You know, when you’ve published more than a dozen books and have a host of support staff at your beck and call, there’s just no excuse for this.

I responded to him by saying “Yea, I’m lucky, let me tell you the secret to my luck…”

“First, I went to college for ten years.  During that time, I started my own business and worked fifty to sixty hours a week for two decades.  Along the way, I mortgaged my house a couple times for the company and I wrote over a dozen books.  You too, can have this kind of luck.  All you need to do is apply this kind of effort to whatever you do and you can be just as lucky.”

He laughed and said, “Okay, Okay, I get it!!”  Did he really get it?  I don’t think so, because he hasn’t changed his behavior or started making different choices.  If being successful was easy – everyone would have the success they think they deserve.

For most of those 2 decades I mentioned above, I didn’t feel very lucky or incredibly successful.  It took time, effort, hard work, and fairly decent choices before I felt any modicum of success.  The problem is that many people want to go from point A to point Z and bypass all the challenges in between.  They work hard, therefore “deserve” the success they want.

  1. I’d go with “Yeah,” as opposed to “Yea,” which is pronounced “yay” and is generally used to signify a “yes” vote (though “aye” is more common in votes) or in a biblical context (“Yea, though I walk in the shadow of death…”). Or, this could be just a typo and was supposed to be spelled “yes.” (I bet it’s a typo!)
  2. When a person speaks into a subsequent paragraph, you leave off the end quotes of all paragraphs until the concluding paragraph. So those end quotes after “luck” are incorrect.
  3. There’s a “first,” but where’s the “second”? You know, the “first” thing, and then the “second ” thing, and then the “third” thing….
  4. Why is the second “okay” capitalized?
  5. I would never put two exclamation points in a text. It’s…immature.
  6. “Everyone” is singular, so we have a disconnect between the noun and the pronoun: “…everyone would have the success they think they deserve.”
  7. Why is the numeral “2” used, when above it is all spelled out? Rule of thumb: Use words for numbers up until 10, and then use numerals. But this is even worse, because it’s inconsistent, with both a “2” and a “two.” Boo for inconsistency!
  8. That last sentence isn’t a sentence. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a sentence.

It’s a shame, really. This is a good article with a solid (a very solid) point, but it’s distracting to have so many mistakes. And why? Why?