40 awesome tips of how consulting just doesn't work
No wine this time, but enough expert advice to analize. Without further ado, here we go.
Tip no 6 tells you not to take yourself too seriously, because no one else does. I guess the key word here is 'too', in the sense that you should avoid to leave a slightly conceited or even outright condescending impression. So to cut this short: I am going to follow the advice by not taking it too seriously and hereby implicitly admitting, that basically I concur :-)
No, no, no! Envy is based on comparison. And comparison is not something to be afraid of. Actually comparison is good! How come millions of common people read the rainbow press every day and at the same time they are supposed to deny the fact that people are envious by nature and actually enjoy wasting time being envious, sometimes even to a selfdestructive point. This contradiction might sound virtuous but really misses the point. Maybe competitveness is even driven by envy to a certain degree. Or why is it, that companies in artificial monopolies and oligopolies are unproductive, wasteful and inert compared to free and vivid markets? If everybody had everything they needed or anything they wanted, I'm sure the world would be a hell of a boring place. Gladly, nobody has everything they want. And not everybody gets everything they wished for. But isn't this just the reason, why we take the effort to achieve something and excel in the end? By the way, if it were true, that everybody has everything and will get anything, economists, philosophers and taxidrivers would be rendered jobless instantly. I hope that will never happen.
No 8 tells you to do meditation, yoga and prayers. Meditation and yoga are different from one another, but they get mixed up a lot. As far as I'm concerned I am not religious but I think that praying is a complete different category than meditation and yoga. Spiritual exercise and practice can help to focus and to relax. Yoga exercise shapes your fitness and your focus at the same time. Forms of meditation I am familiar with from sports are autogeneous training and mental training, where you basically don't do any phisical, but exclusively mental training. This helps you to visualize certain situations and sort of 'program yourself' for the future. I was always keen on experimenting with new kinds of training methods. However looking back autogeneous training, mental training and yoga did not permanently pay a key role in my way to become a happier person. So no, I am not convinced, that fokusing on mental training in forms of meditation, yoga or even religiousness will necessarily make someone a happier person. Maybe though a more reflected and balanced one.
This is not an advice. This clearly is parenting. I can even hear some desperate moms and dads repeating it over and over again: "Eat your fruits/ vegetables! Don't eat so much chocolate/ ice cream/ chips/ pizza/... Do your homework/ excersise/ job. Don't be late for school/ the test/ church/ the dentist/." Why would anyone by his right mind listen to such a nobrainer? Of course we all know, healthy food is more healthy. Of course we all know, being diligent and thorough at everything we do will help us and others. But often we do not do, what would be best for ourselves. Sometimes we even do the exact opposite, of what would be best for ourselves. And as if that wouldn't be enough, sometimes we even feel great doing so. I have vegan and vegetarian friends and I don't think that is my way to go. I respect their decision, but I would like them to respect mine as well, which is not being either a vegetarian nor a vegan. You can have endless debates about which nutrition is healthy and which is not. I can remember a time, when nutrition was not something like a religion or a philosophy that people were worshipping and preaching about. It was simply nutrition. Sometimes there are periods, I enjoy certain food more than others. And sometimes people obviously just like to eat trash. Ask any director or executive of a fast-food restaurant or of a company that earns it's money with food that is manufactured in plants.
Hahahaha! Tell that joke to a mom or a dad. If you want to have a real good laugh, you can take it one step further by telling it to parents of siblings. Hilarious! Twins or triplets will cost you years of sleep. Funny thing about it is, you kind of get used to it. But seriously: reading the tips for the first time, at this point I was absolutely 100% sure, that this must either be a hoax by some teenager or my wife and I urgently need to rethink our upbringig methods. Who on earth would give advice that obviously and without any doubt would lead to the extinction of mankind? Can't be much of a philantropist if you are serious about this one.
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