Marc Allen - The Type-Z Guide to Success: A Lazy Persons Manifesto to Wealth and Fulfillment

Copyright 2006 by Marc Allen

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Editing: Steve Anderson, Alexander Slagg
Text design and typography: Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Allen, Mark, 1946
The Type-Z guide to success : a lazy persons manifesto for wealth and
fulfillment / Marc Allen.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-57731-540-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Life skillsHandbooks, manuals, etc. 2. SuccessHandbooks, manuals,
etc. I. Title.
HQ2037.A42 2006
650.1dc22

First printing, May 2006
ISBN-10: 1-57731-540-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-57731-540-7
Printed in Canada on partially recycled, acid-free paper

Distributed by Publishers Group West

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

You will be as great as your dominant aspiration....
If you cherish a vision,
a lofty ideal in your heart,
you will realize it.

JAMES ALLEN

Im lazy. I admit it. For years, it was one of the things that kept me from succeeding in life after all, youve got to work really hard to succeed, right? Thats certainly what I was told, and certainly what I believed.

We call it a work ethic: Its good to work, right? Its good for the soul. It builds character. And hard work creates success. But I had a problem with that, if I was really honest with myself, because I didnt want to work all that hard. Given the choice between a day when I have to set the alarm clock and get up early and shower and shave and go to work and a day when I can laze in bed for as long as I want and then do whatever I feel like, Ill take that second option every time.

Ive never been a morning person. It takes me three or four hours to get going, and some days, to be really honest, I never get going at all. Some days I do very little. Ive always been that way, since childhood.

But look at the books youve written, people have said to me. And the music youve recorded. And you run a publishing company. You cant be lazy and do all that. Oh yes you can, I say. All it takes to write a book (or record music, or run a publishing company) is persistence.

You can be lazy and still be persistent
and once you learn how to do that,
you can accomplish a great deal.

Being lazy doesnt necessarily mean being unfocused, unmotivated, and unsuccessful. Its quite possible its fairly easy, in fact to be lazy and still be focused on a goal, and do whatever you need to do, in your own lazy way, to move toward that goal, toward the realization of your dream, step by step.

To many people, the word lazy has all kinds of negative connotations. If youre lazy, youre a procrastinator, or you never get started in the first place, or if you do, youre a quitter. Its impossible, most people believe, to be lazy and still succeed. There are very few role models for this, after all. Most successful people seem to have tremendous energy; most of them are Type-A workaholics.

Youve got to work hard,
all the time, to succeed.
That is a deep, core belief
that is pervasive in our society.
I decided to challenge that belief, and see
if it is possible to create success with ease.

I decided almost thirty years ago to try this experiment: I decided to try and be successful on my own terms, as I want to define success and yet to do it in my own lazy way (which means I take mornings and Mondays off and never neglect time for long vacations). My experiment was to try and live the life of my dreams, and yet at the same time have a life of ease.

As soon as I tried this, I found something important: When I allow myself to be really lazy for a good length of time, I inevitably find myself full of energy at least for a while. During these times, its surprising how much I can accomplish in a relatively short period of time.

On most days, I dont write at all. Some days Ill write for fifteen minutes; some days Ill actually write for a few hours. If you can average a page every other day, in one year youve got a 180-page book.

It took me three years to write my last book, The Millionaire Course: A Visionary Plan for Creating the Life of Your Dreams. I put everything I know into that book, everything I learned along the way that changed my life from one of poverty to abundance and even, more importantly, from frustration and struggle to a pretty startling level of ease and enjoyment (something I couldnt even imagine when I was younger).

But you probably havent read that book, have you? I cant tell you the number of people who have come up to me and said, I bought your book, and its sitting by my bed, but... I just havent gotten into it yet. Ive even had people say, Wow, youve written a 300-page book! Whats it all about?