I want it all, I want it all,
I want it all, I want it now.
Queen, 1989 – The Twentieth Century’s Most Inspirational Entrepreneurial Lyrics – voted by Business Magazine, July 2008.
By now you should have started prolifically writing a fountain of wisdom and hopefully be not too far away from completion. In order to move to the next step you must have completed a book or video that can be used to sell your expertise.
Writing the second chapter of your expert book is very easy. Just let your creative juices flow and follow on from your first chapter. Before you start your second chapter don’t forget to read your first chapter carefully as you will probably find that most of what you have written is utter nonsense.
All the time, feel for the audience. Empathise with them, understand what they are feeling, live their pain. Show that you care. Their problem is your problem. Never avoid speaking the truth to your readers. Tell them it like it is. Hide nothing. Practice this at all times when writing and you are on the second rung of the ladder, travelling at speed along Success Road.
By now you should have also prepared a plan for your book, setting out the chapters and ticking them off as you work through them. You do not need to stick rigidly to this, but it helps to have a guide to hand as you work.
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The Fat Man’s Guide to not being Fat
Chapter 2 – Introduction to My World of Happiness
Happiness, happiness, the greatest gift that I possess,
I thank the Lord I’ve been blessed,
With more than my share of happiness.
Ken Dodd, 1964.
Welcome to my world of happiness. You don’t have to be rich, you don’t need a beautiful wife or handsome husband. You don’t need a big house, a nice car or a Jacuzzi. All of these things help but they are not essential.
I’ll tell you what is essential: a slim waistline. This is how to be happy. Although it is a rich man’s world and of course you can probably think of all the things you could do if only you had a little money, happiness comes from having a slim waistline.
Happiness is in your head, unless you are male and in which case you usually find it attached to your groin (shave and a haircut – drum roll please!).
Your head dictates whether you are happy. Never allow your stomach to decide.
If you cannot eat sensibly or exercise moderately, you need to become a Happy Fatty. Be happy for who you are (ie a nice person), not what you are (ie a fat person).
To become a ‘Happy Fatty’, which is the first step towards contentment for you as a fat person, you must clear your head of negatives.
Research has shown that overweight people are natural pessimists. Pessimists tend to view the world around them as being completely negative. To succeed with the ‘Fatman’s Guide to Not Being Fat’ you need to be as positive as possible.
Positive people are confident, outgoing, easy natured, cheerful and happy. You must become a positive person.
Follow the exercises below to take a step towards success.
Exercise 1
This exercise is the hardest in the book because it is the first of many on a path of exploration and self-discovery. You may find the exercise embarrassing, difficult to comprehend or simply fail to understand the reasoning behind it. That is OK – at present you are fat. Research has shown that fat people have fewer brain cells than thin people.
You can be happy and fat. Fat and happy. Say this out loud:
“I can be fat and happy”.
(whenever you see underlined words in the book these indicate that you need to shout).
Now repeat it to the next person you meet (if this is a fat person who is even fatter than you and they punch you on the nose we cannot be held liable).
Next, go and stand in a crowded place – the more crowded the better – a supermarket, a church, a market square on market day. Take a deep breath and shout:
“There’s an A in Fat and Happy, and I’m both.”
Repeat this three times and then walk off. If the police enquire after you, show them this book.
Finally, go and stand in a doorway of a shop in a busy shopping street. The definition of “busy shopping street” is at least 20 people passing every 20 minutes. Anything less than this and you have failed the test. Oxford Street in London on a Saturday would be a good place to try this.
You will need to take a cap, hat or plate with you for the exercise. Make sure you have some copper coins. Put the copper coins into the cap. Sing the following song (if you don’t know the tune, have a look on YouTube for Josef Locke – he was a fat person like you but he lost a lot of weight running away from the taxman in the 1950’s):
Hear my song, Violetta
Hear my song beneath the moon
Come to me, in my gondola
Waiting on the old lagoon
Serenade across the water
Can you hear it soft and low
A tale of love and lovers
Singing long ago.
Does it matter if you can’t sing? No. Has this ever stopped any buskers? Never. Belt the song out with gusto.
Feeling nervous? Close your eyes. Open them when you have finished. See how much money you have made. Incidentally research shows that if you wear a military uniform, wear a kilt or sing in a Scottish accent you will make more.
Donate any money made to the nearest Big Issue Seller before you use it to buy cream buns. Go home immediately and read the rest of this chapter.
Did you manage to complete the exercise?
Well done. What you have just done is to complete the first step in a long road towards joining me in my happy state and this book will show you how.
Put a tick in the box below, and help yourself to a Strawberry Roulade the next time you are passing Iceland.
[Box for Tick]
Did you fail to complete the task?
Whisper the words and nothing came out? Couldn’t find anyone to repeat the mantra too? Whatever your excuse, you have failed. You are a born loser, someone who is going to have to work twice as hard as the winner who went straight outside and freed themselves of their inhibitions.
Take this book and burn it. That’s right – burn it. Don’t ever read it again. You are not worthy yet of reading the rest of it. Your shame will be reflected in your need to buy a fresh copy. You have failed the first test and this book will forever be associated with that failure.
Go back to the bookshop you purchased this book from, inform the bookseller that you are a fat failure and need to buy the book again. Tell the bookkeeper that you will not be back again as next time you will succeed. Inform them there is an A in Fat and Happy, and you’re both (don’t forget to shout and remember our disclaimer about getting punched on the nose).
Keith David is a businessman from a small village in North Wales. He is the author of “The Fat Man’s Guide to Not Being Fat”, “How to Get Rich” and a couple of other self-help books. Best known for his dramatic rise to fame after inventing a dietary plan to lose 7 stone in a week, he is similarly fairly well known for his subsequent fall back into penury. His wife, Anwen David regularly hacks his blog entries and adds factual corrections. You can read Keith’s book on How To Get Rich by visiting Amazon here
Why would you be on a ladder travelling at speed along Success Road? Are you sitting on top of an Ambitious Fire Engine?
As you read this guide, you will soon begin to notice that Keith has no thought for his potential readers’ feelings. He really is quite thoughtless.
I suspect that chapter 2 of the guide on weight loss was written in the pub, surrounded by slightly inebriated villagers egging Keith on.
These are clearly the writings of a man with quite a few spanners missing from his toolkit. Keith never bothered registering the trademark “Happy Fatty”. I wonder why…
Have you ever seen anyone practising positive mantras by standing in a shopping centre shouting out vowels or singing Josef Locke songs? Where on earth did Josef Locke come from in the sequence of advice? What on earth possessed Keith to type out this bizarre nonsense?