It’s Not How Good You Are by Paul Arden
Pages: 128
Difficulty: 2 (Quick, Light)
Genre: Marketing, Motivation
Main Idea: Be creative and do new things to get to the top
Recommended For: Someone who hasn’t read in a while and needs to “warm up” or a super fast reader that burn through this in 20 minutes for a little extra motivation.
Well, I stumbled upon this book in the super awesome store, Anthropologie. My mom and sister decided they wanted to do some shopping. I found some books on a shelf in the corner and decided that while scented candles and women’s clothing were awesome, I would spend my time at the book shelf. This book caught my eye. Paul Arden is a marketing guy and the book sold me at first glance. It was artistic, neat, compact and there was only about 20 words per page so I figured could finish the whole thing while my mom and sister shopped. I finished it. I found the book to jump back and fourth between marketing and motivation. On one page he is telling you how to design a logo for your client. The next he is telling stories of how Victoria Beckham and Denzel Washington reached mega success. I get it: the author here is trying to inspire and motivate you to be a better advertising guy. As someone that doesn’t really care too much about advertising, I still got some goodness out of this book as a lot of the advertising info is applicable in life in general.
Get out of the past
My favorite idea that I picked up from this book is that anything that is ‘correct’ is rooted in the past. It has existed before and has references that anyone can look to in order to judge it to be correct. Therefore, anything that is ‘correct’ cannot be new, creative, or fresh. Anything that is new and fresh cannot be correct because these references do not exist. This turns off a lot of people. It feels weird to not be backed by anything concrete, but that is exactly what it takes to create new things. The only solution to overcome this feeling, and something that I am working on, is to back your ideas with strong belief in them and faith they will work out. A creative idea first only exists in the thinker’s head, and the only thing that propels this thought into the realm of reality is a strong belief.
Conclusion
Overall, the book comes off as mostly a motivational book with some advertising sprinkled in. The book is colorful and fun to read. There are quotes and images mixed in to enhance the reading experience. In parts, this book has a striking resemblance to a Seth Godin book. For the facts that most of this information was not new to me, and that at times I felt the book lacked a definite direction, I give this book an average rating. However, i still got some value out of reading it.
Memorable Quotes
“The perosn who doesn’t make mistakes is unlikely to make anything.”
“If you can’t solve a problem, it’s because you’re playing by the rules.”
“A new idea can be either unfamiliar, silly, or both. It can’t be judged by description. It needs to be done (made) to exist. It is unlikely that anyone will sanction the cost of something they don’t understand, therefore you have no choice but to do it yourself.”
Rating
6/10
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