The first important thing you need to understand on your quest to importance is that doing something important is far less important than being someone important. If that sentence didn't make any sense to you that's because it's all-important, and important things are convoluted.
So, let's get you started. The first thing to understand is that important people always seem to be getting a lot more done than the rest of us. Being important involves a lot of hard work and you have to be prepared to do it. But the operative word here is 'seem'. Being important is 99% the art of creative and artful misdirection.
So first, always have at least fifty chat windows open on your laptop and have one person on hold on your phone waiting for you to put another person on hold while they wait for you to put yet another person on hold to get to talk to you, because that's how regular people talk to important people, they get in line. And yes, once in a while you should type something like - "Had a great time at the Grammies last night' or some such thing into all the chat windows and quickly follow it up with "Oops sorry, wrong window! Smiley face." Guess how many people will spend the rest of their day wondering who was in the right window.
Second, drop names liberally. In the midst of a conversation, you could say something like - You know, when I was visiting the United States a few years ago, Clinton actually pulled my skirt! Of course, the trick with this is you have to know when to stop - all will be lost if you explain that Clinton was your neighbour's cat who pulled the said garment from your clothesline! Or - you know I was on a call with the President yesterday - well, you were actually whinging to the president of Unimportants Anonymous, whose name you don't know, but let other people think what they will.
Third, know how to act more important than others when you have to wait. For instance, when you're in a traffic jam, never honk and yell - that's for the insignificant hoi polloi. No, wind down your tinted windows and yell into your dongle or your state-of-the-art phone for all to hear, "Can you ask New York to ask London to wait for a bit - I'm stuck in a &%$#& traffic jam!" If that doesn't shriek IMPORTANT, nothing else does. The only thing you could have done better was to call God to hold the earth a bit on the whole rotation thing while you got out of the jam.
Fourth, be fashionably late for everything including your own wedding, no important person worth his or her salt has the time to be on time and everyone knows that.
Fifth, be a sesquipedalian, excogitate and exercise those neurosensors to conjure up important-sounding words like antidisestablishmentarianism and usufruct. Simple, monosyllabic words that convey the meaning is for sissies.
Sixth, always use words like 'and so on', 'etcetera', and 'among other things', so that you convey the impression that what you are deigning to divulge is just a miniscule portion of what you actually know.
Seventh, always try to appear that you don't want to be recognized - wear large dark-tinted glasses and cover your face artfully but not completely with your hand taking care to flash that diamond-enscrusted Rolex and platinum charm bracelet. That's what all important people do - they try hard to become rich and famous, and then spend the rest of their lives trying not to be recognized.
The mathematically alert reader would have noticed that all the points above talk to the 99% of being important - the art of creative misdirection. What about the remaining 1%? Well, I'll assume that I'm already important enough for you to be reading this and will divulge the rest of the Secret.
Dear reader, I'm afraid you may not want to read this - but the remaining 1% of being important entails actually doing something important that really makes a difference to people. But if that's not your cup of tea, no problem - if you get the other 99% right, you should be well on your way.
So, let's get you started. The first thing to understand is that important people always seem to be getting a lot more done than the rest of us. Being important involves a lot of hard work and you have to be prepared to do it. But the operative word here is 'seem'. Being important is 99% the art of creative and artful misdirection.
So first, always have at least fifty chat windows open on your laptop and have one person on hold on your phone waiting for you to put another person on hold while they wait for you to put yet another person on hold to get to talk to you, because that's how regular people talk to important people, they get in line. And yes, once in a while you should type something like - "Had a great time at the Grammies last night' or some such thing into all the chat windows and quickly follow it up with "Oops sorry, wrong window! Smiley face." Guess how many people will spend the rest of their day wondering who was in the right window.
Second, drop names liberally. In the midst of a conversation, you could say something like - You know, when I was visiting the United States a few years ago, Clinton actually pulled my skirt! Of course, the trick with this is you have to know when to stop - all will be lost if you explain that Clinton was your neighbour's cat who pulled the said garment from your clothesline! Or - you know I was on a call with the President yesterday - well, you were actually whinging to the president of Unimportants Anonymous, whose name you don't know, but let other people think what they will.
Third, know how to act more important than others when you have to wait. For instance, when you're in a traffic jam, never honk and yell - that's for the insignificant hoi polloi. No, wind down your tinted windows and yell into your dongle or your state-of-the-art phone for all to hear, "Can you ask New York to ask London to wait for a bit - I'm stuck in a &%$#& traffic jam!" If that doesn't shriek IMPORTANT, nothing else does. The only thing you could have done better was to call God to hold the earth a bit on the whole rotation thing while you got out of the jam.
Fourth, be fashionably late for everything including your own wedding, no important person worth his or her salt has the time to be on time and everyone knows that.
Fifth, be a sesquipedalian, excogitate and exercise those neurosensors to conjure up important-sounding words like antidisestablishmentarianism and usufruct. Simple, monosyllabic words that convey the meaning is for sissies.
Sixth, always use words like 'and so on', 'etcetera', and 'among other things', so that you convey the impression that what you are deigning to divulge is just a miniscule portion of what you actually know.
Seventh, always try to appear that you don't want to be recognized - wear large dark-tinted glasses and cover your face artfully but not completely with your hand taking care to flash that diamond-enscrusted Rolex and platinum charm bracelet. That's what all important people do - they try hard to become rich and famous, and then spend the rest of their lives trying not to be recognized.
The mathematically alert reader would have noticed that all the points above talk to the 99% of being important - the art of creative misdirection. What about the remaining 1%? Well, I'll assume that I'm already important enough for you to be reading this and will divulge the rest of the Secret.
Dear reader, I'm afraid you may not want to read this - but the remaining 1% of being important entails actually doing something important that really makes a difference to people. But if that's not your cup of tea, no problem - if you get the other 99% right, you should be well on your way.
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