Getting unstuck is my number one priority at the moment; I believe everything else will fall into place if I can conquer my biggest challenge – isolation. So I’m always on the lookout for new ideas to help me achieve that end, and when I came across 62 Tips to Get Unstuck in 2013 by Robin Sharma, author of the #1 Bestseller “The Leader Who Had No Title”, I got excited. However, as I began reading through the tips my excitement turned to a feeling of been there, done that. Most of the tips are obvious (at least to me, maybe not to others), and while some are very good there are some glaring omissions.
Most notable of all that’s missing is “Be A Friend”: listen, care, understand, help. Doing any and all of these things is far more powerful than the 62 tips combined. At face value helping others might seem to go against the “I Can Do It Alone” philosophy that Mr. Sharma et al seem to espouse as a requisite for leadership (which is rather ironic since “leadership” is a term dependent on the opinions of others), but it doesn’t. Take a look at the list to see for yourself.
A lot of people have been helped by the Sharmas of the world, and I think that is a wonderful thing and I certainly am not criticizing these folks for capitalizing on the self-help industry. I’m simply pointing out that doing it alone is, at the very least, depressing and, at the most extreme, self-destructive.
It’s easy to tell someone to smile more, be polite, and think positively. In fact it’s the absolute least anyone can do.
