5 ms·
Look at the list of top 100 favorite books on this site. At least half are self-help. Taleb sure knows his audience.
by IntronExon 9y ago
Look at the list of top 100 favorite books on this site. At least half are self-help.
Taleb sure knows his audience.
- announcerman 9y agoWhat's the problem with self-help books? Do their authors generally lack skin in the game?
- IntronExon 9y agoIt’s a huge industry which typically makes outlandish and largely unfounded claims... it’s the homeopathy of literature. Like homeopathy it typically targets the desperate and insecure.
- coldsauce 9y agoI think this is a really interesting point. I used to be all over self-help books because I wanted to improve myself, but it seems to me as though so many authors just regurgitate the same points over and over again with tired anecdotes mixed in.
- rtx 9y agoHard Things About Hard Things really helped my career. It could be a placebo.
- IntronExon 9y agoI don’t think that justifies the industry as a whole, but I believe that for the right person at the right time, these books can be of some use. I suspect that the people, such as yourself, who get something out of them would have found what they were looking for anyway however. The commonalities in people who benefit from occasional self help seem to be committed to change, to improvement, and I think that more than anything else is the active ingredient.
- tclancy 9y agoWhenever someone wants to sell you their path to success, you need to ask why.