Nice Guys Finish Last

I remember when I was younger, around 17 through about 26 years old I was lucky enough to be able to date a variety of some really beautiful and desirable girls. Gee whiz, some didn't even make it to the "date" stage, our raging hormones were so urgent and strong. Regardless, I think I was too much of a straight shooter in that, I didn't get any of these girls pregnant. I practiced "safe" sex and was very careful not to make a "mistake".

Many of my less responsible friends and relatives however, were not nearly so careful and ended up fathering a few children here and there, much to the initial horror of their parents. It's not like they ended up working in a coal mine the rest of their lives either. Job opportunities magically appeared, not like when I graduated from college and I couldn't even get a job interview the first year. If you have a kid with somebody, trust me they're not going to let you sit there with no job offers. Somebody somewhere will know of some opportunity for you to work and help pay for that child.

Several decades later, I now find myself regretting my carefulness as my aforementioned acquaintance's children are gleefully shown in pictures by their "illegitimate" parents on various social media sites attending their high school reunions and weddings and everything else that normally happens to young people coming of age. All that early drama is long forgotten while "responsible" guys like myself are left out of all that fun stuff.

Nobody cares how "responsible" I was. "Oh Kurt we so admire you for not having a kid out of wedlock". Bullshit. They just think I'm a weirdo, for not having any kids. Don't be a responsible idiot. The goal is to father at least one child while you are young and in demand and strike while the iron is hot, or you'll be left out of the mix, wondering what might have been.

The end.

Sincerely,

Me

Go where everybody isn't....

I have attempted business startups that got maybe lukewarm to okay responses, but never anything spectacular, until I stopped doing what everybody was doing and concentrated on offering products or services that were needed, yet not particularly common in my city.

One example is personal fitness training. There is no question that fitness training was and is popular, but it seems there were so many excellent personal trainers around and not much of a barrier to entry really, that the money was just okay, and the hours were long, because I couldn't charge that much for my services, due to all the competition in the area. So I had low rates and a lot of clients that I had to work 10 hour days to survive at all.

Then I decided to specialize in fitness training for low back pain clients, specializing in exercises and stretches that helped resolve low back pain, and I saw my prices and quality of clients go up.

That's just one example, but you want to create a specialized niche and not do what everybody else is doing, because you'll make what everybody else is making.

Career Advice from Successful People

Be careful about following career advice from highly successful people. They will tend to believe that their way is the only path to success and will distract you from your career destiny based on your own talents and interests. They will quickly dismiss any career path differing from theirs as being a complete waste of time.

The truth is, successful people don't want other people to be anywhere near as successful as themselves, especially younger people. They want to be the only genius in the room.

My Dad was a successful insurance man. If you weren't out there going door to door every night, selling insurance, you were a failure. He'd been doing it since he was 18 years old. He had discovered his path early in life, something that worked for him. If you asked him, "What should I do Dad, for a career?", he'd say, "go sell insurance. That's the best way". Problem is, not everybody's cut out for that particular business. Timing can also be a major factor, in what works. I remember when bookstores, video and record stores were very profitable businesses.

Meanwhile the guy down the street had become just as successful from the steel fabrication business. If you asked him for career advice, he would recommend going into the steel business. Somebody else we knew who lived in a mansion before he was forty years old, got rich from the advertising business. If you asked him about getting rich, he'd say, "advertising is the way". Problem is, he was a gifted salesman. He was a natural. He combined a gift with the knowledge that he had it, so he knew exactly what business to go into.

Not everyone will get rich, or whatever your definition of success, but your best chance of getting there will be to follow your own path, based upon your own talents and interests. Start early, if at all possible. Even if you don't get rich, at least you will enjoy the ride.

Watch Out For "Saviors"

Some people will come into your life and create huge problems for you and then campaign against the very problems they created, appearing to be on your side. They come off looking like big heroes, when in actuality you would have been better off if they had never shown up. Try to see through this ruse and you will be better off for it, as it seems to be a very common way for your "friends" and even your own family to sabotage your life. Very often they will be thinly disguised sociopaths-people who think nothing of destroying other people's lives, and then sleep like a baby.

These people will be easy to spot because they usually will have the following characteristics in common:

• Control Freaks-they have to know what you're doing at all times and if you're finding happiness and success in doing it they will try to sabotage you.
• No Conscience. They don't feel bad......about anything whatsoever.
• Insecure Egomaniacs. That about sums it up.
• They themselves are never truly happy. If you know a control freak that's financially prosperous and still constantly miserable, chances are they're "saviors".
• They will go out of their way to hunt you down just to tell you how great everything is going for them, even if it actually is not going that well.
• They seem to have been put on earth for the express purpose of ruining your life.

Elephant on a Rope...

In India, where elephants are used for work animals, baby elephants are kept tied to a rope, which is attached to a stake in the ground. Due to being small and relatively weak, they can't pull the rope out, no matter how hard they try. Eventually they just stop trying to break free and take it for granted that they can't escape.

Later in life, when the elephants are full grown and much stronger, they could easily break free of the rope, but they are held in place by the same sized rope and stake, because in their mind they are still small and weak and don't even try to break free.

Sometimes, your limitations are only in your mind....

Starter Wife

Perception often affects our willingness to make important decisions, to take action instead of sitting on the sidelines and "missing the whole game". Life is about playing the game.

If you believe in being married before having children, the way it was when I was growing up, try to think of your first wife as a "starter wife". That way you can get married young, maybe in your early twenties or younger, and know with confidence that you'll still have plenty of time to recover from any mistakes you may have made in choosing a partner. Plus you won't pass up perfectly decent partners while waiting for Miss Perfect to show up and quite possibly miss out on marriage altogether when she never arrives. I've seen this happen.

The best that can happen is a young and crowded wedding where all your friends can attend and your parents too while they're still alive, one big party and then a lifetime of wedded bliss. The worst that can happen is you last maybe ten years before calling it quits in your early thirties, but you'll still be young enough to start over and maybe get a kid out of the deal who will be ten years old already.

If you hold out too long and you get too old before that first marriage, people will think you're weird anyway, so if you find yourself still dating in your thirties and never got married, tell people you're divorced.

Good luck.