How To Be A Complete & Utter Failure

About 3 years ago I was lucky enough to find an audio programme called ‘How To Be A Complete & Utter Failure In Life, Work & Everything’ by Steve McDermott.  To say I was enamored with it would be like saying the French quite like garlic, I absolutely loved it.  McDermott is a brilliant live act, his timing is fantastic and he’s just a funny guy that drives home his message with skill and alacrity.

The audio is only about an hour long and after listening to it several times I got lazy and never got round to reading the book it was based on. I presumed that all the best stuff was on the audio so I didn’t need to bother with the hard work of reading words too. That was until now.

The book has been re-written for the US market place and being issued through a US publisher called FT Press and they kindly sent me a copy to review.

Firstly, let me ‘fess up. Steve McDermott has had a positive influence on me way out of proportion with the material of his that I’ve been exposed to. That one-hour audio helped me realize that as a Life Coach I can help people improve their lives and actually have fun at the same time. How cool is that? When I get people to laugh it becomes so much easier to then help them implement change because their whole physiology changes and the brain is much more open to learning. Not only that, but it anchors a sense of enjoyment to change, thus making it even easier next time.

For those of you that read here regularly you’ll know that I have been back in the UK recently. Yesterday I flew home to the US and finally pulled the book out of my bag to start reading. I wasn’t enthused because I knew there wasn’t going to be anything new or of value to me in it, but I’d promised to read it so thought I’d better give it a glance. The last time I was so mistaken about something involved me telling anybody and everybody that would listen that no way was George Michael gay. 

McDermott’s book is fabulous. His wit may not hit as hard as when delivered live, but he still made me laugh out loud on occasions and that’s good enough for me. Not only that, but several times he had me scuttling for my highlighter pen worrying that I may forget some nugget of information if I didn’t make an instant note of it. That’s something I rarely do these days.

‘How To Be A Complete & Utter Failure In Life, Work & Everything’ pulls from some of the greats of the self-development industry and then spins it. McDermott explains that to stay as you are and not improve the quality of your life don’t consider setting goals, evaluating your beliefs, managing your time, visualize your success etc. It’s a snap, and you can easily achieve previously undreamed of levels of failure and lack of fulfillment by doing just that. On the other hand, you could always disregard his advice, do the exact opposite, and take your life to the next level if you are so inclined.

A lot of books on Life Coaching and self-development are a slog to get through, but this one isn’t. It has great quotes, easy to follow advice and the pace is just about perfect. It can be read in 2 or 3 hours if you really wanted to, but I’d hope that you’d take longer than that and really absorb the wisdom. At the very least you’ll have fun reading it, but potentially it can help you transform your life for the better. In fact it may even be as good as my own book ;-)
 

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