The Narcissus myth supplies a useful framework from which to critique values common in career and self-development counselling. Much career development and motivational practice in business is culturally narcissistic. Ideas from popular self-help manuals offering 'the sky's the limit' philosophies encourage magical aspirations in which we can have it all without giving anything up. The deconstruction by French psychoanalysts of self-fulfilment, by insisting on the discrepancy between our desire and what can realistically be delivered, offers an unfashionable alternative which we apply to practice.