Bob Buford is serving as a contributing writer to the American City Business Journals.

Twice per month, Bob’s writing is featured in 46 Business Journals across the U.S.

For a complete list of all Bob Buford’s articles in the American City Business Journals, CLICK HERE. 

 

The Harper Lee Myth that Keeps You from a Better Second Half

Jun 30, 2016, 7:10am EST

Over the past column or two, we have talked about myths and the role they can play in our lives.

They can help us frame the world and understand it better, but they can also be hurdles that keep us from better things.

Let’s look at a few more this week that we have run into over the past two decades of helping people figure out what’s next.

The Gatsby myth

This myth speaks to the need to impress, the need to maintain an illusion. It strikes often in the lives of successful people, but it is a false path to significance.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel ” The Great Gatsby” painted a desperately lonely portrait of a man consumed with displaying his success with a great mansion, lavish parties, and all those custom-made shirts, all to impress Daisy Buchanan and other high-society figures. His was on a quest for legitimacy and elegance with ill-gotten gain acquired from mysterious, shady enterprises on the other side of town.

The myth is “If only I had the right material symbols, the ‘big people’ would accept me and I would be ‘in’ at last.”…READ MORE