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

blog
45

Nope, I can’t agree with you Jeff. Your statement about Self-Help generally is too broad.

The idea that only science can help me assumes that I a) fit a standard model, and b) that I am rational. I doubt anyone manages both of those. People are varied. People are irrational, and I suspect if we ever found a perfectly rational person we would see them as inhuman.

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that most people here are problem solvers, and who view their lives as some sort of system to be optimised. I know that most of my life, I have. The thing is, lives are complicated, individuals are unique and have different goals, and while we can learn useful things about general trends across large populations, my life (or optimisation problem) is unique. Science can point the way, but sometimes you’ve got to do a little exploration for yourself.

I’m also interested that in your post the objective of ‘Self Help’ seems to be ‘Productivity’. I studied a bit of Psychology at university, and we discussed some experiments that had shown that ‘Happy’ people were less productive than slightly anxious people. I also see that there are studies showing the reverse, too. Either way, I would sooner be happy than productive. Maybe I’m trying to reach a different goal.

I will agree that self help books are only really useful if seen as what worked for the author. However, I’d also suggest that science is only useful if viewed within the bounds of the experiment. For example, there is reasonable evidence that some of the forms of talking therapy are useful - but that they take time. Was the time factor accounted for within the experiment?

I guess the idea that 95% of content is irrelevant to you seems likely. But the thing is, for me, it might be a different 95%.

If limited to purely the question of Productivity, I might agree that science is the main useful approach - though only if we recognise that individuals are different, and we won’t all fit the same model.

(That’s not meant as a fluffy ‘everyone is special and unique’, just the observation that there is a lot of variation within the population)

46

I bought the 59 seconds book because of this blog.

47

[2] This blog post kind of sounds like self help :slight_smile:

49

Thanks for the great post. When I started participating at StackOverflow I did not even knew how to indent code properly. Thanks to StackOverflow and StackExchange I feel a better programmer and a better writer :slight_smile:

50

When I read this book a year ago, I thought it was crap. The problem with self-help “science” is that it’s not actually testable. People run studies on small groups in artificial surroundings and then try to extrapolate to people’s lives. I much prefer How to Win Friends and Influence people - that book has been popular for the last 80 years.

51

As with any learning, there’s the instructional part and the “you have to go do it” part. Some people want a lot of instruction, some don’t. Some people use instruction as a crutch (those who are addicted to self-help books), some don’t. Some self-help authors are more hype the help, and some offer genuine value to the lives of their readers.

Ultimately, improving your life is up to you. It can’t happen by reading a book alone, just like you can’t learn programming by reading a book alone. You have to do it. Some books help. But you still need action.

52

Funny, in Germany, the book translates to “60 seconds”, despite you “59 seconds” original title.

Sounds like the 5-minute-workout scene from “There’s Something About Mary”.

53

It’s about doing, not reading about doing. The only thing you’ve really achieved at the end of such a book, is having read it. That should be the tell-tale clue. You picked up a book, read all of the pages within it’s covers, and then put it down. Hence, you read a book.

Now apply that same philosophy to your goals.

54

Haha, I had the best result reading 59 Seconds. It talked so much about productivity and easy ways to motivate yourself. I got fed up with myself, picked up my home project and worked solidly on it. I never finished the book!

55

You have to take under consideration that ppl here are mostly IT guys, we are a nitche. 59 secs (I did not read it) is simply talking language of evidence and pragmatism i presume.

A marketing guy for instance would be most likely bored to death with this approach, he needs energy from book not facts.

The typical buyer of “secret” only needs to buy the book, this action itself fullfills in his mind the obligation to do something about it.

56

“How to win friends and influence people” - excellent and based off extensive studies of lots of successful people.

Four Hour Work Week = practical modern tips and tricks, lots of anecdotes and bragging.

Crush it - temporarily inspirational, minor tips and tricks

Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Semi useful, but anecdotal

Getting Things Done - Not my style of organization, but interesting stuff about his experience training several teams.

Your brain at work - Interesting but not worth it

Think Rich, Grow Rich - waste of time.

Crucial conversations - blegh

I like listening to these while travelling.

57

Jeff, have you actually read some of Steve Pavlina’s articles? Looks like you just read the first 3 sentences on the ‘About’ page and overlooked the big ‘self-improvement’ (not ‘self-help’) sitting in the website’s header.

Your article says the exact same things, Steve already said years ago. I think you picked the worst choice for pointing out an ‘self-acclaimed self-help guru’ … :wink:

58

Yes, writing encourages the creation of a story line and structure that help people to make sense of what they believe has happened - NOT what has happened. Read more here: http://danaide.typepad.com/blog/

59

“59 Seconds is so good, in fact, it has rekindled my hopes that our new Stack Exchange Productivity Q&A can work.”

Even if ‘self-help’ was contained to the current cult of personality and anecdotal advice, I think the SE Productivity would still be successful. The industry is huge and has been huge for decades!

Saying that, 59 Seconds and similar books like this (there’s another good one Creativity based on actual research: http://www.spring.org.uk/how-to-be-creative-ebook), I’m glad are popping up and challenging the so called intuitive avenues to happiness and satisfaction.

There’s nothing like science! Thanks for the post.

60

did you spot the gorilla?

61

Very well said Matt ! I was thinking about the same thing the other day and taking a good hard look at what I was doing. I had all these grandiose ideas about my research but then I realized that the actual sweat-and-blood wasn’t enough. That did it for me and I rolled up my sleeves and put in the bull-work. You might want to look at this video starring Will Smith

he truly is the Legend !

Also reminds me of a quote from “The World Is Not Enough” … “… there is enough time to sleep when you are dead” :slight_smile: …

64

Perhaps another reason writing is more effective than talking in this case is that we may be more honest when writing down something that we don’t expect people to read.

66

Hi,
I was wondering if you could tell me how you accomplished putting that image on your info so when someone is searching self help advice and they see your blurb, they see that graphic?
Thanks.
Jan