6 ms·

Hard disagree. I have read lots of books, participated in events and training seminars and had profound results in my life. My marriage is better because of wha

Hard disagree. I have read lots of books, participated in events and training seminars and had profound results in my life. My marriage is better because of what I learned, I am a better father and leader because of what I learned. And the fact that people sell things as part of that growth journey is how they support their ability to share the lessons and techniques.

JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
Can you share an easy-to-understand example for someone who is similarly highly sceptical of self-help products?
- apatry 4mo ago
  Getting Things Done by David Allen gave me a framework to get out of the weeds when I am overwhelmed (usually once or twice a year when I stretch myself): build a to-do list that us complete enough to stop thinking about what you have to do, if a new task take less than 5 minutes just do it right away, and then prioritise the rest. Deep Work by Cal Newport gave me a way to think about my time management: information work is not the same as a factory line where doing the same thing at similar productivity from 9 to 5 makes sense, and it is important to dedicate long stretch of quality time to be productive (vs busy). There are no silver bullets, but learning what worked for a group of people, testing it for myself, adapting it, and using it as needed has been helpful to me.
  - coliveira 4mo ago
    Yes, I read "Getting Things Done": he teaches you to make todo lists! That's it, nothing profound or from another planet. Basically you could get that information in 1 paragraph: "if you're overwhelmed, make a todo list", but he wouldn't have made a lot of money that way...
    - kamaal 4mo ago
      There is more than that, though. Deadlines, Next Tasks, Weekly list purge/build, Yearly alignment etc etc. Also how you teach somebody a thing matters. Stories have a profound effect on humans since the earliest of our days.
    - laserlight 4mo ago
      That's quite a reductionist view of Getting Things Done. There's nothing magic about the system, but someone had to put it together. It has been useful to me.
- digitaltrees 4mo ago
  1. Fact vs interpretation. Many things we think of as facts are really our narrative interpretations that are incomplete. A few self help books talk about the story of 4 blind men that are asked to interact with an object: one says it’s a snake, one says it’s a tree, one says it’s a wall, one says it’s a flag. Their interpretations are all wrong, it’s an elephant trunk, leg, body and ear. So when someone says my boss was unfair and mean, that’s not a fact, it’s a narrative interpretation, for all you know they are committed to mentoring you and sometimes that requires trial by fire. Drill Sargent, medical residency, and many professions have converged on that type of training. It’s much easier to stay connected to a spouse, child or coworker when you are operating on the assumption that your beliefs and their beliefs might both be equally valid. The righteousness of having “the facts” destroys a relationship. It’s not that there aren’t facts or right answers but a little humility as a finite being has a lot of benefits. 2. Dispute resolution. There is a three step process that transforms how you fight. A) what did I do to contribute, B) what I’ll do different next time, C) I am sorry and I’ll do X to make amends. When you do this you stop blaming others, which is what causes defensiveness, escalation, and the cascade of in tractable conflict. When you lead with this you’ll be amazed that your counter party feels heard, seen, validated, and connected to you and all of the sudden stops attacking, defending and starts to listen. 3. Characterization. In our lives we often define people based on aspects of their personality that are incomplete. The problem is that stunts their growth and limits the depth of the relationship. So the “ambitious” daughter, “funny” son, “techy” coworker gets defined as only that and can’t break out of it in relation to the person characterizing them. So when the ambitious kid has a failure they turn to the parent for support and get characterized instead treated like a human being that can change. So when an “ambitious” kid says I don’t want to go to university are they suddenly not ambitious? Are they allowed to redefine themselves? There are entire categories of books written by people with a chip on their shoulder because they were characterized. I did a leadership training that had a session on purpose. They discussed the Harvard study that followed people over their lives and careers and their reported sense of wellbeing. The clear trend of what creates fulfillment at the end of life makes it hard to dwell on a lot of what most people suffer for during different phases of life. I have seen people in college, law school, early careers, doing startups, being parents, even all grinding it out and then looking back with the realization they were and remain miserable. I could keep going and going and going.
- rustystump 4mo ago
  Most self help books can be boiled down to very obvious tools and coping strategies. If it is the first time you have come across the concepts, it can be useful but if it isnt, it is useless. Is paying 15$ too much to pay? If learning about an obvious but unknown idea for doing the things saves 10 minutes a week, it is. Do you need to pay 15$ for the result? No. But a result is better than no result.
- sanswork 4mo ago
  After reading digital minimalism I did the digital declutter process and found a lot of extra space in my life once I removed distractions that felt "essential" but didn't actually miss once they were gone. I also found other things that were low value/distractions that I still wanted in my life so I've just accepted them(like browsing reddit occasionally during the day though I've changed it so I don't comment on reddit anymore since that ties me to a feeling of wanting to check responses/look for upvotes/etc)
- randycupertino 4mo ago
  How to Win Friends and Influence People helped my career a ton. I stopped having to job search and started getting pulled up as people I knew from work advanced they would bring me with them. I haven't had to job hunt in 9 years and it's solely because that book made me more likable and personable. It made me enjoy life more too, because I have a diaspora of cool and interesting connections who would go to bat for me if needed. I'm friends with the grocery store checkout guy now, he asked me to go antiquing with him two weeks ago. I made friends in my neighborhood, I have a lady I walk with every week who offered to help me garden and even when ordering flooring from Home Depot the dude invited me to come to NASCAR with him and his buddies. It honestly just changed my perspective to see the good in everyone and through this process boosted my personal, professional and family relationships immensely.
  - ragequittah 4mo ago
    >it's solely because that book made me more likable and personable. This is the part that gets me to have an almost allergic reaction. It feels like an almost homogenization of people's personalities. In my mind I picture it like this: business man A reads How to Win Friends and Influence People. Businessman B also reads it. Business man A meets B and see that they're doing the psychological tricks of the book and think "wow this guy sure knows how to win friends and influence people like I do" so they get along fantastically. It's similar to my aversion to books like "The Game" where some men seem to have the idea there's a surefire way to pick up women. Humans are diverse and should have differences in how they treat others and react. "Remember their name, smile, talk about the other person" and all the other tricks often gets me in the mindset of "this person is media trained / inauthentic".
    - parineum 4mo ago
      > Humans are diverse and should have differences in how they treat others and react. Even though I agree with you, that's not a fact and, if a bunch of people are happy all being exactly the same, that's great for them. You can have any amount of ideas about how things should be but if someone is happy the way they are, that's what's important, that's the end goal.
breezybottom 4mo ago
Well grifters can also be marks. It sounds like you're both.
- digitaltrees 4mo ago
  Sounds like you need to learn some healthy communication. If this is how you show up in relation to others your network of collaborators will be small, keep you weak and limit your ability to effectuate your will in the world.
  - JackFr 4mo ago
    > limit your availability to effectuate your will in the world. It might limit his ability to effect his will in the world, but I see his availability as unchanged.
    - DrewADesign 4mo ago
      Not if that boorish behavior alienated their administrative assistant.
    - digitaltrees 4mo ago
      Thanks for proof reading for me.
    - digitaltrees 4mo ago
      What do you feel when you make a comment like that? Satisfied at your intellectual superiority? Confident in your status as someone able to see what’s right? Proud of yourself that you “tell it like it is” Have you ever stopped to think about the prices you pay for that behavior? Let’s game it out. You don’t know me. I could be Paul Graham for all you know. I could be the person in the world that would unlock the very door you need to open to get what you’re working towards. I could be someone totally vulnerable and insecure and end up cascading into despair based on your comment. That being said. I thought it was a funny comment.
      - 4mo ago
jasonfarnon 4mo ago
"because of what I learned." Do these books/seminars actually teach you something new about being married or a father, that you didn't know before? Like what? I always figured they were more about coaching, persuasion, convincing. To the extent I've scanned them, I never saw any kind of new fact, definitely not about something like being married.
- Fr0styMatt88 4mo ago
  I mean I can see it. Books are just a way to transmit one’s thoughts and experiences to other people. So it’s no different to being exposed to someone with a different viewpoint. Common sense isn’t common or innate, it’s tribal knowledge. There’s that XKCD about someone learning something new that was just thought to be something everyone knew. Also you don’t know what you don’t know. Agree though — coaching and persuasion are a huge part which is why I think a lot of these books seem ‘fluffy’ if all you’re wanting is a collection of facts.
- sanswork 4mo ago
  I'm definitely a better father because of a bunch of the self help books I've read. Things like better ways to communicate with my son, more effective ways to transfer knowledge, encourage independence, etc. Other areas of my life have definitely improved too though I agree when people say most self help books could be a blog post and in cases where it's an expansion of a blog post I'll generally just go read that. With these types of books(and I read a lot of self help) I generally expect to get like 1-2 good pieces of advice/ideas per 200 pages so I generally just scan through them until I hit areas that seem high value then read those areas more deeply. I've read all of Tim Ferriss' books and haven't really gotten anything I can think of from his stuff to be honest they are a bit too general for me but I've gotten some good advice from his podcast though I only listen to maybe one episode in 10 when it is with someone or about something that sounds very interesting and even then I tend to scrub through it since there is a lot of filler in a 2 hour podcast.
  - rfc3092 4mo ago
    Please share “better father” books.
dartharva 4mo ago
Pretty sure that's a result of the larger gestalt driven more by your own drive and savviness to seek new ideas on living than the books themselves, as it is for everyone who claims to have benefited. If the books are gone today and only LLMs remain, nothing will change in this front.
keybored 4mo ago
I reach for my revolver when someone says that they are a better leader. That might mean that they have a captive audience of sycophants. The outdated sense of leader of the willingly lead is a different matter.
- digitaltrees 4mo ago
  Why such a strong reaction? Do you think good leaders exist? I have received multiple emails from alumni thanking me for my leadership, mentorship, and the culture I created. Leading is a skill like any other it can be improved with practice and I have worked hard at it. My team has no problem disagreeing with me and knows I don’t want sycophantic agreement, they know that even if I ultimately make a decision I will consider all opinions and have seen me change my mind in response to a direct report disagreeing with me in public. There are known mechanisms to foster a safe and effective environment like that such as separating people from ideas, removing consequences for failure and commitment to experimentation.
  - keybored 4mo ago
    There’s not much to it. There’s a difference between performed N and N as reported by the performer.
    - mettamage 4mo ago
      Why reach for a gun? You want to kill people that proclaim to be better leaders because of a self-help book? I know people drew guns for less but this is the first time I am reading something like this on HN. I’d suggest you’d read a few books so that you don’t have to reach for your gun but can use your words instead. Though the moment you’d claim any of those books helped you will be a bit of an ironic moment but so be it. I recommend Non-violent Communication by Rosenberg for you. It got me out of a few pickles (arguments). Also going to a meditation retreat helps.
      - keybored 4mo ago
        Thanks for the laugh wizard of Metta.
Npovview 4mo ago
I agree with you. Self-help industry has evolved to cover lot of nuanced topics. Depression, anxiety adjacent topics. Once the basics are recognized, the other aspects like what to expect when you grow old. what to expect after retirement etc. How to care less about what other people think, but in a healthy way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uyR_cXGBMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uyR_cXGBMY
toasty228 4mo ago
You know it's a cult when you can't tell if it's an erowid LSD trip report conclusion or a comment about the self-help community
ubercore 4mo ago
Willing to bet the fact that you went looking to improve is the thing that made the difference, not anything you learned from those seminars.
myaccountonhn 4mo ago
Self-help books are so often ridiculued, and that ridicule is often well merited. At the same time there was a self-help book that basically gave me a whole different outlook on life, and cured my depression over night. So I can't deny they have a place and can really help people.
- wwqrd 4mo ago
  What was the book?
  - brainzap 4mo ago
    my book was one by Terry Real. The excersise to find love for myself was life changing
    - digitaltrees 4mo ago
      Please expand! What’s the exercise!
      - alexitosrv 4mo ago
        He also took a course in baiting and suspense short stories
- whateverboat 4mo ago
  Most of the effective self help advice is personal advice meets trust means relevance at that point in life. Same book can be ridiculed and appreciated by different people, sometimes even by the same person when they are in different stages of their life (especially if they have less self-awareness). "You already know whether you are in love or not, you just need to trust this voice." Depending on where you are in life and who you are as a person, this statement can simultaneously be called a platitude, or a meaningful statement that someone finds allows them to decide what is important in life at that point.
  - 4mo ago
ChrisRR 4mo ago
There are no doubt a lot of good self-help books out there. But there's very likely way more crap ones out there from armchair psychologists
- lstodd 4mo ago
  Yup, so one just reads up on psychology, psychiatry and neurophysiology branching into sociology and anthropology, approximately to a graduate level. After which all this self-help looks quite naive. This sure takes 10-15 years, but the result is that you begin to understand wtf is going on around.
  - senordevnyc 4mo ago
    Yes, because the PhDs in those fields famously have their lives all figured out and are extremely happy and successful at everything.
    - lstodd 4mo ago
      It's your life. To the left there is the tank for those like you. Please jump.
      - senordevnyc 4mo ago
        lol, seems like people struck a nerve. I’d assume all your study would have given you more equanimity. Might be time for a self help book.
  - digitaltrees 4mo ago
    Academic literature isn't written to be applied. Some of the books I like the most distill the Academic findings into actionable frameworks. I do agree it's a good idea to also look at the research. But also recognize that the research changes as new studies deepen our understanding or invalidate prior findings.
    - 4mo ago
alberto467 4mo ago
Exactly. People have just been told that there are some grifters in the field and they're unable to make the mental effort to not lump the entire field together. Oh and the fact they're making money? Yeah everybody has to eat, psychologists don't work for free either, neither does any doctor for that matter. There are people doing good out there and yes they will charge you plenty of money for it.
paulryanrogers 4mo ago
Self-help parenting books and blogs caused my spouse years of anguish and disappointment because most declare they've found the one true way. It just so happens to be the least productive and incompatible with many readers' children, bodies, minds, etc. Many of the authors are selling their narrow experience as if it's divine revelation, often literally because they're religious. The grift usually continues with sponsorships, plugging their other books (or their friends' books), or seminars. I've read enough about sociology and psychology now that the whole self help industry disgusts me. Receiving such books or recommendations unsolicited strikes me as an insult from folks to naive or lazy to really get to know me first.
- digitaltrees 4mo ago
  That's an unfortunate experience, sorry to hear that. I think skepticism is healthy. Experimentation is a more effective position that faith in experts.

JumpCrisscross 4mo ago

Can you share an easy-to-understand example for someone who is similarly highly sceptical of self-help products?

apatry 4mo ago
Getting Things Done by David Allen gave me a framework to get out of the weeds when I am overwhelmed (usually once or twice a year when I stretch myself): build a to-do list that us complete enough to stop thinking about what you have to do, if a new task take less than 5 minutes just do it right away, and then prioritise the rest. Deep Work by Cal Newport gave me a way to think about my time management: information work is not the same as a factory line where doing the same thing at similar productivity from 9 to 5 makes sense, and it is important to dedicate long stretch of quality time to be productive (vs busy). There are no silver bullets, but learning what worked for a group of people, testing it for myself, adapting it, and using it as needed has been helpful to me.
- coliveira 4mo ago
  Yes, I read "Getting Things Done": he teaches you to make todo lists! That's it, nothing profound or from another planet. Basically you could get that information in 1 paragraph: "if you're overwhelmed, make a todo list", but he wouldn't have made a lot of money that way...
  - kamaal 4mo ago
    There is more than that, though. Deadlines, Next Tasks, Weekly list purge/build, Yearly alignment etc etc. Also how you teach somebody a thing matters. Stories have a profound effect on humans since the earliest of our days.
  - laserlight 4mo ago
    That's quite a reductionist view of Getting Things Done. There's nothing magic about the system, but someone had to put it together. It has been useful to me.
digitaltrees 4mo ago
1. Fact vs interpretation. Many things we think of as facts are really our narrative interpretations that are incomplete. A few self help books talk about the story of 4 blind men that are asked to interact with an object: one says it’s a snake, one says it’s a tree, one says it’s a wall, one says it’s a flag. Their interpretations are all wrong, it’s an elephant trunk, leg, body and ear. So when someone says my boss was unfair and mean, that’s not a fact, it’s a narrative interpretation, for all you know they are committed to mentoring you and sometimes that requires trial by fire. Drill Sargent, medical residency, and many professions have converged on that type of training. It’s much easier to stay connected to a spouse, child or coworker when you are operating on the assumption that your beliefs and their beliefs might both be equally valid. The righteousness of having “the facts” destroys a relationship. It’s not that there aren’t facts or right answers but a little humility as a finite being has a lot of benefits. 2. Dispute resolution. There is a three step process that transforms how you fight. A) what did I do to contribute, B) what I’ll do different next time, C) I am sorry and I’ll do X to make amends. When you do this you stop blaming others, which is what causes defensiveness, escalation, and the cascade of in tractable conflict. When you lead with this you’ll be amazed that your counter party feels heard, seen, validated, and connected to you and all of the sudden stops attacking, defending and starts to listen. 3. Characterization. In our lives we often define people based on aspects of their personality that are incomplete. The problem is that stunts their growth and limits the depth of the relationship. So the “ambitious” daughter, “funny” son, “techy” coworker gets defined as only that and can’t break out of it in relation to the person characterizing them. So when the ambitious kid has a failure they turn to the parent for support and get characterized instead treated like a human being that can change. So when an “ambitious” kid says I don’t want to go to university are they suddenly not ambitious? Are they allowed to redefine themselves? There are entire categories of books written by people with a chip on their shoulder because they were characterized. I did a leadership training that had a session on purpose. They discussed the Harvard study that followed people over their lives and careers and their reported sense of wellbeing. The clear trend of what creates fulfillment at the end of life makes it hard to dwell on a lot of what most people suffer for during different phases of life. I have seen people in college, law school, early careers, doing startups, being parents, even all grinding it out and then looking back with the realization they were and remain miserable. I could keep going and going and going.
rustystump 4mo ago
Most self help books can be boiled down to very obvious tools and coping strategies. If it is the first time you have come across the concepts, it can be useful but if it isnt, it is useless. Is paying 15$ too much to pay? If learning about an obvious but unknown idea for doing the things saves 10 minutes a week, it is. Do you need to pay 15$ for the result? No. But a result is better than no result.
sanswork 4mo ago
After reading digital minimalism I did the digital declutter process and found a lot of extra space in my life once I removed distractions that felt "essential" but didn't actually miss once they were gone. I also found other things that were low value/distractions that I still wanted in my life so I've just accepted them(like browsing reddit occasionally during the day though I've changed it so I don't comment on reddit anymore since that ties me to a feeling of wanting to check responses/look for upvotes/etc)
randycupertino 4mo ago
How to Win Friends and Influence People helped my career a ton. I stopped having to job search and started getting pulled up as people I knew from work advanced they would bring me with them. I haven't had to job hunt in 9 years and it's solely because that book made me more likable and personable. It made me enjoy life more too, because I have a diaspora of cool and interesting connections who would go to bat for me if needed. I'm friends with the grocery store checkout guy now, he asked me to go antiquing with him two weeks ago. I made friends in my neighborhood, I have a lady I walk with every week who offered to help me garden and even when ordering flooring from Home Depot the dude invited me to come to NASCAR with him and his buddies. It honestly just changed my perspective to see the good in everyone and through this process boosted my personal, professional and family relationships immensely.
- ragequittah 4mo ago
  >it's solely because that book made me more likable and personable. This is the part that gets me to have an almost allergic reaction. It feels like an almost homogenization of people's personalities. In my mind I picture it like this: business man A reads How to Win Friends and Influence People. Businessman B also reads it. Business man A meets B and see that they're doing the psychological tricks of the book and think "wow this guy sure knows how to win friends and influence people like I do" so they get along fantastically. It's similar to my aversion to books like "The Game" where some men seem to have the idea there's a surefire way to pick up women. Humans are diverse and should have differences in how they treat others and react. "Remember their name, smile, talk about the other person" and all the other tricks often gets me in the mindset of "this person is media trained / inauthentic".
  - parineum 4mo ago
    > Humans are diverse and should have differences in how they treat others and react. Even though I agree with you, that's not a fact and, if a bunch of people are happy all being exactly the same, that's great for them. You can have any amount of ideas about how things should be but if someone is happy the way they are, that's what's important, that's the end goal.

breezybottom 4mo ago

Well grifters can also be marks. It sounds like you're both.

digitaltrees 4mo ago
Sounds like you need to learn some healthy communication. If this is how you show up in relation to others your network of collaborators will be small, keep you weak and limit your ability to effectuate your will in the world.
- JackFr 4mo ago
  > limit your availability to effectuate your will in the world. It might limit his ability to effect his will in the world, but I see his availability as unchanged.
  - DrewADesign 4mo ago
    Not if that boorish behavior alienated their administrative assistant.
  - digitaltrees 4mo ago
    Thanks for proof reading for me.
  - digitaltrees 4mo ago
    What do you feel when you make a comment like that? Satisfied at your intellectual superiority? Confident in your status as someone able to see what’s right? Proud of yourself that you “tell it like it is” Have you ever stopped to think about the prices you pay for that behavior? Let’s game it out. You don’t know me. I could be Paul Graham for all you know. I could be the person in the world that would unlock the very door you need to open to get what you’re working towards. I could be someone totally vulnerable and insecure and end up cascading into despair based on your comment. That being said. I thought it was a funny comment.
    - 4mo ago

jasonfarnon 4mo ago

"because of what I learned." Do these books/seminars actually teach you something new about being married or a father, that you didn't know before? Like what? I always figured they were more about coaching, persuasion, convincing. To the extent I've scanned them, I never saw any kind of new fact, definitely not about something like being married.

Fr0styMatt88 4mo ago
I mean I can see it. Books are just a way to transmit one’s thoughts and experiences to other people. So it’s no different to being exposed to someone with a different viewpoint. Common sense isn’t common or innate, it’s tribal knowledge. There’s that XKCD about someone learning something new that was just thought to be something everyone knew. Also you don’t know what you don’t know. Agree though — coaching and persuasion are a huge part which is why I think a lot of these books seem ‘fluffy’ if all you’re wanting is a collection of facts.
sanswork 4mo ago
I'm definitely a better father because of a bunch of the self help books I've read. Things like better ways to communicate with my son, more effective ways to transfer knowledge, encourage independence, etc. Other areas of my life have definitely improved too though I agree when people say most self help books could be a blog post and in cases where it's an expansion of a blog post I'll generally just go read that. With these types of books(and I read a lot of self help) I generally expect to get like 1-2 good pieces of advice/ideas per 200 pages so I generally just scan through them until I hit areas that seem high value then read those areas more deeply. I've read all of Tim Ferriss' books and haven't really gotten anything I can think of from his stuff to be honest they are a bit too general for me but I've gotten some good advice from his podcast though I only listen to maybe one episode in 10 when it is with someone or about something that sounds very interesting and even then I tend to scrub through it since there is a lot of filler in a 2 hour podcast.
- rfc3092 4mo ago
  Please share “better father” books.

dartharva 4mo ago

Pretty sure that's a result of the larger gestalt driven more by your own drive and savviness to seek new ideas on living than the books themselves, as it is for everyone who claims to have benefited. If the books are gone today and only LLMs remain, nothing will change in this front.

keybored 4mo ago

I reach for my revolver when someone says that they are a better leader. That might mean that they have a captive audience of sycophants. The outdated sense of leader of the willingly lead is a different matter.

digitaltrees 4mo ago
Why such a strong reaction? Do you think good leaders exist? I have received multiple emails from alumni thanking me for my leadership, mentorship, and the culture I created. Leading is a skill like any other it can be improved with practice and I have worked hard at it. My team has no problem disagreeing with me and knows I don’t want sycophantic agreement, they know that even if I ultimately make a decision I will consider all opinions and have seen me change my mind in response to a direct report disagreeing with me in public. There are known mechanisms to foster a safe and effective environment like that such as separating people from ideas, removing consequences for failure and commitment to experimentation.
- keybored 4mo ago
  There’s not much to it. There’s a difference between performed N and N as reported by the performer.
  - mettamage 4mo ago
    Why reach for a gun? You want to kill people that proclaim to be better leaders because of a self-help book? I know people drew guns for less but this is the first time I am reading something like this on HN. I’d suggest you’d read a few books so that you don’t have to reach for your gun but can use your words instead. Though the moment you’d claim any of those books helped you will be a bit of an ironic moment but so be it. I recommend Non-violent Communication by Rosenberg for you. It got me out of a few pickles (arguments). Also going to a meditation retreat helps.
    - keybored 4mo ago
      Thanks for the laugh wizard of Metta.

Npovview 4mo ago

I agree with you. Self-help industry has evolved to cover lot of nuanced topics. Depression, anxiety adjacent topics. Once the basics are recognized, the other aspects like what to expect when you grow old. what to expect after retirement etc. How to care less about what other people think, but in a healthy way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uyR_cXGBMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uyR_cXGBMY

toasty228 4mo ago

You know it's a cult when you can't tell if it's an erowid LSD trip report conclusion or a comment about the self-help community

ubercore 4mo ago

Willing to bet the fact that you went looking to improve is the thing that made the difference, not anything you learned from those seminars.

myaccountonhn 4mo ago

Self-help books are so often ridiculued, and that ridicule is often well merited. At the same time there was a self-help book that basically gave me a whole different outlook on life, and cured my depression over night. So I can't deny they have a place and can really help people.

wwqrd 4mo ago
What was the book?
- brainzap 4mo ago
  my book was one by Terry Real. The excersise to find love for myself was life changing
  - digitaltrees 4mo ago
    Please expand! What’s the exercise!
    - alexitosrv 4mo ago
      He also took a course in baiting and suspense short stories
whateverboat 4mo ago
Most of the effective self help advice is personal advice meets trust means relevance at that point in life. Same book can be ridiculed and appreciated by different people, sometimes even by the same person when they are in different stages of their life (especially if they have less self-awareness). "You already know whether you are in love or not, you just need to trust this voice." Depending on where you are in life and who you are as a person, this statement can simultaneously be called a platitude, or a meaningful statement that someone finds allows them to decide what is important in life at that point.
- 4mo ago

ChrisRR 4mo ago

There are no doubt a lot of good self-help books out there. But there's very likely way more crap ones out there from armchair psychologists

lstodd 4mo ago
Yup, so one just reads up on psychology, psychiatry and neurophysiology branching into sociology and anthropology, approximately to a graduate level. After which all this self-help looks quite naive. This sure takes 10-15 years, but the result is that you begin to understand wtf is going on around.
- senordevnyc 4mo ago
  Yes, because the PhDs in those fields famously have their lives all figured out and are extremely happy and successful at everything.
  - lstodd 4mo ago
    It's your life. To the left there is the tank for those like you. Please jump.
    - senordevnyc 4mo ago
      lol, seems like people struck a nerve. I’d assume all your study would have given you more equanimity. Might be time for a self help book.
- digitaltrees 4mo ago
  Academic literature isn't written to be applied. Some of the books I like the most distill the Academic findings into actionable frameworks. I do agree it's a good idea to also look at the research. But also recognize that the research changes as new studies deepen our understanding or invalidate prior findings.
  - 4mo ago

alberto467 4mo ago

Exactly. People have just been told that there are some grifters in the field and they're unable to make the mental effort to not lump the entire field together. Oh and the fact they're making money? Yeah everybody has to eat, psychologists don't work for free either, neither does any doctor for that matter. There are people doing good out there and yes they will charge you plenty of money for it.

paulryanrogers 4mo ago

Self-help parenting books and blogs caused my spouse years of anguish and disappointment because most declare they've found the one true way. It just so happens to be the least productive and incompatible with many readers' children, bodies, minds, etc. Many of the authors are selling their narrow experience as if it's divine revelation, often literally because they're religious. The grift usually continues with sponsorships, plugging their other books (or their friends' books), or seminars. I've read enough about sociology and psychology now that the whole self help industry disgusts me. Receiving such books or recommendations unsolicited strikes me as an insult from folks to naive or lazy to really get to know me first.

digitaltrees 4mo ago
That's an unfortunate experience, sorry to hear that. I think skepticism is healthy. Experimentation is a more effective position that faith in experts.