Why success gurus should not be your source of motivation

The success does not fall from the tree. Nor does the money. We work hard in order to achieve our own portion of success, and we try to be involved and engaged in everything we can in order to reach the goal. This path is never easy, nonetheless, it is often very tough. Sometimes, we need a good push in order not to get messed up and to continue working. Sometimes we might need just a little push in order not to give up.

Does not really matter what is the goal, we have set for ourselves, it requires a lot of work. First of all, we usually need to look into ourselves and find the reasoning why the goal is important to us. Then we start drafting the scheme and the path, we most likely are going to cover until we reach the goal.

During this time, we might need extra encouragement and some motivation for the journey. Usually, those kinds of motivations are from our friends and family members. It might be from the teammate or from the role model we are aspiring to look like. There are many people who could be good at motivating others.

Those people who turn out to have relatively more experience in certain fields, often have very inspirational quotes and phrases, which sometimes may actually shake us up and make us continue our journey. Those people are called gurus. While some people and most often the industry experts remain skeptical about the gurus and their operation or management of the tasks, the gurus themselves never hesitate to bring up any new advice.

While I don't want to say that gurus are not worth your attention, I can definitely say that they are not always worth believing and rely on. While those people are definitely very experienced in their fields of expertise, their advice is often based on the general wisdom, which is not always the same for every single person. Thus, many people want to adapt to the characteristics set by the industry representatives, which most often destroys the personal characteristics and individualism.

Before talking about specific people who have failed their jobs, let's talk about some of the most "Guru-ish" advice we get. And here are some of them:

You have to be a morning person

Many gurus and generally successful people, even celebrities will tell you that the secret of their success is that they wake up early in the morning and accomplish most of their tasks by noon. They will encourage you to wake up as early as 5 or 6 am and tell you that this is exactly the period when you are the most productive and efficient.

This might definitely work for some people, but it definitely does not work for everyone. It does not work for me either, as I am an own person, who prefers to stay until very late or even early morning and do everything at night when it is dark outside. Yet, some of my friends indeed feel the most confident and efficient when they wake up early in the morning.

The key point here is that you do not have to be a morning person to be successful. Some people do their best work in the middle of the night. The biological clock works in different ways for most of the people. The routines themselves don’t make you successful. The consistency of the routine does. If you’re looking to hone your craft, I do suggest working at it consistently, but it doesn’t matter what time of the day you do it.

You will be successful at everything if you put your mind to it

This is another very common phrase, often used by successful people or celebrities. While this is definitely not false, it is not the best advice to give to the person. The truth is that the chances of you succeeding in your job are way higher if you are persistent. Though sometimes no matter what you do the odds might simply not be in your favor. And this is still okay, and just because some kind of guru told you that you will achieve everything, the unwanted result should not demotivate you. Remember not everything depends on you.

Quit your job

This is the ordinary and the most common beginning of many stories. The gurus might tell you that their success story began when they decided to quit their jobs, and thus they encourage you to do the same. You definitely have to leave the job if you are feeling uncomfortable or if you are doing something that does not bring you any cherish. Though do not quit your job with the idea of opening your own company and becoming the second Amazon, or Tesla.

Obviously, this might come true, but you need to have your income before you are able to earn with your company. You need to develop. While some people might be lucky and might be great simultaneously, the story might not necessarily be about you.

Warren Buffett and his lessons of failure

Warren Buffett is perhaps one of the greatest investors of all time. For several decades Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, who is also known and the "Oracle of Omaha", has shown some of his definite skills in Wall Street. His whole career could have been a book, with the mistakes, the success, and the failures. His current net worth is over $80 billion, guaranteeing him a valid place among the richest people on the planet.

Despite his skills and popularity, there have been some Warren Buffett mistakes over the years. And even nowadays some people are skeptical about his greatness, as they have seen nothing but failure while following the steps of the great trading guru. Unlike any executives who try to pass the blame to the underlying people, Buffett owns his errors on his own and has teh full responsibility for personal as well as company failures.

This trading guru is definitely worth listening to, but most importantly you can find a valuable lesson in his losses and failure stories. One of his biggest failures, as he mentions in his CNBC interview a couple of years ago is buying the "dumbest stock ever" which turned out to be Berkshire Hathaway.

He explains that when he first invested in Berkshire Hathaway back in 1962, it was still a falling textile company. He thought he would make a profit when more mills closed, so he loaded up on the stock. Soon after, the firm tried to chisel Buffett out of money. He got control over the company, fired the manager, and successfully managed to run the textile company for another 20 years. Though, this cost him over $200 billion, almost three times more than his current net worth is.

Despite the failures, many people take Warren as a role model and a trading guru. Well, at least they did so recently. Though, not every expert especially in the modern trading agrees on the journey he has passed through. David Shaw, who is well known for his impressive stock-picking abilities is one of those "Buffett skepticism". He helped to develop some of the techniques and schemes for trading back in the 80s as well. Many people have followed David Shaw's advice on stocks, which has led personally Shaw to operate with his own three healthcare stocks and firm D.E. Shaw. While the strategies and the methods of investment of Shaw and Buffett vary, one thing they have in common is that Shaw's firm is currently valued at $82 billion.

The biggest mistake the trading Guru, Warren has ever made was to make decisions based on the emotional factor. The same happened for the second time with the Dexter Shoe Co. While he does not regret his investment in Dexter, in his letter to shareholders, he expressed frustration over how he paid the $433 million purchase price. Rather than giving the sellers cash, he used Berkshire shares to fund the purchase. At the time he wrote the letter, he revealed that those shares were valued at $5.7 billion.

“As a financial disaster, this one deserves a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records,” he wrote.

Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey is the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, is another example of the gurus, who have often been misinterpreted. His books and quotes could often be met in different movies and screens, such as The Office: like the tyrannical boss who printed large posters with the word, “Synergize!”.

Stephen Covey sought to shake corrupted assumptions embedded in organizations everywhere. He believed in creating organizations that are different than the ones we have inherited. There is irony that some of his ideas are now clichés within the very systems he sought to dismantle, but it doesn’t change the importance of his intent. His vision was to create schools, hospitals, governments and institutions that throw out industrial age thinking and innovate to create something better. We are still barely scratching the surface on this, but the work has begun.

He believed in teaching children to be leaders. In an awkward interaction here, Stephen was asked, “What do you want to be known for?” and he answered, “Every child is a leader.” It doesn’t seem like an answer to the question — unless it is. Teaching children to be leaders may well be a mechanism for changing the world.

Stephen aimed to be a light, not a critic. According to Cynthia Haller, Stephen’s oldest daughter, when Bill Clinton was running for President of the United States in 1992, Stephen was at a gathering where many people were badmouthing Clinton, but he refused to participate. Someone asked him what he thought and he said, “I don’t want to criticize him, because I never know if I’ll have a chance to influence him. I don’t want to be a hypocrite if he ever needs my help.” A couple of months later he received an unexpected call from President Clinton: “I just read 7 Habits twice,” Clinton said. “I want to integrate this into my presidency.” A few days later, Stephen flew to Camp David to share his insights with both President Clinton and Hillary Clinton.

One way or another, we should stay loyal to ourselves and our goals, this is the only way, which is worth following through the whole life. While the journey might be tough and you might need to have a push, it does not matter that you will not succeed unless you wake up early in the morning, or invest in the Dexter Co.