Alain de Botton is an exceptional author. His recent book is The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work.

Alain is a fine writer and speaker. In this talk he weaves a quick pace, wit, and humor to look at our outlook on success and failure. I encourage you to watch his TED Talk on A kinder, gentler philosophy of success.

On this video he encourage us to:

  • Be cautious of our views of failure.
  • Stop judging others based on their work role.
  • Be wary of self-help that tells us we can do anything and that we suffer from low self-esteem. One sets the other up.
  • Reexamine our ideas of success and failure.
  • Remember we can’t be successful at everything and there will be loss with any success.
  • Be cautious of sucking in other people’s ideas of what success is for us.
  • Make sure we own our own measure, method, and meaning of success.
  • Remember there is haphazard in all we do.

Watch the video below:


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