"To make headway, improve your head"
About this Quote
A business-era proverb disguised as a pun, B. C. Forbes's line is as tidy as a balance sheet and just as moralizing. "Headway" promises forward motion, the satisfying sense that effort converts into progress. Forbes undercuts the usual hustle logic: if you're not advancing, the fix isn't necessarily longer hours or louder ambition, it's a better instrument of judgment. The joke in the phrasing ("headway" / "head") makes the advice memorable, but it also frames self-improvement as the most practical kind of leverage.
The intent is managerial and quietly disciplinary. Forbes, as the founding figure behind a publication built to serve executives and strivers, isn't selling contemplation for its own sake. He's advocating the upgrade that pays: clearer thinking, stronger information habits, more disciplined attention. "Improve your head" reads like an investment memo for the mind. It suggests that the real bottleneck in most careers is not opportunity but cognition: bad assumptions, sloppy reasoning, untrained taste, impulsive decision-making.
The subtext has an edge. It flatters the reader with agency (you can fix this) while also placing blame squarely on the individual. Structural barriers disappear; the problem is you and your current mental toolkit. In the early 20th-century American context of self-help capitalism and meritocratic mythology, that tracks: progress is personal, and stagnation is a skills gap.
The line works because it compresses an entire ideology into five words: modern success isn't just effort, it's upgraded thinking dressed as common sense.
The intent is managerial and quietly disciplinary. Forbes, as the founding figure behind a publication built to serve executives and strivers, isn't selling contemplation for its own sake. He's advocating the upgrade that pays: clearer thinking, stronger information habits, more disciplined attention. "Improve your head" reads like an investment memo for the mind. It suggests that the real bottleneck in most careers is not opportunity but cognition: bad assumptions, sloppy reasoning, untrained taste, impulsive decision-making.
The subtext has an edge. It flatters the reader with agency (you can fix this) while also placing blame squarely on the individual. Structural barriers disappear; the problem is you and your current mental toolkit. In the early 20th-century American context of self-help capitalism and meritocratic mythology, that tracks: progress is personal, and stagnation is a skills gap.
The line works because it compresses an entire ideology into five words: modern success isn't just effort, it's upgraded thinking dressed as common sense.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Improvement |
|---|
More Quotes by C. Forbes
Add to List
