Barker’s Advice on Playing it Safe
At the July 7 First Friday Book Synopsis at the Park City Club in Dallas, I 
will present a synopsis of Eric Barker‘s best-seller, Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know about Success is (Mostly) Wrong (New York: Harper One, 2017).
One of the first issues in the book is concerned with how safe someone ought to play in order to achieve the success that he or she desires. Should a person simply do what he or she is told?
The answer, according to Barker, is that there is no programmed, correct answer.
In the first chapter of the book, he says:
Know thyself and pick the right pond.
Identify your strengths and pick the right place to apply them.
“If you follow rules well, find an organization aligned with your signature strengths and go full steam ahead. Society clearly rewards those who can comply, and these people keep the world an orderly place. (p. 30).
“If you’re more of an unfiltered type, be ready to blaze your own path. It’s risky, but that’s what you were built for. Leverage the intensifiers that make you unique. You’re more likely to reach the heights of success – and happiness – if you embrace your ‘flaws’” (pp. 30-31).
In essence, self-knowledge allows someone to create value wherever that person chooses to apply it.
It is the choice of where that really matters.
