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I'm always fascinated as to why people on this board fervently defend scammy self-help books. Tim Ferris' completely phony 4-hour series provoked a similar rea

by dev_jim 15y ago

I'm always fascinated as to why people on this board fervently defend scammy self-help books. Tim Ferris' completely phony 4-hour series provoked a similar reaction.

tomp 15y ago
Why scammy? It's pretty common sense that these books do not offer any recipes for wealth creation, but they do offer something very important: the correct mindset for wealth creation. That is something that many many people lack and need. Finally, if you find it useless, why do you assume that everybody else does so as well?
- davidw 15y ago
  > these books do not offer any recipes for wealth creation Oh but they do: for the authors. The problem with them is that there is little of substance and lots of feel-good hand waving. The good bits could usually be summed up on a page. Compare and contrast, with, say "Founders at Work" where each story is different, unique and interesting in its own way.
  - Czarnian 15y ago
    Don't forget the ever-present promise that if you give him just twenty more dollars, he'll reveal the secrets to his success. Unfortunately, the secret to his success IS the act of giving him twenty more dollars.
    - spindritf 15y ago
      Didn't Tim Ferris found and run a supplement company years before publishing his first 4-hour book?
      - Czarnian 15y ago
        Tim Ferris founded and ran a Multi-Level Marketing company that sold supplements. I have no use for anyone or anything that comes from a MLM background.
        zecho 15y ago
        Before you dismiss Tim Ferris out of hand for his background, you should consider dismissing him on the merits of his methods of holding your breath longer than Houdini or eating ginger and sauerkraut to gain muscle.
        Czarnian 15y ago
        Doing it my way cuts down on time wasted by at least 60 seconds.
  - jarin 15y ago
    I agree that Founders at Work is a far superior book as far as useful, actionable information goes. However, I probably would never have read Founders at Work if I hadn't been inspired to get into entrepreneurship by Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
viscanti 15y ago
I suppose we have different definitions of "scammy". RDPD and the 4-hour series both package up common-sense recommendations in a way that resonates with a lot of people. There might not be a whole lot of substance there, but I don't think that's the point. The people who buy (and enjoy) those books, are the ones who just want to find someone else saying what they're thinking. It's a bit of extra motivation towards their goal. There's not a whole lot of value there beyond confirmation of common-sense ideas, but I don't think that's a scam.
- zecho 15y ago
  The 4-hour series borders on sociopathic behavior at times. I'd hardly call it common sense. I think Dwight Garner's review of 4-Hour Body in the New York Times summed up exactly how I felt about 4-Hour Workweek: "“The 4-Hour Body” reads as if The New England Journal of Medicine had been hijacked by the editors of the SkyMall catalog."
  - viscanti 15y ago
    Ferris borders on the extravagant when talking about his personal experimentation. He portrays the image of a guy who has tried a million different things to keep the reader from having to. It's extreme, but the actual "advice" is all fairly common sense. He advocates a slow-carb diet, which has been shown to effectively help people reach a healthy and sustainable weight. He also advocates that people do complex exercises rather than over-focusing on specific muscle groups. That makes up the majority of his health advice, and is not especially controversial and is all fairly common sense. He's basically saying to eat healthy food and to workout regularly if you want to be healthy. He does throw some stuff in the "love" section that's just meant to sell books, and it's pretty much filler material, but I still wouldn't consider it scammy or bad advice. He's not advocating that people go to extremes like he did.
blario 15y ago
I like the RDPD book*, but I couldn't even stomach the 4-hour work day. From page one, it screamed 100% false. Felt like I'd have to be retarded to believe any of it. Strangely, I haven't heard others say the same.
- WA 15y ago
  It's "4-hour work WEEK" :-) I loved it. It's a motivational book, but as a disclaimer, I had my "muse" (business with passive income) already running before I read that book. I also had a day job, which I have quit now (actually, by the end of next week). The 4HWW gave me a strong impulse to do the step and quit my job. And someone else mentioned here already: 4HWW is to give you a mindset. It worked pretty well for me.
itmag 15y ago
Reading self help materials has been one of the major turning points in my life. Without self-help materials I would still have been a somewhat gifted kid but also a total mess of a human being. Thanks to self help I am becoming more and more self-realized every day. I am not going to downvote you, because I am genuinely curious what you have against Ferriss. Care to tell me more?
- TheCapn 15y ago
  I'm not jumping on the hate-train necessarily, I've read the book a few years ago but I honestly didn't really feel anything from it. To me it was just a stack of papers that were confirming what I already knew. To me the book and its "teachings" can be somewhat helpful to a person who doesn't have any financial history or were not brought up to understand the value of money and investments. For someone that was brought up and taught these lessons like me the book is a circlejerk that goes "look, someone agrees with my views!" The book doesn't provide a whole lot more than financial common sense. To someone that hasn't had that sort of information before it might be interesting/revealing but to those who have it comes off as really dumb and get the sense of "well, no shit sherlock, I could've written a book like that". Its the same thing for people who look at social networks and go "I thought of that five years ago! I should be rich too!" Don't get caught up if someone doesn't like the self-help books. I know nothing about you but it really depends on what kind of upbringing you had. To me I learned about money early, to others things like the time value of money are foreign and don't really learn of them until post-high school education. Reading books and learning of these topics isn't bad, it puts you in line with others who share their stories of success and the general principles they followed to achieve it.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  What self-help materials do you recommend?
  - itmag 15y ago
    There's a lot of different ones of course... off the top of my head: No more Mr Nice Guy by Robert Glover. I also like Personal development for smart people by Steve Pavlina. Tom Butler-Bowdon has a series of books that summarize all the major works in psychology/self help/prosperity/success/etc. Those are a good way to get up to speed and learn what's out there in the genre.
j45 15y ago
Nothings perfect, not even you, or I. But, just because something isn't perfect, means it's no good. This mindset too, is troubling. I think it's troubling to over-trivialize or generalize what any book can offer. At the end of the day, it's up to us as individuals to take the good in everything. I found some things helpful in this book. It's not at the core of my dominant world viewpoint, but helped me understand how to better (not perfectly, or completely) frame what I wanted in my future. It certainly didn't teach me how to get there.
fleitz 15y ago
Self-help books are like placebos, they really don't do anything for you but if you read one you'll believe that you can be successful even though most of them are full of platitudes and not much actual content. But on the other hand I think this is the most important part about them, they give people the feeling that they can succeed which is a necessary ingredient to taking risks to making yourself successful.
- raintrees 15y ago
  I would think even placebos provide value... Like a rough economic cycle, picking up a new skill, or learning to program, sometimes I have to slog through something difficult that does not seem to be getting me anywhere before the light bulb goes on and I realize "oh, THAT'S why this whatever is done that way." What's that other adage? Fake it till you make it?

by dev_jim 15y ago

I'm always fascinated as to why people on this board fervently defend scammy self-help books. Tim Ferris' completely phony 4-hour series provoked a similar reaction.

tomp 15y ago

Why scammy? It's pretty common sense that these books do not offer any recipes for wealth creation, but they do offer something very important: the correct mindset for wealth creation. That is something that many many people lack and need. Finally, if you find it useless, why do you assume that everybody else does so as well?

davidw 15y ago
> these books do not offer any recipes for wealth creation Oh but they do: for the authors. The problem with them is that there is little of substance and lots of feel-good hand waving. The good bits could usually be summed up on a page. Compare and contrast, with, say "Founders at Work" where each story is different, unique and interesting in its own way.
- Czarnian 15y ago
  Don't forget the ever-present promise that if you give him just twenty more dollars, he'll reveal the secrets to his success. Unfortunately, the secret to his success IS the act of giving him twenty more dollars.
  - spindritf 15y ago
    Didn't Tim Ferris found and run a supplement company years before publishing his first 4-hour book?
    - Czarnian 15y ago
      Tim Ferris founded and ran a Multi-Level Marketing company that sold supplements. I have no use for anyone or anything that comes from a MLM background.
      - zecho 15y ago
        Before you dismiss Tim Ferris out of hand for his background, you should consider dismissing him on the merits of his methods of holding your breath longer than Houdini or eating ginger and sauerkraut to gain muscle.
        Czarnian 15y ago
        Doing it my way cuts down on time wasted by at least 60 seconds.
- jarin 15y ago
  I agree that Founders at Work is a far superior book as far as useful, actionable information goes. However, I probably would never have read Founders at Work if I hadn't been inspired to get into entrepreneurship by Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

viscanti 15y ago

I suppose we have different definitions of "scammy". RDPD and the 4-hour series both package up common-sense recommendations in a way that resonates with a lot of people. There might not be a whole lot of substance there, but I don't think that's the point. The people who buy (and enjoy) those books, are the ones who just want to find someone else saying what they're thinking. It's a bit of extra motivation towards their goal. There's not a whole lot of value there beyond confirmation of common-sense ideas, but I don't think that's a scam.

zecho 15y ago
The 4-hour series borders on sociopathic behavior at times. I'd hardly call it common sense. I think Dwight Garner's review of 4-Hour Body in the New York Times summed up exactly how I felt about 4-Hour Workweek: "“The 4-Hour Body” reads as if The New England Journal of Medicine had been hijacked by the editors of the SkyMall catalog."
- viscanti 15y ago
  Ferris borders on the extravagant when talking about his personal experimentation. He portrays the image of a guy who has tried a million different things to keep the reader from having to. It's extreme, but the actual "advice" is all fairly common sense. He advocates a slow-carb diet, which has been shown to effectively help people reach a healthy and sustainable weight. He also advocates that people do complex exercises rather than over-focusing on specific muscle groups. That makes up the majority of his health advice, and is not especially controversial and is all fairly common sense. He's basically saying to eat healthy food and to workout regularly if you want to be healthy. He does throw some stuff in the "love" section that's just meant to sell books, and it's pretty much filler material, but I still wouldn't consider it scammy or bad advice. He's not advocating that people go to extremes like he did.

blario 15y ago

I like the RDPD book*, but I couldn't even stomach the 4-hour work day. From page one, it screamed 100% false. Felt like I'd have to be retarded to believe any of it. Strangely, I haven't heard others say the same.

WA 15y ago
It's "4-hour work WEEK" :-) I loved it. It's a motivational book, but as a disclaimer, I had my "muse" (business with passive income) already running before I read that book. I also had a day job, which I have quit now (actually, by the end of next week). The 4HWW gave me a strong impulse to do the step and quit my job. And someone else mentioned here already: 4HWW is to give you a mindset. It worked pretty well for me.

itmag 15y ago

Reading self help materials has been one of the major turning points in my life. Without self-help materials I would still have been a somewhat gifted kid but also a total mess of a human being. Thanks to self help I am becoming more and more self-realized every day. I am not going to downvote you, because I am genuinely curious what you have against Ferriss. Care to tell me more?

TheCapn 15y ago
I'm not jumping on the hate-train necessarily, I've read the book a few years ago but I honestly didn't really feel anything from it. To me it was just a stack of papers that were confirming what I already knew. To me the book and its "teachings" can be somewhat helpful to a person who doesn't have any financial history or were not brought up to understand the value of money and investments. For someone that was brought up and taught these lessons like me the book is a circlejerk that goes "look, someone agrees with my views!" The book doesn't provide a whole lot more than financial common sense. To someone that hasn't had that sort of information before it might be interesting/revealing but to those who have it comes off as really dumb and get the sense of "well, no shit sherlock, I could've written a book like that". Its the same thing for people who look at social networks and go "I thought of that five years ago! I should be rich too!" Don't get caught up if someone doesn't like the self-help books. I know nothing about you but it really depends on what kind of upbringing you had. To me I learned about money early, to others things like the time value of money are foreign and don't really learn of them until post-high school education. Reading books and learning of these topics isn't bad, it puts you in line with others who share their stories of success and the general principles they followed to achieve it.
georgieporgie 15y ago
What self-help materials do you recommend?
- itmag 15y ago
  There's a lot of different ones of course... off the top of my head: No more Mr Nice Guy by Robert Glover. I also like Personal development for smart people by Steve Pavlina. Tom Butler-Bowdon has a series of books that summarize all the major works in psychology/self help/prosperity/success/etc. Those are a good way to get up to speed and learn what's out there in the genre.

j45 15y ago

Nothings perfect, not even you, or I. But, just because something isn't perfect, means it's no good. This mindset too, is troubling. I think it's troubling to over-trivialize or generalize what any book can offer. At the end of the day, it's up to us as individuals to take the good in everything. I found some things helpful in this book. It's not at the core of my dominant world viewpoint, but helped me understand how to better (not perfectly, or completely) frame what I wanted in my future. It certainly didn't teach me how to get there.

fleitz 15y ago

Self-help books are like placebos, they really don't do anything for you but if you read one you'll believe that you can be successful even though most of them are full of platitudes and not much actual content. But on the other hand I think this is the most important part about them, they give people the feeling that they can succeed which is a necessary ingredient to taking risks to making yourself successful.

raintrees 15y ago
I would think even placebos provide value... Like a rough economic cycle, picking up a new skill, or learning to program, sometimes I have to slog through something difficult that does not seem to be getting me anywhere before the light bulb goes on and I realize "oh, THAT'S why this whatever is done that way." What's that other adage? Fake it till you make it?