I find them totally bull shit. I don't understand why they are selling so well. My personal experience tell me they are wrong. e.g. they said I should keep telling myself I am the best if I want to be the best. however, from the people that I met, the bests are usually very self-effacing, on the other hand, those who don't do very well, keep saying they are the best. contradiction?
These books, CDs, etc. do so well because nobody wants to take personal responsibility for their own lives. They all want someone else to tell them what to do. That way, if they fail they have someone to blame it on other than themselves.
I'm waiting for the book to come along that's titled honestly: "How I Made a Fortune by Selling People Books on How to Make a Fortune."
I say they do so well because depressed people will buy anything. Many of them do want to take responsibility for their lives, they just havnt worked out quite how. Having looked at a fair few self help books, I realised most of them are the same, a lot of them tell you to go out and take responsiblity for yourself, and how to do it in 10 easy steps. Like diet books, they give you a framework of behaviour, on which you can build. Me, I dont do new years resolutions. If I want to do something, I do it, if I dont, I dont do it. Havnt read a self help book for years.
The last "self help" book I ever read was "Psychocybernetics" by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. I was in a very rough time of my life and was turning all of my stress inwards on myself. I daresay it helped, but this wasn't a "Bullshit Your Way To Success" book. I've never trusted the "this is how I got rich and now you can, too" books. Self-help books for minor mental issues can be invaluable depending largely on the reader. But money-making schemes are just so much snake oil.
i think such books help in therms, since they play with suggestivity. if you think reading something will do you some good, it probably will. a person that is in difficult times and buys a self help book probably has hopes in it, and will probably use it as an instrument to formulate new goals besides, the people who appeal to these instruments are usually very influenciable Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
exactly, just look at how well religious texts do. humans cannot stand too much reality - T.S. Elliot
Certain books - ie Rich Dad, Poor Dad offer extremely effective advice..but yeah, most get rich books are worthless. As in feel a sense of mastery over yourself, or being delusional?
It seems modern man needs a quick fix for the illusive state of "happiness". So like a pizza with double cheese, perhaps the answer to "happiness" can be found in a twenty dollar book. As life has become more and more consumerist, and thus in my opinion, potentially more and more meaningless, the self styled happiness and achievement gurus have jumped on the bandwagon and are filling a void with their repetitive babble. How many truly happy people have found their elixir in a paperback?
True! Besides which, this kind of material is easily available on the web these days. Steve Pavlina, from the little I've read, seems to be a sensible person and his articles/podcasts are free.
