Mark Twain must have had fun as a writer. His sense of fun emerges in his stories. He clearly enjoyed his work as a writer. No wonder he lived to a good age for those days. He learned as a boy how to turn work into a vacation. I owe following story about him to Alan Elliott and Josh Hinds. In 1830's Mark Twain disobeyed his mother by taking a dip in a swimming hole near his hometown in Missouri. His mother punished him by telling him to whitewash thirty- foot-long fence. Sam Clemens (Mark Twain before he chose a pen name) began to paint slowly. He was thinking of an excuse to get out of work. He had only just begun when his friend John showed up:

"I guess you can't go with me, 'cause you gotta work," said John.

"You call this work?" replied Sam. "A boy doesn't get to whitewash every day." Sam continued painting, pretending he was enjoying this drudgery. John watched for a minute, then said, "Let me have a go ." Sam told him that job was skilled. John offered Sam core of his apple and Sam accepted pretending he was doing John a big favour. All afternoon he conned boy after boy to pay for privilege of whitewashing a portion of fence. When task was finished, Sam had collected several objects which delight hearts of small boys.

Years later, Sam Clemens told this story again in his great book "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."

The story symbolizes inventiveness of American spirit in making best of a situation and in treating work as play. Work can be unpleasant or fun, depending on way you look at it or spirit in which it is performed.

Adam Hollioake, English cricketer, realised when his brother died unexpectedly that most important things in life are 'being kind and having fun.'

Anyone who can be kind and have fun for much of their life is a success by this standard.

Joan Rivers is a New York comedienne who has spent 50 years in entertainment business and is still going strong.

She has been a huge success and is still a success at 71.Joan Rivers has not always been kind to victims of her jokes but she has had enormous fun and created fun for millions right up to her current age. Not all comics have found their work fun. Quite a number have suffered from depression and more than their fair share of unfunny thoughts but Joan seems to enjoy her work. However, even she once considered suicide. She was not speaking to her daughter and was out of work. She took out a gun and was ready to kill herself when her little dog crawled into her lap and she thought "Someone needs me". I heard Joan recently on Parkinson show on Oct 9th 2004 before starting her tour of UK (ten cities in ten days). The interview was riveting.

Michael Parkinson introduced her as Queen of comedy. "She has done for plastic surgeons what Mickey mouse has done for Walt Disney."

She told Michael that all her bookings had sold out except in Birmingham. "No one has bought a ticket in Birmingham." She pretended to spit. She has gift of turning any problem into a laugh. I expect that, after interview, Birmingham will soon be booked out.

Michael referred, somewhat unwisely, to her age and to plastic surgery. She replied at once: "I know I'm old but I don't see me so screw me. The only two good things about old age are: You lose your hearing so you can't hear doctor say:"You're going to die" and you can get into cinema at half price.

Joan went on to 'defend' plastic surgery. The only bad thing about plastic surgery is that I've spent so much money on it that I figured out it would have been cheaper to have my dna changed."

I have at times been stupid enough to believe that work is not necessary to make money or achieve success.

A few years ago I joined a network marketing company that promised to create a down line of buying customers for me without any work on my part. I would of course have to pay a monthly fee myself. I was happy to do this.

However, after more than a year, no down line had appeared and company was not doing well. Nothing had happened as promised even though they seemed to be lovely people who meant well.

Reluctantly I ended my membership. I was not alone in losing all money I had spent on this enterprise. I also paid for health products which ended up being poured down plug hole.

In last 5 years I have wasted at least £30,000 ($ 50,000) on companies that promised they could easily double any money invested in them. One of companies turned out to be fraudulent.

I could have found this out if I had done enough work to check them out. They were already listed as suspicious by financial authorities.

Later I found out that over 800 people in UK had been conned in same way as me. I was not alone in my laziness and gullibility.

I also lent £2000 to a retired stockbroker in England who promptly lost lot investing in website malls of an internet entrepreneur based in Jerusalem. This man promised much but did not deliver.

The man who borrowed money from me and several others felt no obligation to pay me back.

I did not pursue matter because he was old and a heavy smoker. Again I should have done work necessary to check out Jerusalem entrepreneur. So should stockbroker and others who trusted stockbroker's judgement

It is easier to trust people without doing work necessary to find out details. It is easier to listen to their big promises rather than read small print.

How did I and they come to believe that we could make money without doing any work even tiny amount of work necessary to check out people we were trusting with our money?

Many humans, including me, are naturally lazy. We prefer to trust people rather than find out facts for ourselves.

Being lazy we like to believe that money can be made easily by taking advice of experts. We don't realise that it takes work to find out who experts are. We also need to realise that experts can be wrong especially when they are not personally involved.

How many expert doctors give wrong diagnosis. A doctor once told me I was making a fuss when I complained about pain in my foot.

I later discovered that I had gangrene in my foot. I nearly lost my leg and my life. He was an expert but he was not one feeling pain!

How many financial experts lose money for us. It is not their money which is at risk.

We might do much better by becoming an expert ourselves. This could well save us time and money in long run. We are ones who are really concerned about our interests.

It has been said that an hour's work a day for six months can make a person of average intelligence into an expert at most things. In other words regular work or study can make us experts or can, at least, make us competent.

Many people give up before they become competent because they cannot face being incompetent in early parts of their studies. But if they continue to work and do not give up they will gradually become competent and eventually expert.

Sometimes, in our quest for expertise, it might be useful to travel to hear an expert face to face. Travelling is work unless you love trains and planes and lazy person will not make effort to travel.

I have, surprisingly, made effort to travel to several seminars to hear motivational and entrepreneurial experts like Tony Robbins, Randy Gage, Stuart Goldsmith, Jonathan Mizel, Corey Rudl, Marlon Sanders and Dave O'Connor.

I also have travelled to learn from several great Martial artists like Grandmaster Kwang Jo Choi, Danny Inosanto and Gary Spiers.

But I have not done follow up work necessary to make most of entrepreneurial seminars.

Again, I am not alone in this. 95% of seminar attendees fail to follow up and apply what they learn at seminars. They think that attendance at seminar is enough. It isn't.

I have boxes full of seminar materials that I have not even opened let alone read. Again I am not alone in this. About 95% of people do same as me. One study has shown that only 14 out of a hundred people in a civilised Western country buy books and out of these 14 only 1 person reads beyond first chapter!

Why is this? Why are people so reluctant to accept fact that work is necessary if you want to achieve success in anything.