Wake Up and Live! Quotes

“Suppose a man had an appointment a hundred miles north of his home, and that if he kept it he would be sure of having health, much happiness, fair prosperity, for the rest of his life. He has just time enough to get there, just enough gas in his car. He drives out, but decides that it would be more fun to go twenty-five miles south before starting out in earnest. That is nonsense! Yes, isn't it? The gas had nothing to do with it; time had no preference as to how it would be spent; the road ran north as well as south, yet he missed his appointment. Now, if that man told us that, after all, he had quite enjoyed the drive in the wrong direction, that in some ways he found it pleasanter to drive with no objective than to try to keep a date, that he had had a touching glimpse of his old home by driving south, should we praise him for being properly philosophical about having lost his opportunity? No, we should think he had acted like an imbecile. Even if he had missed his appointment by getting into a daydream in which he drove automatically past a road sign or two, we should still not absolve him. Or if he had arrived too late from having lost his way when he might have looked up his route on a good map and failed to do so before starting, we might commiserate with him, but we should indict him for bad judgment. Yet when it comes to going straight to the appointments we make with ourselves and our own fulfillment we all act very much like the hero of this silly fable: we drive the wrong way. We fail where we might have succeeded by spending the same power and time. Failure indicates that energy has been poured into the wrong channel. It takes energy to fail.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up And LIVE!

“The first exercise is to spend an hour every day without saying anything except in answer to direct questions.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“As for Resistances! They are almost an item of dogma in the current secular religion. Persons who would never dream of going to the time, expense, or trouble of a full analysis will tell you complacently that they have “a resistance” to this or that, and feel that they have done all and more than can be asked of them by admitting their handicap. Remarkable cures of resistances, however, have been observed in those who took solemnly the advice to replace that word with our ancestors’ outmoded synonym for the same thing: “bone-laziness.” It is not quite so much fun, nor so flattering, to be foolishly lazy as it is to be the victim of a technical term, but many are crippled for knowing an impressive word who would have had no such trouble if they had lived in a simpler and less self-indulgent society. Those who are genuinely, deeply, and unhappily in the grip of a neurosis should turn at once to one of the well known therapies. Unless one is willing to do so, it should be made a matter of social disapproval to refer technically to such difficulties.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!: A Formula for Success That Really Works!

“الحرية هي الخضوع لما يفرضه المرء على نفسه
من قواعد ومبادئ”
― دوروثي براند, استيقظ وعش

“Talk for fifteen minutes a day without using I, me, my, mine.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“When the Unconscious has us fully at its mercy we talk not as we should voluntarily choose to talk if we could see all the consequences of our speech, but from a need to relieve some half-perceived pressure. So we grumble humorously about our difficulties, and make ourselves self-conscious by doing so. Or we excuse ourselves defiantly. Or we complain of a trifling injustice, and are sometimes startled to see how much more pity we invoke than the occasion warrants. Once we have found a well-spring of pity and indulgence in another, we are seldom mature enough not to take advantage of it, thus reinforcing our infantilism and defeating our growth. One of the worst wiles of the Will to Fail is that it forces its victim to ask for unnecessary advice. Here again, the universal deep motive for asking for advice (unnecessarily, it should be emphasized once more) is that by so doing we can go on feeling protected and cherished even though we are no longer children. But that again means that we are being provided with advance excuses for failure. If we act on the advice of another and are unsuccessful, obviously the failure is not ours but our counsellor’s; isn’t that plain? So we can continue to day-dream of successful action, to believe that if only we had followed our first impulse we could not have failed. Since such motives can be present, it is wise to scrutinize every impulse to ask for advice. If the origin of the desire is above suspicion, then there is only one further question to ask before seeking help with a clear conscience: “If I worked this out for myself, would I consume only my own time?” If the answer to that is “Yes,” then it is generally better to work out the problem independently, unless the amount of time so expended would be grossly disproportionate to the importance of the result. If you are a creative worker, remember that time spent in finding an independent technique is seldom wasted.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!: A Formula for Success That Really Works!

“Whatever the ostensible purpose may be, it is plain that one motive is at work in all these cases: the intention, often unconscious, to fill life so full of secondary activities or substitute activities that there will be no time in which to perform the best work of which one is capable. The intention, in short, is to fail.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!: A Formula for Success That Really Works!

“The Unconscious dreads pain, humiliation, fatigue; it bends its efforts even more ceaselessly to the end of avoiding pain than it does to the procuring of positive pleasures. So we are faced with a fact which at once accounts for much of the inactivity, the inertia, to which we succumb at moments when positive action would be to our advantage: that rather than face the mere possibility of pain we will not act at all.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“Always your first question to yourself should be, “What would I be doing now if it were really impossible for me to fall at – whatever it is: traveling, modeling, writing, farming?”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“Success, for any sane adult, is exactly equivalent to doing one’s best. What that best may be, what its farthest reaches may include, we can discover only by freeing ourselves completely from the Will to Fail.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“One of the most famous men in America constantly sends himself post-cards, and occasionally notes. He explained the card-sending as being his way of relieving his memory of unnecessary details. In his pocket he carries a few postals addressed to his office. I was with him one threatening day when he looked out the restaurant window, drew a card from his pocket and wrote on it. Then he threw it across the table to me with a grin. It was addressed to himself at his office, and said “Put your raincoat with your hat.” At the office he had other cards addressed to himself at home.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“An alternative method is this: from time to time give yourself a day on which you say “Yes” to every request made of you which is at all reasonable. The more you tend to retire from society in your leisure, the more valuable this will be.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“For those who need really stern warning about this: one psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Bousfeld, holds that the sure sign of the incurable egotist is that he never allows for the actual amount of time any given activity will take. Firmly, though unconsciously, believing that the world revolves around him, certain of his magical power to arrest the progress of the sun and the moon, he goes through life astonished at the refractoriness of Time in not meeting him half-way. He is always late to appointments, behind in his obligations, constantly assuming more work or accepting more invitations than he could keep if he were twins. He either learns the error of his ways or comes to a bad end.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“The correction of the “I mean,” the “As a matter of fact” habit, takes cooperation. If you realize that you have picked up a verbal mannerism, call on the friend to whom you talk most fluently and emotionally. It is fairly easy to control such a mannerism in the presence of someone we hardly know, but in the heat of discourse the offending phrase will crop up in every other sentence.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“And this exercise comes directly from all the finishing schools for young ladies that ever existed: pause on the threshold of any crowded room you are to enter, and consider for a moment your relation to those who are in it. Many a retiring and quiet woman can thank this small item of her school training for her ability to handle competently situations which seem, as though they would be embarrassing and exacting for anyone so sheltered. It was for years (and may be still, for all I know) the custom to teach young girls to stop just a moment at the door of the room they were entering until they had found their hostess, and then the guest of honor. (Failing such guest, the oldest person in the room was to be singled out.) Then the room was entered, the young guest going, as soon as her hostess was free, straight to her to be welcomed and to “make her manners.” She then watched for the first opportunity to speak for a few minutes to the guest of honor; and not until she had discharged these obligations was she free to follow any other plans or inclinations of her own.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“But notice that where you must do work not your own, assume these responsibilities; see that you do not allow them to be thrust upon you. What you undertake open-eyed will seldom be made later a cause of martyrdom and sullenness.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“Try also to be willing to see your work and suggestions acted upon without receiving immediate acknowledgment that the ideas originated with you. This frequently happens in a large organization, and to sulk or stand out for having your rights recognized in every case will only cancel the advance you might have been able to make. If your good idea is one of a series and not a flash in the pan, you can be sure your caliber will eventually make itself felt. If not, the organization is a bad one for you, and you should set about finding a better connection as soon as possible.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“Many of those who believe they have given up their own ideas and are working along other lines will unconsciously go on obstructing and objecting, holding up the work, trying to defeat its ends. The trouble here is that this obstructionism is often unconscious; but the way to escape the danger is to realize it as a possibility, and to look at yourself and your attitude scrupulously to be sure you are not putting up unnecessary hazards, doing your share of the new program slowly or indifferently – trying to bring about a failure, since your plan was ignored or modified. If, on the other hand, you are the one whose decisions must be accepted, you will save yourself trouble later by watching the initial stages of the work to be sure that some such unconscious sabotage is not going on. A quick challenge to the troublesome person whose feelings have been hurt will sometimes whip a whole program into shape which might otherwise fail. And by such watching you can see that each is doing the work assigned to him.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“if the decision goes against you or your suggestion, abandon your own idea and cooperate in the decision whole-heartedly. If you feel that a truly grave mistake is being made, take a few hours to draw up the situation as you see it, show how you think the new decision will alter matters, why you think it is a mistake, or why an alternative plan should be adopted. Try to be as fair about this as you can. Often we think an alternative plan precious because, and only because, it is our own. “Pride of authorship” comes in.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“It is true that if you look exclusively to please others what you do will seldom be worth doing; but if your idea of success includes recognition, then the more you can learn imaginatively of your audience the better. If, knowing their tastes, you can give them not only what they want but something much better than they, being nonprofessionals, could imagine, you are sure of your success.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“Now, before getting to work, drop your own point of view and see your prospective task from the position of your audience, of the “ultimate consumer.” Who is to benefit by the activity? Who, if you are a creative worker, is your audience? Who, if you are selling an article, is your predestined customer? If you were in his shoes, what would you like to see included in the offering? If you can imaginatively enter into the state of mind of those through whom you hope to attain your success, you can frequently add just those elements which will make your work irresistible.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“The only way to do this successfully is to have a well-thought-out set of standards drawn up for each type of work that you do, and in advance. If you wait till anyone item is finished you may find yourself reasoning after the fact, defending the fact-accomplished, and perhaps blinding yourself to real insufficiencies in it.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“Now, to identify ourselves too long with work we do is a bad mistake, and a mistake through which we can be hurt and hampered. The past few years have taught us much about the folly of so identifying ourselves with our children that they are rendered incapable of leading independent lives. The mother who clings to her adult (or even adolescent) child, suffering with him, making his decisions, undergoing humiliation on his account, unable to live her own life fully if he is not leading the sort of life she covets for him, meddling with his affairs, dictating his professional and social interests, is no longer looked upon as the sum of maternal love and wisdom. While we may not always practise as wisely as we should, few men and women today consider the complete identification of themselves with their children as either praiseworthy or desirable. We have to that extent learned perspective about one of the most fundamental relations of life. We know that our work as parents is to do all in our power to equip the child to live a happy, healthy adult life, to put up no unnecessary barriers before his independent activities, to leave him free to select his friends and to form his own judgments as soon as possible. What is more, we know that it is desirable that every adult, whether parent or child, should have his own interests, and that only the possession of such interests will guarantee that no unwholesome interference with the life of another will take place. Further, no one believes for a moment that because a saner understanding of a parent’s functions is replacing the old dictatorship, which was tyrannical even when it was motivated by deep affection, the love between mother or father and child is in any way decreasing. The analogy of any finished piece of work with a child is very close: each has to be carried, cherished, nourished as part of one’s very self during the early stages. But with full growth there comes a time when each should have its independent identity. If we intend to get all we can from living, we must learn when to go on from one task to the next. Even the most productive of us could contribute more than he does; our output is about halved because we do not learn to separate ourselves from the things that are done and put our energy into the work which is ahead.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!

“First of all, we can use imagination to see ourselves and our work in some perspective. Everyone knows how a child identifies himself utterly with all he owns and does, with all those who care for him. He is outraged if asked to share his possessions, the breaking of a beloved toy is a tragedy, if it rains on the day when a picnic was planned one would think the sun could never shine for him again. If a mother or nurse leaves him while he is awake, he has been most treacherously betrayed. In fact, much early education has as its one goal the teaching of the little egotist to see himself in somewhat truer relation to his world. More or less successfully, each of us has had to learn this lesson; but it is almost never fully understood. To our last days there is still a trace of that childish egotism in us—sometimes so very much more than a trace that an adult suffers, resents, sulks, and complains in a way only too reminiscent of the nursery.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!: A Formula for Success That Really Works!

“Have you ever seen the teacher of an art class at work? Frequently he will find in the drawing of one pupil a flaw which is so typical of most students’ work at the same stage that he will call the other pupils of the class around the easel. Using the imperfect canvas as his text, he will branch into criticism, advice, exhortation, and will occasionally go on to rub out the mistake and draw the line or put in the color as it should have been done. If you will observe the group at this moment you will discover that, tragically enough, everyone seems to be benefiting by the lecture except the very pupil to whom it should be most valuable. In almost every case the one whose work is providing the example will be quivering, nervous, sometimes tearful, often angry—in short, giving every sign that he is feeling so personally humiliated and insulted that he is reacting at an infantile level. If you ask for help, or put yourself into the relation of a pupil to a teacher, learn to advance by your mistakes instead of suffering through them. Keep your attitude impersonal while you are being shown the road back to the right procedure. If you are in school, or taking class or private instruction, it is wise to take every opportunity to ask well-considered questions, then to act on the information, and finally—and very important—to report to your instructor as to your success or failure through following his advice. This is of advantage not only to you, but to him and his subsequent pupils, since he cannot know what practices are effective and what are only useful to himself and a few like him unless his pupils report in this fashion. If you must consistently report no progress, then one of two things must be true: that you are not fully understanding him, or that you are not working under the right master. After your period of apprenticeship is over, try not to weaken yourself or bring about self-doubt to such an extent that you must have help on minor points of procedure. Every physician and psychiatrist knows that there is a great class of “sufferers” who return again and again, asking so many and such trivial questions that it seems unlikely they could ever have grown to maturity if they were as helpless in all relations as they show themselves to their physicians. No one except a charlatan truly welcomes the appearance of such patients as these. The person who is looking for an excuse to blame his failure on another or who will not, if he can help it, grow up and settle his own difficulties, will go on asking advice until he draws his last breath, and even the astutest consultant may be forgiven if he sometimes mistakes an infrequent questioner for one of the weaker type. A good touchstone to show whether you may be only following a nervous habit of dependence is to ask yourself in every case: “Would I ask this if I had to pay a specialist’s fee for the answer?”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!: A Formula for Success That Really Works!

“So the working out, however laborious, of an original technique is worth the time expended, the loneliness entailed. With that well in mind, let us consider those times when advice should be taken. You have a genuine problem. The first step, then, should be to write it out, or to formulate it verbally with exactness, so that you can see just what it is that is troubling you. If you simply let the problem wash around in your mind, it will seem greater, and much vaguer, than it will appear on close examination. Then find your expert, whether friend or stranger, but make every effort to find one whose views seem to be congenial to you, since that usually implies similar or congenial mental processes. To do so earlier will mean that you are wasting both your time and his by making him the audience of part of your self-examination. If you are successful in getting an interview, make that as short and concise as possible while still covering all your points. Then follow the advice you are given until you see definite results. If you are tempted to say “Oh, that won’t work for me,” then you should suspect your own motives. Such a rejection implies that you already had a course of action in mind, and were more than half-hoping that you would be advised to follow it. Watching an example of the wrong attitude towards advice and instruction here may be more illuminating than any positive example.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!: A Formula for Success That Really Works!

“If the alibis of the age were in any way generally helpful, if they were not excuses for remaining inactive, and if inactivity were really a happier state than effectiveness, there would be little harm in indulging in the contemporary patter, even without the specialized medical or psychological knowledge necessary for using the terminology correctly. But before you decide that you are the victim of uncoöperative glands, or a villainous Resistance, try a few of the suggestions for self-discipline in a later chapter. You may find them so much fun, your expanding powers so much more rewarding than—well, your bone-laziness—that you will not need the services of an expert, after all.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!: A Formula for Success That Really Works!

“It is perfectly true that many cases of subnormal energy can be helped by the proper glandular dosage, but how many of those who have spoken to you of being probably hypo-thyroid* ever went through the simple process of having a basal metabolism test to see if that were really the trouble? Of course they can claim that the situation is so grave that they cannot even get up energy to start being cured; there’s no answer to that one. But if you are really seriously handicapped by lethargy, you can take your first successward step by consulting a good diagnostician, if necessary. If necessary, mind; for there is a fact which makes a good deal of the talk about glandular insufficiency look like the alibi it too often is, and which will be confirmed for you by specialists in glandular therapy if you ask them: that if those who complain of lethargy increase their habitual activity little by little the glands respond by increased secretion. In short, very often this condition can be cured by starting at the other end! You may rest assured that you will have no consequent breakdown in following this advice unless you deliberately (and with intent to cripple yourself) leap from a practically comatose state to one of manic activity.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!: A Formula for Success That Really Works!

“Now, this is an age of alibis. We all know a little too much about the Glands Regulating Personality, and the Havoc raised by Resistances, and so on. Never since the world began were there such good opportunities to be lazy with distinction.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!: A Formula for Success That Really Works!

“Long before Freud made his contribution to modern thought, Pico della Mirandola, in a treatise called De Imaginatione—Concerning the Imagination—was discriminating between two kinds of revery: the one retrograde, backward-turning, keeping the man from his man’s work, prolonging irresponsibility and mental childhood; the other, the true imagination, was found in the successful man.”
― Dorothea Brande, Wake Up and Live!: A Formula for Success That Really Works!