John Vespasian: Rational Living in an Irrational World

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John Vespasian is the author of seven books about rational living, including “When Everything Fails, Try This“, “Rationality Is the Way to Happiness“, and “The 10 Principles of Rational Living.”

Favorite Success Quote

“A small dose of rationality is worth a large amount of positive thinking”

Key Points

1. Rationality, not Positivity is the Way to Success

We live in an era of positive thinking, where people value a good attitude over rational thought.

If you want to be successful, you have to approach all of your endeavors with a rational mind. Base your assumptions off of history and practice, not off of positive psychology.

2. Be an Entrepreneur Not a Crusader

One of the biggest mistakes many would-be prolific entrepreneurs and business owners made is that they allowed their mission to become a crusade.

Instead of simply working on growing their business and their profit, they focused on forcing their message down other people’s throats instead of allowing their success to speak for itself.

3. Focus on Achieving Success Not Converting Haters

If you do anything big in the world of business (or the world in general) you are going to have haters. This is simply a fact of life.

But instead of focusing on converting your haters into fans through debate and argument, ignore them and allow your success to speak for itself.

4. You Have to Test Everything

No matter how good an idea works in one niche or market, there is no guarantee that you will have repeat success when you try again in a new market or environment.

You have to learn to test everything.

For example, if you have a sales letter that made you $10,000 in a day with one of your email lists, there is no guarantee that the same letter will work with a list targeted at a different demographic.

Test first before you invest time and money into something that may or may not work in the new environment.

5. Accept the Inevitable Hassles in Life

Life can be a hassle, there is no way around it.

There are things that you will have to do that will suck, there are things you are going to experience that will not be fun and will not be enjoyable.

Instead of pretending that positive thinking can make these problems disappear, accept them as a part of life with a rational mind and simply grin and bear it.