Belief and excusitis

Schwartz, a university professor and business consultant, opens with a simple claim: believe you can succeed, and you will. Belief triggers the energy, skill and ideas needed to get things done, while disbelief shuts them down.

He names a common illness: excusitis, the habit of explaining failure in advance. Its four main forms are excuses about health, intelligence, age and luck. Schwartz argues that attitude and effort matter far more than these, and that blaming them only keeps people stuck.