Indeed, "do-it-yourself" is in our culture's very DNA. In the 1930s, How to Win Friends and Influence People became the manual for success in the business world.

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The interview reminded me once again that the confusion around these two terms is massive, and that misunderstanding gets in the way of any reasonable discussion about how to build a company, position it for success, and win in the twenty-first century.

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It says something about how short the life cycle of success can be when Spain became the first team in international soccer to win three major tournaments in succession when they retained the European Championship this past summer.

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The success of the past generation is a reminder of how Celtic became the first British club to win the competition, a fact which supporters are quick to point out at every opportunity.

CNN: February 12, 2013 -- Updated 2339 GMT (0739 HKT)

Like all the best sports, the secret of success in baseball is a recurring mystery: no sooner does one team figure out how to win all the time, than another comes along to do better.

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Maybe there can be a serious conversation about how a school should measure athletic success, what values truly matter, what it will and won't do to win, what alumni really want when they say they want to be proud.

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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and hotelier Orison Swett Marden's Success magazine (founded in 1897) were mere warm-ups to Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) and Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking (1952).

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