I doubt you’ll recognise the name Samuel Smiles.

Unless you’re a recovering personal development junkie like I am.

Samuel’s 1859 book Self-Help is seen as the origin of the self-help genre. If you hopped in a time machine and took a trip back to the factories and fog of Victorian England, you’d find Self-Help second only to The Bible on book shelves across the country.

Unsurprisingly, the book is packed with quotable lines.

Take these for instance:

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never make a discovery

Even though Samuel wrote this 150 years ago, these lines have an uncanny ring, don’t you think?

They wouldn’t look out of place in any modern-day self-help book or rousing Dimstagram post.

In fact, Carol Dweck wrote about a similar idea when she coined the phrase “Growth Mindset” and rebranded mistakes as data points, not setbacks.

Today, if you visit any start-up in London or San Francisco, “fail fast, learn faster” is the sort of mantra which runs through every brainstorming session and hackathon.

My Subtraction Method is based on this idea too.

When I hosted my Subtraction Method workshop a few weeks ago for daily email maestro John Bejakovic's readers, I chatted about recognising and subtracting what doesn’t work as the route to deeper insight, flow and fulfilment.

But back to smiley Samuel.

It’s almost like his Victorian wisdom has aged better than a fine wine. Smiles was clearly ahead of his time.

Or was he……?

(dramatic drum roll)

If you rewind the clock 2,500 years, Confucius was musing very similar when he said the one who does not fall does not stand up.

2,000 years before Confucius, the Tao Te Ching was riffing on the same idea with the line failure is the foundation of success and the means by which is it achieved.

That’s to say:

Smiles wasn’t offering anything new when he wrote what he did. Instead, he was tapping into wisdom which is as old as the human experience itself.

Thing is, I always thought soundbites like these were just poetic musings or impractical philosophy.

But now I’m not so sure.

The fact the same wisdom shows up again and again (5,000 years ago with Lao Tzu, 2,500 years ago with Confucius, 150 years ago with Smiles and so on) starts to feel less like coincidence and more like something that might just actually be true. 

And in a world that’s changing faster than ever, what’s true and constant is like a beacon amidst the noise. A solid place for us to hang our well-worn hats.

Far more solid, for instance, than whatever trendy bandwagon the copycats jump on next.

And to those copycats, here's what I’d say:

Forget about downloading your fifth meditation app or adding that Oura Ring to your Amazon basket.

Instead, consider this:

Are you chasing an external solution to an internal struggle?

Are you looking for answers to questions which have already been solved?

And are you overlooking wisdom which has stood the test of time and which will still be true 10 years, 100 years and 1,000 years from now, even when the newest and most enticing fad has hit the shelves?

Lots to ponder here.

And, like a lot of my emails, this message is just as much to myself as it is to anyone else.

I've found looking in the direction of what's true to be infinitely more valuable than shiny, short-lived solutions. 

But I've gone on for long enough.

If you’re tired of chasing quick fixes, my coaching is made with you in mind.

More info here:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com