Success Quote by Tom Hopkins

Hopkins frames self-help as a credibility test, not a popularity contest. “I never take advice” lands like a hard boundary, the kind you set after one too many well-meaning lectures from someone whose life is on fire. The punch is in the comparative: “more messed up than I am.” It’s a confession slipped into a filter. He’s not claiming enlightenment; he’s claiming calibration. That self-awareness keeps the line from drifting into smugness, and it makes the standard feel practical instead of preachy.

The subtext is a critique of the advice economy, where confidence often outruns competence. In business culture especially, guidance is cheap, abundant, and frequently performative - dispensed by people selling certainty more than results. Hopkins’ rule borrows the logic of due diligence: check the numbers, verify the track record, look for operational sanity. “Messed up” is deliberately informal, a street-level metric that cuts through polished resumes and motivational rhetoric. It’s emotional language doing the work of a spreadsheet.

Context matters: as a businessman, Hopkins is speaking from a world that rewards decisive action and punishes bad inputs. The line also signals a philosophy of agency: you’re responsible for who you let shape your thinking. There’s a subtle sting, too. If you’re consistently surrounded by “messed up” advisors, maybe you’re outsourcing judgment because it feels safer than owning the choice. The quote works because it’s both shield and mirror - protective, but not comforting.