Hey Crickets. How are you doing on this Friday morning, better known as day number sixty-eight of Operation Achieve Anything? I’m still waiting on my paycheck so I still feel pretty stressed as my food supplies continue to dwindle but other than that I’m feeling great… well… great for me at least. I still feel like garbage as far as my overall health is concerned but at least I’m back to a point where I no longer feel like I’m struggling to function as usual.

Right now, the Achieve Anything… book is very hung up on honesty. Again, I get this focus as far as self-help goes in order to be a better person in general but I’ve already read books for this so I feel disappointed when the book doesn’t focus more on an actual process for goal achievement. Yes, the advice of, “No achieve success 100% on their own,” is great to hear to build confidence but I’d much rather read advice for the battleground while I’m in it rather than just feel like I’m getting a stranger’s generic encouragements.

I was expecting more tasks that involve things like researching your interest or advice on how to contact a mentor or seek out a business investor or how to turn a rejection into a win. Instead, I’m getting more flowery talk where it seems to be building to a message of, “As long as you are the best you that you can be, you’re already achieving everything,” or some sort of bullshit like that.

Granted, I’m not even close to halfway in, so I still have hopes that the book will shift gears at some point and will play along the best that I can until it does. For yesterday’s assignment, I was told to list successful five people who I admire for their honesty along with a sublist of their trait that I admire and would like to adopt as my own.

So with that, here you go:

1. Howard Stern – Like him or not, you cannot deny that Howard Stern is one of the most honest people in show business, at least when it comes to delving into the more embarrassing aspects of life. I thought he was just silly when I first discovered his Channel 9 show back when I was sixteen but when his radio show was syndicated to my hometown. I’d say that it changed my life.
   
   This was way before he had daily interviews with celebrities and barely left his basement as his relationship with his ex-wife built up to his divorce. I loved how he could make anything, whether it be boring, embarrassing or completely innocuous, seem interesting just by being honest. This is what inspired my storytelling style where I was almost more excited to shock people with my honesty when sharing the horrible things that happened to me in honest but funny ways.
   
   I feel that I’ve already siphoned off most of the traits that I admire in Howard Stern. These traits being, not just the honesty mentioned about but the fact that he was always open to listen to absolutely anyone about absolutely anything while making them not feel judged. This is how he managed to mine so many hours of interesting talk from random people off the streets.
    
2. Christopher Hitchens – As an Atheist, this man was important to me, though I didn’t always agree with him politically, he had my favorite Atheistic voice in his effort to get grown adults to be honest to children about the magical man in the sky who doesn’t help out but does create boogiemen to test our love of him. He also had one of my favorite honest lines during an interview that went something like, “I drink because I find others to be so boring when I’m sober.” Other than his fight to get religious types to be more honest, I was more of a fan of his writing and interview style than I was interested in adopting his traits.
    
3. Todd Glass – This is another talk show host, who I knew as a stand-up comedian but grew to love through his podcast while listening to him orchestrate his comedy show with the honesty of a little kid. The thing that I like about his brand of honesty is how he will drop everything in order to share mini-moments-of-truth. Whether he’s admitting that he lost where he was while playing a character, or is just stuck with a random truth, you can tell that he’s always sharing what’s really on his mind even if it ends up making him look stupid which is another good trait to me.
    
4. Karl Pilkington – This U.K. comedian really cracks me up because of how honest he is with his negative views that others might keep to themselves. I’m not talking major complaints that some might find offensive, no, his nitpicking is so specific that only a neurotic can truly relate while at the same time everyone else can find the humor. Either way, he’s always open to share the thoughts that come from his head, even at the expense of getting ridiculed by his sidekicks.
    
5. Charlie Kaufman – Those this man works in fiction, I’ve always appreciated his films because I sense that he’s seeking a personal truth that goes far beyond just being honest with info. Some may see his surreal approach as more of a gimmick of a personal style but as someone who attempts to use this technique as well and feel that the quirkiness of the backdrop allows viewers to focus in on the story truths that feel real.

You may notice that everyone on this list is from the entertainment industry and not more historical figures who may be more successful and powerful. That’s because I’ve never been interested in being in control so I don’t admire any people who might see success as power. As a wannabe writer, I’m far more interested in people who are honest in the way that they tell a story because finding truths through my fictional work is my ultimate goal.

Now, let’s move on to today’s assignment, which again, I feel is a fun one but don’t really see it as a step towards achieving my goal. Also again, today’s lesson was another one about honesty with the task at hand being to share a moment from the past when I got stuck in a lie and then share how that situation made me feel.

As always, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to learn the dirty truth of the example I manage to come up with. Until then, it’s now time to wrap this up by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects.

Talk to you soon.

Sincerely,

The Wicker Breaker

P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.