Nobody's Going to Help You, and That's Awesome

angusm wins!

I agree, there a loads of crap books out there, but if only a fraction of them is good it should be sufficient.

The main problem I think is that you already need to have the right attitude BEFORE reading such a book. People thinking they would gain the right attitude just by reading hundred of books will miserably fail. Second problem is that many people aren’t able to “implement” stuff to practice. Mainly because humans are resisting to change. It is like all these boring New Years resolutions people are making.

What I have seen so far, above points also apply to all these millions of trainings, seminars and courses.

One book I can really recommend is ‘The Power of Less’.

As to the top of your post where you talk (a la The Donald) about doing what you love, I find there are three kinds of people:

  1. What they love to do has inherent economic value.
  2. What they love to do could have economic value if someone else who understands the value in what they do continually assigns them tasks with value.
  3. What they love to do has no useful economic value.

People in the first group have a clear path. They are not guaranteed success but they can pursue it independently.

People in the second group depend on effective managers to be successful. They could become millionaires or go from low paying job to low paying job, depending largely on whether they are fortunate enough to hook up with the right people.

People in the third group will either do something they don’t love or live off the productive output of others.

Often people in the first group have “advice” for people in the other groups. They should STFU.

5% of self-help advice surprisingly wasn't bullshit

I think that applies to any genre doesn’t it?

For example, I got into commodity options trading in the early 90’s, bought almost exactly 100 books and when people asked me for book recommendation, I recommended exactly 5 books. The other 95 books were repeat info, stuff that doesn’t work, or just plain bullshit.

Hard skill tech books don’t fall into this problem because it’s so binary; it either works or it doesn’t. The soft skill tech books would probably fall into this trap, if there weren’t so few of them (relatively speaking).

i agree that you have got to get off your back side and take RESPONSIBILITY for your life and for making things happen in it. But I wholeheartedly reject the idea that no one but science is going to help you. Many people have helped me. People that had nothing to gain from it, but they cared about me and I would never be where I am today if they hadn’t.

A rel=“nofollow” for ‘self-proclaimed self-help guru’ is utterly awesome, made my day, thanks.

From my experience most people forgot that mastering something needs plenty of time (years).

One sign proving this fact is that you find a lot of books with titles like “become something within few weeks” or “the truth about …”.

But receiving true mastership lasts for a long time. And this is true for handcrafting, education, martial arts, etc.

To become a master might last even decades.

Why does this self-help book work when so many others fail? In a word, science!

And what do you do when you find the science isn’t applicable either? To look to science for the problems behind procrastination and unhappiness with your work is folly. It has to be about a deep life philosophy (some of which you outline above).

The truth is most people in any given career are deeply unsuited to it, and many of those are deeply unsuited to any career, especially one that demands you spend 40+ hours a week in front of a computer at work to be competent and another 20+ outside of work to be good.

Psychologically, we are not suited to work this long, motivate ourselves this far and concentrate on one thing so intensely. Of course we have plenty of famous examples that buck this trend; you are one Jeff, I am not. The view from a (dare I say it) enlightened sodomite is that I enjoy programming, but not enough to be an all-singing-all-dancing-guru, I cannot motivate myself enough because I want to be working a twenty hour week and spending the rest of the time with family and friends.

That’s me, but before you try to find out what’s wrong with yourself and why you cannot motivate yourself, take a look at whether computers are for you, or if the rat-race is for you, and if you wouldn’t rather be doing lots of varied things with your life rather than banging your head against the wall in a mode of life that is deeply unsuitable for the vast majority of us.

I read this book a week ago and thought it fantastic. Based on some excellent psychological research, it was an engrossing read (especially as a follow-up and supplement to a hefty tome on the history of psychology I’d just finished).

Unfortunately, I didn’t find too much that was helpful, as I was already doing many of the book’s suggestions, though I’ve been going back to the “In 59 seconds” sections over the past week as a refresher and to maybe incorporate a few little extras.

Finally, I’d just like to say I think you have a fantastic blog, Jeff. It’s one of the few sites I don’t have to force myself to check; it’s always a pleasure to stop by and read the latest post or two by you. For whatever reason you do it, I hope you continue to write for a long time.

You wrote, “I don’t care if anyone reads what I write here. I’m writing to satisfy myself first and foremost.” Nice post, but I’m calling bullshit on that one. If you’re writing for yourself, then why post your thoughts to the universe? Nobody blogs just for themselves. I’m tired of people saying they do.

Some of the comments here are pretty funny. I especially like the ones that basically imply (or outright say) that “science doesn’t apply here.” That’s a bit like saying “reality doesn’t apply here.”

I would, though, agree with the people who say that most self-help books don’t offer any help, but instead aim to motivate people. Unfortunately, they mainly motivate people to buy more self-help books, because reading about other people’s successes is a pretty compelling substitute for experiencing actual success.

Get up, get out of bed and immediately work on doing something extremely difficult for an hour. You might not finish the thing you set out to do, but you will finish other things, more so than you might have otherwise.

The “self help” books just regurgitate common sense with a wisdom flavored icing on top, just like the guy who has chicklets for teeth on late night infomercials.

The only science in improving yourself is studying yourself honestly. I’ll read the book, however - it does sound interesting. Since most of the new stuff on the shelves in stores here comes from the UK, I’m pretty sure I’ll get a copy with a jacket that doesn’t suck :slight_smile: And, well, writing is always fun.

You make some great points Jeff. There’s no substitute for practice in your field, whatever it may be.

For example, I was really bad at math growing up and never had anyone to encourage me to do better. I relied on teachers and friends who helped me. Turned out, I knew very little despite spending so much time in school.

I recently became motivated to self-study math and learn because I actually want to know it, it feels so good.

This goes for development as well, which I’d been doing for years. The continual and deliberate practice is the only thing that can teach you the inner-workings of any mechanism that belongs to a complex system.

I think following blogs of practitioners is awesome and I use it to supplement my knowledge of whatever new is coming out. But I’m always practicing, basically, you can’t depend on others to do your work for you. No effort = no reward in the most satisfying sense of the meaning.

Upon getting to the end of this blog entry, I felt kind of like Ralphie in “A Christmas Story” after he finished decoding the secret message:

“Be… sure… to read… Stack Exchange Productivity Q&A”

Stack Exchange Productivity Q&A?

A crummy commercial?!? Son of a bitch!

Some of the comments here are pretty funny. I especially like the ones that basically imply (or outright say) that “science doesn’t apply here.” That’s a bit like saying “reality doesn’t apply here.”

That is an opinion. I like Carl Sagan’s metaphor of science as a candle in the dark, it can illuminate only what it is directed towards - but it is not the only tool for uncovering truth. Science is the search for facts, philosophy is the search for reality, one can and should be informed by the other but not exclusively. You are conflating science, the pure theory of science, with our cultural scientific-materialism. There is a lot of arrogance in that, especially when you confuse that with reality.

There is a mistake, and you make it, in conflating what directions our society chooses to point scientific research with the nature of truth. Science is used to further our cultural values, and of course the truths therein continue to bolster that (and when, in the case of global warming, in contradicts it we furiously undermine it, or ignore it).

If you point science in the direction of more productivity it will scientifically tell you how to be more productive, in a particular area (though it’s worth noting science’s poor track record with social relationships, the economy etc.). If you start with the premise values that work “is good” and a career should be “developed” and come up with some “scientific” answers to achieve that, you will (and do) mistakenly believe that science is telling you to fix what you are doing wrong.

Knowing reality can only come from within the person, science is a useful tool but don’t turn it into a God, and don’t bastardize it to make you feel better about your own values - that’s backwards thinking.

There is one book that is about 45% really great and actionable content.
How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

It combines lessons in listening, establishing rapport, negotiation, consultative and Socratic selling. I say 45% because about 5% is name dropping the names of well known people in the 1930’s USA and about 50% is a set of standard business letters.

I have been to many courses on these topics, and all of what they had to teach is in that one book.

Steve Pavlina is one of the most interesting characters on the Internet. Have you really read his stuff? You are repeating some of the points that he made years ago.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/03/is-self-help-a-scam/
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2004/12/making-a-quantum-leap/

Good luck in your personal development, and keep being curious!
/Robin

Wow… Sound advice… actually nonsense… for great musicians who overdosed on drugs @ 27…

We should be doing everything for science. You monster.

Very interesting point of view, both from the author and those that read your post.
In the area of personal development I completely agree that without applying the knowledge you have to change the thing(s) you feel need to improve, you have a very low if not non-existent chance of changing.

As to your statement:
“Remember, nobody’s going to help you … except science…” I have to disagree, God, our Creator and Father of the Christ and the embodiment of the Holy Spirit, can and absolutely will help us to improve ourselves.

The Bible is the original “self-help” book. All through it it links poor health and the effects that living with and by negative attitudes and behavior have on it. But it is not just physical health that it talks about but ultimately spiritual and mental health.

It was refreshing to see the scientific data you included from the book as it demonstrated that the ideas and concepts taught in the Bible are scientifically supported. Not, mind you, that I need that to support my belief, but I know there are those in the world that discount the validity of the Bible.

Have a great day and God Bless
Guy