I had an e-mail the other day from sales and marketing guru and all round good guy Bob Poole. I always enjoy reading Bob’s e-mails because he invariably makes me laugh out loud and he seems to be a one man disaster zone when it comes to weather mishaps.
I don’t care how many feet of snow or inches of rain you’ve had, Bob has had more. He’s also had stronger winds, larger hailstones and twice as many Tornadoes, and that’s just this week. I think he has his own micro-climate going on in PA and I was wondering what the latest calamity to befall him was when I saw the incoming e-mail.
Bob was indeed e-mailing me to let me know about another catastrophe, the only difference being this time it wasn’t a natural one and it was mine.
The eagle-eyed amongst you that have read How To Be Rich and Happy may have noticed a typo in the hard copy. This isn’t just your everyday typo either we managed to get an entire chapter heading wrong.
The chapter near the end is now called ‘Stress If For Suckers’ rather than ‘Stress Is For Suckers’ Not a big deal in the great scheme of things, but annoying as both myself and John can remember correcting this on the first proof.
I’m pretty sure I know what happened. We made the change, then some how in the shuffle of manuscripts going backward and forward the wrong version got saved and we were back to square one.
This can happen in the editing process and we’ll have missed it because we were expecting to see ‘Stress Is For Suckers’ and as such that is what our brains told us was there.
The human brain is absolutely brilliant at seeing what it thinks is already there, even when it isn’t.
To be honest I was just relieved that the errant ‘f’ ended up where it was and not on the beginning of the last word. Stress If For Suckers I can live with, whereas ‘Stress Is For Fuckers’ would probably have created a few issues with the charities that are taking the books.
On the other hand, when we get this onto the New York Times best seller list imagine how much a first edition copy would be worth with a typo like that contained in it!
As Bob started to tell me there was a typo I fully expected him to mention the chapter in question, but he didn’t. Bob had spotted a much more subtle and amusing typo in the section on values.
We offer a list of example values and anti-values to help people with the process. I used to ask clients what was important to them without showing them examples and it could take what seemed like hours to tease out the 8 I wanted for the exercise. So a couple of years ago I decided to give clients a list of values to make the process flow a bit more
One of the anti-values on the list in the book was ‘immorality’, er, except it wasn’t. As Bob so accurately pointed out we’d developed a whole new anti-value, that of immortality.
At first I was a bit embarrassed and pissed off, but the more I thought about it, the more I actually quite liked it. After all, who wants to live for ever? The thought sends shivers down my spine quite honestly.
Imagine the consequences of immortality.
Apart from the obvious upsides of not having to put up with going through the dying process and seeing the St Louis Rams win more than 3 games in a season, the downsides are tremendous.
Knowing you will out live everybody you love and will ever love is pretty tortuous if you ask me and I’m not sure getting to see the launch of a bug free Windows 3,281 can make up for that
Immortality doesn’t guarantee you’ll be pain free either. Imagine as a sprightly 75 year old being told you have rheumatoid arthritis and then having to wait another 300 years in absolutely agony whilst they come up with a cure.
Also, just because you’re not going to die doesn’t necessarily mean your body won’t continue to age. Not dying is one thing, but I’m not sure how much fun it would be if you spent the rest of eternity clinging on to a colostomy bag, eating dinner at 4.30pm and looking like Monty Burns.
I’d love your take on this even though the link to self development is tenuous at best. Would you want to live for ever, if not why not, and is there an optimum age at which you’d like to shuffle off this mortal coil? Let me know in the comments whilst I go and tend to a sick wife and a dog that is taking lightening and thunder personally.
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That is hilarious! I was doing the exercise and saw that last night. I was wondering what it meant, LOL!
I was thinking you were implying that living forever might kind of suck. You know, there is something in that actually, like you say.
Haha – loving the idea of stress is for fuckers. Genius.
Maybe the 2nd edition could include an appendix along the lines of “Stressful Immortality for Fuckers”, and it could ruminate on the true personal development gem hidden in this albeit hilarious post – namely that the brain DOES see what it wants to see.
I know you only touch on it, but it’s bloody true. And it can have massive knock-on effects, in my experience. Great if you’re only noticing the good stuff; not so awesome if you train yourself to only notice the shit that goes on.
PS – my 5 copies arrived, but I was out, so I’ve gotta trek 2 miles to the post office at some point to pick them up. I’d be stressed, if I wasn’t certain you’d call me a fucker.
Great stuff dude – glad it’s going so well!
Just because half my roof blew off a month ago and we were hit with one terrible snow storm after another this winter is no cause for you to be mocking me. I have feelings you know. Actually, I think you have weather envy because you only have two seasons – winter and HOT!
The one benefit to being immortal is you might actually get to see the day when weather forecasters are more than 50/50 in their accuracy.
Got to run. The sky is turning green and I need to make sure I’ve got my ruby loafers with me.
“Also, just because you’re not going to die doesn’t necessarily mean your body won’t continue to age. Not dying is one thing, but I’m not sure how much fun it would be if you spent the rest of eternity clinging on to a colostomy bag, eating dinner at 4.30pm and looking like Monty Burns.”
You hit the point EXACTLY. I’m not gonna lie; I’m very optimistic and all, but there’s no way that I want to live 100 years without a colon. It’s torture right now, but I’m making the most of it.
Now that I have a Chronic Illness, and there are certain things that I will never be able to get back, I think 70 years, tops, sounds about right to me. It’s good to know that nothing is permanent :)
Take care,
Josh Lipovetsky.
@ Naomi – I bet there are dozens of people that have had that same experience and thinking wtf???
@ Carl – Thanks man! The only thing stopping us hitting the tipping point is your review not going live last Friday ;-)
@ Bob – I presume you have been swept away in a monsoon by now Bob. Just wanted to say it was great knowing you.
@ Josh – You are a star mate, truly you are and I wish you all the best.
Wasn’t there a character in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who could live forever, but he eventually ran out of stuff to do after visiting every planet in the galaxy and was so bored he didn’t know what to do with himself?
Anyway, I think I want to live for as long as I have zeal to live. Once I run out of that, then let the end cometh.
You are missing a period up there, while we’re talking about typos.
Oh, that’s so funny! My copy arrived here this morning (YAY!) and I had to go and find the errors. (strange huh? I skip the good bits and go straight to the mistakes, LOL)
Immortality is definately something I’m anti. What’s the point of trying to do anything if you know you’ve got forever to do it in…. Except housework, housework can wait forever.
Hey, Tim!
I’m definitely anti-immortality. I already have four chronic pain conditions, and there are days when my only comfort comes in knowing the pain won’t last forever, joint replacements or cures or not. My Mom only lived to 51, which I’ll turn this year. But before her, family members generally live to 85-90. Sounds good to me. I mean, imagine the changes in technology that are bound to happen in the next 30 years! I’d love to see all that develop.
And, BTW, immortality is no guarantee you’ll ever see the Rams win four games in one season. St. Louis is just not lucky with football.
Annie
(St. Louisan)
LOLz………nice concept………….Thanks for the post.
@ Alisa – I read HHGTTG years ago, but yes I think you’re right. Didn’t he also have the brain the size of a planet?
@ Melinda – I need to consider that, but I think you may just be right. Everything can wait until tomorrow.
@ Annie – Not sure it’s just luck, but when bad luck and incompetence collide good things rarely happen!
Tim, you’re the typo king… “So a couple of years ago I decided to clients a list of values to make the process flow a bit more” (from your post above).
Don’t worry mate. My mum published a book. More of a pamphlet actually, but it had an ISBN and the obligatory 4 copies went to the British Central Library. Anyway, I typeset it and made a typo in the odd page headers so it was on every other page!
I don’t want to live forever. I don’t even want to be old – from what I see, it’s not often the best existence, and I hate relying on others. If I was to flip it, I’d say that having to rely on others might open up positive aspects of my personality that wouldn’t otherwise be apparent. And it might do the same for my helpers. And, variety is the spice of life. Blah blah blah. It’s just not how I feel right now. And (cos I haven’t used that word enough already), it’s not natural to live that long anyway. We were designed to pop our clogs early. We’re causing massive problems with over-population, top-heavy economy (an ageing, unworking population, etc). Technology and science have enabled us to achieve many incredible things. Unfortunately, ethics (and our ability to deal with the ‘consequences’), are always slow to catch up.
Thanks for you honest capacity to find humor in mishap! Typos are a great opportunity to practice acceptance of what is…an important skill in all areas (and ages) of life!
Char
@ mark – I like that being the King of anything is quite an achievement I think you’ll agree. From now on I shall call myself ‘The Typo Knig”
@ Char – I agree! There’s precious little point changing what is, right? ;-)