It's not how good you are,It's how good you want to be

The book: It’s not how good you are, It's how good you want to be.

about the writer: Paul Arden (7 April 1940 – 2 April 2008) was a creative director of Saatchi and Saatchi and an author several books on advertising and motivation, including Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite and It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be.

Summary

The books gives simplified straight forward advices for how to achieve the unachievable.

it starts with talking about goals and how good you want to be and then start with the fundamentals to be the best in your field explained below shortly.

The fundamentals:

1.energy.

It's 75% of ur job.

2.don't seek praise, seek criticism.

By asking the right questions: "what's wrong with it? How can I make it better?"

3.It's all my fault.

Take the responsibility and stop blaming others.

4.Don't covet your ideas.

Ideas are open knowledge. Don't claim ownership.

Give away everything you know, and more will comeback to you.

5.Don't look for the next opportunity, the one you have in hand is the opportunity.

6.accentuate the positive.

Find out whats right about your product and dramatize it.

7. eliminate the negative.

Avoid knocking competition.

8.Don't put your cleverness in front of the communication.

If you ask the right question, you get the right answer.

9.Don’t promise what you can't deliver.

10.know your client aims.

11.what do you do when your client won't buy? Do it his way then do it your way.

12.Don't take no for an answer.

13.When it can't be done, do it. If you don’t do it, it doesn't exist.

14.if you can't solve a problem, it's because you are playing by the rules.

15.The person who doesn't make mistakes is unlikely to make anything.

16.fail,fail again, fail better.

17.It's wrong to be right.

Being right is based on knowledge and experience: Knowledge comes from past, so it's safe, It's also out of date, It's the opposite of originality, experience is built from solutions to old situations and problems. The old situations are probably different from the present ones.

18.It's right to be wrong.

19.Don't be afraid of silly ideas.

20.play your cards right.

How you perceive your self is how others will see you.

21.It's not what you know, It's who you know.

22.Don't give a speech, Put on a show.

23.getting fired can be a positive career move.

After that, he starts with few advices for

advertisers and show you that you don’t have to be creative to be creative , and what is exactly meant by creative usually when people asks for creativity.

In my opinion: I think it’s a good book, you can always go back to get motivated and clear your head , especially for people like me who blame their self a lot for any mistake they do at work. My favourite advice would be number 4 "Don't covet your ideas" because ideas are open knowledge, and what goes around comes around. Anyway, the book is simple, straight forward, easy english for non english speakers and great for reading beginners because its a very small book, not much explanation. But if you don't like books that tell you what to do and what not do SAVE YOUR MONEY.

Personal twitter account: @sara_ssh

#books #motivation #advertising