Be Cocky. Brag It Up. Screw Everyone Else.

A Key To Success

What’s the number one thing that all successful people have in common? You may argue that they all have good looks, or they were born into wealth, or they are just naturally smarter or were born into a more-likely-to-succeed-position in life. Forget all that crap, and stop fooling yourself. They all know how to communicate!

When I say communicate, I mean that they all know how to talk themselves up. You know, brag. Flex their muscles in front of everyone. Talk to the pretty cheerleaders. Answer all of the questions the teacher asks, even if they’re always wrong. They were good at something in life and they let everyone know it. They told everybody! 90% of those people never cared, but some of those bodies were important people and made a somebody out of that cocky nobody with talent. You might call B.S. but I’m convinced that I’m right.

Let me present you with two situations, with two different people. We’ll call the first person, person A, and person B the second person, person B to keep things complicated.

Person A is brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that you could never know all of the knowledge, information, and skill he possesses. Literally, you would never know it because this person, for one reason or another never got around to tooting his own horn. He passes all of his exams with flying colors, got straight-A’s, and even has great ambitions of becoming rich and famous. The only problem? He lives his life in a bubble of silence. He never opens his mouth. He simply laughs when people make foolish decisions, when he clearly – in his mind – could have succeeded in the same situation without ever batting an eye. The problem is that he never stuck his neck out, never gave himself the option to be the guinea pig, never gave himself the chance to succeed in the limelight. The result: Nobody cares because nobody knows about him. He doesn’t exist. Period. Forget about it.

Person B, on the other hand is a complete dim-whit. He sucks at Math, Science, English, he even sucks at cooking in his Homec class. What could this quarter-brained, immature, delinquent possibly be good at? Person A might think that he’s a complete idiot. A nuisance. A waste of his time, a waste of space. What Person A doesn’t realize, is that Person B has a ridiculous amount of skill at making a fool out of himself – in the limelight. In front of everybody. On the stage of life. He talks the loudest, he sings the loudest, he even burps the loudest – in front of everyone. Person B even has the ridiculous ability to play a tuba while hacky-sacking at the same time! For some reason or another, people can relate with Person B. He seems human. He does stuff. He appears to have talent. He talks! The whole school knows this person, whether it be for good or for ill. Everyone from the principal to the janitor knows this person and talks to him like he’s their kid, albeit their worst one. The Result: Everyone knows Person B. The skill that this person has is exactly the skill that Person A lacks in order to succeed in life. He’s a cocky, shameless self-promoter with a few unique abilities that people can relate to. Like burping.

Both Persons A and B have a job interview tomorrow. They don’t know each other, but they’re interviewing at the same company, for the same position. The interviewee, or boss in this case, just happens to be a big fan of people with tuba-ing while hacky-sacking skills. Who do you think is going to get the job? The intellect, who is Person A? Or the nut-job, cocky tuba player? The winner appears obvious to me.

Moral of the story: Be somebody. If you’ve got talent show it. If you don’t have talent, find out what yours is, then show it. If you know how to solve a problem someone is having, help them. Talk to people. Open up. Make contacts. Network. Brag about yourself. Don’t be shy. If you’re being shy to be peaceful, screw that. The loud jerks are taking your promotions. Don’t stress. Toot your own horn. Nobody but your Mom will toot it for you otherwise, and that just looks weak.