Ep: 8: SUCCESS, FACTS & FICTIONS: ERIC BARKER

Is everything you know about “success” wrong?  

Well, maybe not everything but a hell of a lot of what we’ve been taught about achievement is, at best, simplistic and at worst, just wrong.

ERIC BARKER is the creator of the blog Barking Up the Wrong Tree. Almost 300,000 subscribers. His work has been mentioned in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, Time Magazine, The Week, Business Insider. His recent WSJ best seller of the same name, subtitled, The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong is the topic of this podcast.

The good news is there is much you can do to to up your odds at succeeding in life, whatever that means to you. That’s a hint BTW.

There are things that separates the extremely successful from the rest of us and Eric talks about it. 

Here are just some of the show notes on things I learned by talking with Eric. Give it a listen.

[00:05:18] Some myths about success that we all heard growing up

[00:10:04] The Faustian bargain

[00:14:07] The importance and power of context

[00:16:33] He talks about his most surprising findings (regarding success)

[00:17:07] On extroversion and introversion

[00:19:54] What we get wrong about the topic of success

[00:23:53] “Quitting” and success.

[00:25:22] The value of pretending

[00:31:16] Why confidence is problematic.

[00:37:59] Is college necessary to be successful?

[00:43:11] On “intensifiers” and personal success

[00:50:26] What to look into if you're failing or unhappy at your job.

[00:51:16] The real power in positive thinking

[01:01:01] The story of Martin Pistorius