Let’s talk about QUOTES!
I have such a weird relationship with inspirational quotes. Let’s try this in point form:
- I love deep esoteric thoughts ranging from stoics to whatever you call all those guys from the 1850s in Boston (Emerson, Thoreau)
- I also love the success-mentality type people from 1900 to the 1980s (Napoleon Hill, OS Marden, Maugham, Og Mandino, etc)
- I don’t know how to categorize these guys, but NV Peale, Dale Carnegie, Robert Schuller, again Napolean Hill, etc write such beautiful words, it’s like they’re all divinely arranged
- Of course, I love James Allen because you can’t help but feel the spirit of God when reading them…and yet, as I slowly go through his 20+ books, they’re pretty short on tactics & techniques. Just great for feeling good.
- And yes, there’s tons of current authors, podcasters, lifestyle entrepreneurs, and business owners who I love to bits! I especially love the ones who talk about:
- quitting your job and living your own dreams
- accomplishing your goals and becoming a person you never thought you could become
What I don’t like
Search all over the net and social networks, and you’ll find SO MUCH EMPTY TRASH. You can usually tell that you’ve found garbage if the “quote” doesn’t have an attribution…meaning an author.
Fun fact: the garbage quotes out-perform the quotes that I like by about 50 to 1.
I don’t like “bro-quotes“, which are usually the ones with a stylish guy sitting on a nice car, or sometimes with a hot gal. They often talk about things like hustle. I think those types of thoughts are made by & for guys with the emotional maturity of a 12-year old.
I don’t like anything with the Joker, Minions, lions/tigers/wolves/cheetahs, the Joker, hot-air balloons, the auroa borealis, the Joker, and I’m sure I can think of a few other pet peeves like that, but I’m running out of time! Again…I think they’re all cliche & childish.
AND I UNDERSTAND! A lot of people have not read deep, soul-stirring texts from the greatest minds in history. Most people are not exposed to divine light. Even if people actively practice a religion , do they ALSO spend at least an hour a day deep in personal study to really, really understand the mysteries of eternity? Probably not, because if they did, they wouldn’t be so moved by basic quotes.
So when they hear silly tripe with a slight spin on personal growth, their limited exposure to truth & light makes the kindergarten stuff seem “woke”. No blame here. I’m not better than anyone. You all know I’m full of character flaws.
(but you should see some of the utter, absolute garbage that often gets posted in my Quotes Group. I try to delete a lot of it, but so much still gets in. I notice that some people’s woke ideas today were only slightly enlightened 50 years ago….)
If you can’t beat ’em….
I have my own style and people always say to be you…do your own thing, etc. but you may have noticed that since about mid 2018, I’ve started adopting a bit of the trashy empty style of “thoughts” that most quote pages espouse.
Why? Because the deep esoteric stuff does not appear to be what most people want. Yes, there ARE some OK thoughts out there that are worth sharing. I have a Google Sheets doc that I’ve started called “Crappy Quotes”. It’s for quotes that I have seen get literally 200 to 300x the response rates that I get with the deep, esoteric ones.
So if I can’t beat ’em, how can I adopt a crappy quote methodology?
On the plus side, one BIG opportunity for me is that MOST of the trash thoughts are full of grammar or format errors. It’s like 90% of them were written by cavemen.
So it’ll be easy to stand out with some crappy quotes MINUS the incorrect capitalizations, commas missing, periods in the wrong spots, spaces where they don’t belong, nouns missing “the” or “a”, et cetera.
I’ll be the best at doing the worst in order to become the best worst quote guy you ever saw. lol
Thoughts? Stay true to my style or adopt the popular silly, empty, tripe that people love simply because they’re starving for truth in their lives & don’t know where to find it, so they respond to basic “quotes” they believe are deep, only because their parents never exposed them to greatness?
Or a bit of both?
- Ep92-How Do You Deal With Toxic People? - March 12, 2020
- Ep91-Do Your Powers Astonish You? - March 10, 2020
- Ep90-Do You Stand Up To Obstacles? - March 9, 2020
I love everything you post deep or not , but if some like the shallow meaningless stuff I say mix it up . Go with your gut , but always be true to who you are . I like the deeper meaningful post/quotes only because shallow meaningless quote drive me batty haha . Take care ,just one person’s opinion.
Thanks, Jennifer! Good points, and I’m sure there’s several more people who share yours & my sentiments on this. I’m experimenting with both types. The nondescript, dime-a-dozen quotes aren’t all bad, actually. Sometimes they have some redeeming qualities. Thanks for chiming in.
Shawn you have my moral support. Reading comments made from ‘’twenty somethings’ I sometimes believe they never got through kindergarten. I enjoy your quotes. Keep up the good work.
Haha! Thanks, Sheryl…but I’m fully into my experiment with posting flighty, vanilla, bland “quotes” on the page! lol Yeah, there’s a big difference in comments on FB; you can definitely tell who has spent a life reading good books vs those who haven’t. But…at risk of sounding elitist or something, I should have specified that it makes total sense that everyone on Earth is at a different level of progression spiritually, so ANY inspirational thought that moves a person to a higher level shouldn’t be snubbed.
I hope people understood that I wasn’t trying to snub those who are inspired by simple quotes. 🙂