‘I wish I had this when I was young.’

I am getting a lot of book sales these days—xmas gifts I assume.

My Succeeding book is one of the top sellers. It is given to young people—late teens and twenties and mature-for-their-years younger teens. The younger you are, the more years you get to benefit from the book and the better start you get off to.

About the real world

On the other hand, the book is about the real world, which almost makes it unique in the field. The problem with really young readers of Succeeding is they have not yet interacted with the real world. They are naive. They therefore assume the book is off key.

Learn faster from subsequent experience

As they go through life after they read it, they will encounter what the book says. As a result of having read the book, they will recognize faster the solution to various real-world situations.

Step one: read about it in the book and say, “I doubt that would happen.” Step two: in the real world, what Succeeding says actually happens to the reader, “Hey, that boss just did to me what Reed said in that Succeeding book. I’ll be damned. He was not exaggerating. Now how did Reed say to handle that?”
Step three: He has become a believer and now goes back and reads the book again this time more open to what it says.

The most common comment I get about that book is, “I wish I had this when I was young.” Me, too. But I could not have written it when I was young. Nor would I have believed it. But if I had read it when I was young, I would have saved enormous amounts of time and avoided all sorts of failures and dangers and risks and heartache. 

Like getting on the wrong international flight

I liken what non-readers of this book do to getting on the wrong international flight. You end up far from where you should have gone and it costs lot to undo that mistake. My first such failure was thinking I belonged in a military career and going to West Point. In fact, Army officer was a terribly bad match for me. It took me until about age 26 to get out of the Army and on the right track. 

My how-to books can administer an instant cure for many of the subjects I wrote about—in some cases—if you have an open mind. But the more common effect of my book is to cause you to learn how to do it right far faster than if you do not read the book. Those who do not read my books are reinventing the wheel when they could have avoided.

Read the testimonials

I am very proud of the testimonials for that book. I hope you will read some of them if you are considering this sort of gift.