As some of you know, I’m a big fan of motivational books or non-fiction books. I feel that by reading such books, I can learn a lot and improve myself as a person. But lately, I start to realize that there’s 1 similarity in every motivational books. There are only success stories about how successful people managed to achieve their dreams and ambitions. Their WAYS and methods to become successful.

People tend to focus on the success (the one with glass casing) and neglect the mistake...but that's not actually the right thing to do. By the way, the guy is not me.

Well, not that there’s any problem with such content.

The thing I’m wondering about is that why isn’t there a motivational book which focuses on mistakes and mistakes only? Maybe there ARE such books but they are surely not that popular. Hmm, I thought learning about the mistakes made by others is actually more important than learning about how successful people become successful? After all, the ways to success can be quite different from one individual to another, but the mistakes to be avoided can be quite similar.

Furthermore, making mistakes do make us learn more so that we won’t repeat them. If that’s the case, isn’t it nice to know what kind of mistakes have been made by others in the past, so that we will try to avoid them or at least know what to do when we’re faced with them?

Unfortunately, this is not what most people want to know. People love to read about successful stories and idolize these successful individuals. The thought of Warren Buffett making some silly mistakes just doesn’t materialize in their mind. But is that true that Warren Buffett does not make silly mistakes? No. Everyone does at some points in their life. It’s just that others do not want to focus on the mistakes.

Besides that, it’s also because motivational books are meant to represent hopes. By reading these books, I do hope that I can be like these great and successful people. That’s why I need to read how they succeed which is something positive, and not how they could’ve failed due to their silly mitakes. That’s just too demotivating to read!

Demotivating it might…but they are still very useful in my humble opinion.

Hmm…maybe someone should come out with a series of books about mistakes and mistakes only. It’ll be nice to see the mistakes made by Steve Jobs, rather than how he became successful.