do them immediately, and the more uncomfortable or irritating it is, the sooner you should do it. It's such an obvious tip, but I think that that's the value in it. Sometimes something can be so obvious and so blatantly right in front of us that we look past it. Anything on your list that you are unable to do that day you should carry over to the next day and make it a priority when you put together your next list. It's an ongoing habit, and a damn good one I think.

There are a lot of good ideas in this book, but my favorite tip is on how to deal with anger. It's no surprise that exercise will help you sweat away stress, anger, sadness, and other negative emotions, but Hopkins puts a neat spin on it. He recommends not playing a competitive sport with someone, because your anger will probably throw off your game, you'll get stressed out, and you'll be in even worse shape if you end up losing, so all the benefits from the exercise will be lost. Instead of doing that, exercise by yourself. There's a paragraph in this section that is so good, that I'm going to quote the majority of it:

"If you're not in good physical condition, be careful while you're sweating your anger away. Instead of running your anger off, walk it off, pound a pillow, or kick something (not someone) that's soft. If you're in great shape, let your anger out with impact exercise. Have a practice session by yourself in a handball or racquetball court and slam the ball around until whatever is bothering you has lost it's sharp edge."

Ah fuck it...here's some more:

"The best impact exercise of all is the heavy punching bag. Many gyms have both heavy and light punching bags. Avoid the light bag when you're working off anger--it'll only add to your frustration. Keep smacking the heavy bag--you can't miss it--and very soon your anger will vanish. One word of caution--don't imagine that you're punching whoever made you angry as you work on the bag--you might throw a punch at that person the next time you see him."

The book ends with a rather long list of recommended books which have helped Hopkins achieve his success. His own book, "How To Master The Art Of Selling" is obviously on the list, but hey, this self-promotion didn't seem nearly as cheap to me as what I saw in "Who Moved My Cheese?," and there are a lot of titles here that I've been meaning to read, and will read, for future reviews.

So, is "The Official Guide To Success" another damn fine read? It isn't nearly as good as "The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People" or "Feeling Good," but it does give you a lot of information that can be useful if you've already taken care of your emotional issues and are ready to start gettin' paid. I'm sure that there are better books out there written with more flair than this one, but I have to give it up for someone who doesn't pussyfoot around their own drive for cash and success. One thing though...this book probably has more typos than any other Self-Help book I've read so far. I have no idea why that is, since this came after he had already released a best selling book, and I imagine he should have been able to afford a halfway decent editor to smooth it out. Also, it's a rather dull listing of tips, without the grandiose proclamations that usually start off Self-Help books, and it ends with a whimper instead of busting an inspirational nut all over your face. Whereas most Self-Help books end with final words that encourage you to get moving, this book just kinda...ends. That said, if you can't get over the idea of that smirking, chubby fuck on the cover giving you advice, you probably won't lose anything by not reading it. I liked it though, and I suppose I can recommend it to a few people. However, if you're not all about getting paid, proceed with caution.