Success and Freedom

14 Seriously Easy Ways to Be Outrageously Successful
After all, massive success is easy-shmeezy.
by Jeff Vrabel


1. Write down a list of your goals, then wad it up and chuck it in the garbage.

It’s just gonna stress you out.

2. For an extra morning boost, lie in bed for 45 minutes.

Sure, some people advocate exercising first thing, but what sense does it make to tire yourself out doing power jumps at 5 a.m.? For a truly powerful kick in the morning, begin each day by lying there for a while, thinking of ways you’d improve the endings of TV shows and/or scrolling through Facebook—comparing yourself to everyone on social media will help shape your self-perception, and your phone’s calming blue light will jump-start your endorphins.

3. Get plenty of sugar.

Balance your breakfast by including Sugars, Processed Sugars, The Sugars That Are in Pop-Tarts and, for extra long-lasting energy, Two Donuts from the Circle K, which will fuel you from 9 a.m. all the way to 9:04 a.m.

4. Stay focused on conference calls by using them to catch up on This Is Us.
Conference calls are a drag, right? Fight off the brain-crushing boredom by muting yourself and watching NBC’s newest emotionally charged drama, which will replace Anabel from marketing going on about her core competencies with the rich human drama that unites us all. If you have to talk in the meeting, just pause the show, choke back your tears and chime right in. (If anyone asks why you sound like you’re crying, tell them you’re very happy with your spreadsheet.)

5. Control your finances by purchasing a large book about controlling your finances.
Do you need to take charge of your finances once and for all? March right to a full-price bookstore and purchase the largest volume of basic financial advice you can find, preferably something that involves such advice as “Plan for Your Future,” “Establish an Emergency Fund” and other cutting-edge financial genius from the future. Page through the book while sipping a 48-oz. caramelized mocha at the in-store café.

6. Install a soothing meditation app on your app-cluttered phone.

For easier access, put it in the folder with your bank, Facebook and that game where you use a sword to murder fruit.

7. Constantly envision success, even when your brain can’t focus on success and instead keeps trying to come up with all the lyrics to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia, Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go).

8. When you’re down, seek out validation from “friends” on social media.

They’re the ones who matter, after all. Repost a bunch of memes, preferably ones with super-long illegible quotes in scripty fonts over pictures of sunsets. Avoid punctuation and paragraph breaks, which both waste time.

9. Do one hard thing every day—unless it’s too hard.

Then do like six easy things. It pretty much adds up to the same thing.

10. Deal with professional setbacks by wearing a black cape.

Failures, disappointments and setbacks happen to all of us, and when they do, there’s one proven way to inject yourself with restorative power: a silken cape, black as midnight. To maximize its nefarious powers, don it in a darkened room for weeks at a time, staring mournfully out the closed window while maniacally writing mad poetry in a college Composition notebook (you can get one at Target for like $1, which you’ll probably need to do, since you’re likely broke).
If it was a particularly humbling failure, listen to Morrissey, Tom Waits’ “Closing Time” or Norwegian death metal; the guttural sounds from the demon-void of Cthulhu the Necronomicon will ready you to take charge of your next search for venture capital.

11. Just say “impactful” over and over again.

No one will be sure whom or what you’re impacting, but people will be like, Damn, that person knows how to drop some boss adjectives.

12. Maintain a positive mindset all day long, even when that sh*t gets real old at about 3 p.m.
If you feel your energy flagging, eat some more sugar.

13. Stay mentally young by trolling today’s youth.
When you turn 42, immediately replace the word “excited” with “stoked” and never go anywhere wearing fewer than six bracelets. If you’ve been putting off that neck tattoo, now’s the time.

14. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams—if you feel like it.
If that proves too challenging, just sorta point that way and wait for someone to give you a ride.

April Fools!

Share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter, but only today!