I was a manager at General Electric for a decade. We were prescribed self help books (7 Habits for example) and pop business management books (Good to Great). I came to loathe them, but read them as told - usually on airplane.
Good to Great the worst - the central message is that companies that go from Good to Great have an intelligent, humble, steadfast CEO at the helm - so listen to him. The book taught me one thing - that there is no easier way to make money than writing a trite book telling powerful, wealthy people they are wonderful and deserve all the fawning they receive and greater financial compensation. GE went broke a few years later and almost went under completely.
I don’t really have a comment, except that this is a really fantastic piece. One of your best!
I guess since I am commenting already, I’ll add that the control group of Stephen King readers should exclude On Writing, which is self-help adjacent (and excellent).
Actually, novels are full of moral instruction. Give the controls puzzle games.
"If you are a good sleeper, do not read books about insomnia."
I'm in BioBank. From time to time they send round questionnaires. There was one on sleeplessness. Up until then I'd always fallen asleep as soon as I wanted to. It took me a couple of years to get back to that state and it's still nowhere near as reliable as it was previously.
The next questionnaire was on pain. I skipped it...
I consider self help the junk food of non fiction prose writing...but I still can’t help myself. That said definitely co-sign the recommendation for 4000 weeks. Cheers!
Thanks for this post. My sense is that self help books work like fairy tales and the like. They invite you to think of two extremes, eg, hot and cold porridge, so that you’ll have a clearer picture of what’s just right. I have a ceo friend who keeps a whole list of contradictory mandates for leadership, but, because he actually has a deep story behind each one, they help him hone his judgement in specific scenarios.
“In this regard, reading these books is similar to therapy (or, to put it differently, maybe reading them is a form of therapy.)” - This is really well said and I think true.
80mph fastball? Man. The game has definitely changed. :)
My book reading process is similar, but it's more like a rabbit hole. I read about someone or something in one book and want to know more so continue down that path with another book. It's how I eventually got to your books.
I mostly read to find more motivations and distractions to keep me from drowning in nihilism, but like you I stumble onto tidbits and strategies that help me in day-to-day activities, like work and raising a family...and I agree about Oliver Burkeman's book(s) - one of the best.
I wonder if acts of kindness are more effective when they facilitate real social interaction, sort of bridging the evidence gap between these two interventions?
Thank you for this wonderful confession. I share your passion for the genre and have long wondered why so many intellectuals distance themselves from it. I suspect a form of „willing suspension of disbelief“ distinguishes self-help. Those who read self-help books enjoy relief from the skeptical attitude of the academic world. For once, they’re not critical, differentiated, and balanced but allow themselves to be helped and celebrate unbroken unambiguity for the duration of the reading, although they secretly know, of course, that most arguments lack evidence, and one could see things quite differently.
I wonder sometimes if we have a confused understanding of our relationship with books.
It's strange to think, but maybe a book is kind of like a living entity?
Who exactly is reading who? Am I making the sounds in my head, or are the words making themselves?
The beautiful cover with "The Curious Title Which Draws Me Nearer" – did I decide upon it, or did it decide upon me?
Are classics classics because people like them, or because they are slowly and perseverantly working away on all of human culture, century after century?
Do books yearn for a reader? Do they patiently await a willing ear? Do they die when read for the last time? Do they rejoice when dusty and picked up off the shelf?
Does it really matter what I think of a book – or does it matter what the book thinks of *me*?
Are the images in my head really my own?
Is the author in the book? Or was the book in the author all along? Whom wrote whom?
Did we create AI to express all the world's information – or did all the world's information work upon us such that we might do just that?
I dunno. But sometimes I wonder if the modern relationship to books has become a little... selfish? We want entertainment, help, wisdom, escape, this, that, and the other.
Fair enough. But what about the book? If nobody reads, the book dies.
I wonder if we have a responsibility to read certain books – not because we will profit from it, but because there are books whose sole reason for existence is for you to hold them in your hands and attend to what they must express.
When you think to yourself "perhaps I'll read XYZ", maybe a tiny little star in a distant Platonic Galaxy of Eternal Ideas, Feeling, and Forms is mustering up little a bit of courage and – for a fleeting moment – burning bright enough to catch the corner of your eye?
I dunno. I don't have any evidence that it's true – how would I ever prove it?
But maybe it's true?
And if it's true, our distracted, wandering attention is their *life force*.
Perhaps Self Help books need us to read *them*, because their whole reason for existing is to feel that maybe they can help someone, somewhere? To set something right.
And in this distant, fleeting, earthly world – maybe this is our reason for existing also?
I dunno. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies. (Did I write that? Perhaps not.)
Great read, Paul. I'd love to hear more about the point about reflection sometimes messing things up. That's such a finding! Such interesting possible implications. If you ever write a post on it one day, I'd love to read it!
Ideas are not useful as abstract entities. There must be scope for practice, Aand readers must have the willingness and curiosity to experiment. Gandhiji called his Autobiography, an experiment in truth.Self-help books are useful only when they provide workable solutions. Platitudes are of no use. At least, there must be incremental benefit.
I was a manager at General Electric for a decade. We were prescribed self help books (7 Habits for example) and pop business management books (Good to Great). I came to loathe them, but read them as told - usually on airplane.
Good to Great the worst - the central message is that companies that go from Good to Great have an intelligent, humble, steadfast CEO at the helm - so listen to him. The book taught me one thing - that there is no easier way to make money than writing a trite book telling powerful, wealthy people they are wonderful and deserve all the fawning they receive and greater financial compensation. GE went broke a few years later and almost went under completely.
I don’t really have a comment, except that this is a really fantastic piece. One of your best!
I guess since I am commenting already, I’ll add that the control group of Stephen King readers should exclude On Writing, which is self-help adjacent (and excellent).
Actually, novels are full of moral instruction. Give the controls puzzle games.
"If you are a good sleeper, do not read books about insomnia."
I'm in BioBank. From time to time they send round questionnaires. There was one on sleeplessness. Up until then I'd always fallen asleep as soon as I wanted to. It took me a couple of years to get back to that state and it's still nowhere near as reliable as it was previously.
The next questionnaire was on pain. I skipped it...
what an amazing (and terrible) story, Malcolm!
just annoying. Worse things happen.
I consider self help the junk food of non fiction prose writing...but I still can’t help myself. That said definitely co-sign the recommendation for 4000 weeks. Cheers!
Thanks for this post. My sense is that self help books work like fairy tales and the like. They invite you to think of two extremes, eg, hot and cold porridge, so that you’ll have a clearer picture of what’s just right. I have a ceo friend who keeps a whole list of contradictory mandates for leadership, but, because he actually has a deep story behind each one, they help him hone his judgement in specific scenarios.
Haha! What a great and hilarious little ditty of an article!
“In this regard, reading these books is similar to therapy (or, to put it differently, maybe reading them is a form of therapy.)” - This is really well said and I think true.
80mph fastball? Man. The game has definitely changed. :)
My book reading process is similar, but it's more like a rabbit hole. I read about someone or something in one book and want to know more so continue down that path with another book. It's how I eventually got to your books.
I mostly read to find more motivations and distractions to keep me from drowning in nihilism, but like you I stumble onto tidbits and strategies that help me in day-to-day activities, like work and raising a family...and I agree about Oliver Burkeman's book(s) - one of the best.
I wonder if acts of kindness are more effective when they facilitate real social interaction, sort of bridging the evidence gap between these two interventions?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2022.2154695
Thank you for this wonderful confession. I share your passion for the genre and have long wondered why so many intellectuals distance themselves from it. I suspect a form of „willing suspension of disbelief“ distinguishes self-help. Those who read self-help books enjoy relief from the skeptical attitude of the academic world. For once, they’re not critical, differentiated, and balanced but allow themselves to be helped and celebrate unbroken unambiguity for the duration of the reading, although they secretly know, of course, that most arguments lack evidence, and one could see things quite differently.
I wonder sometimes if we have a confused understanding of our relationship with books.
It's strange to think, but maybe a book is kind of like a living entity?
Who exactly is reading who? Am I making the sounds in my head, or are the words making themselves?
The beautiful cover with "The Curious Title Which Draws Me Nearer" – did I decide upon it, or did it decide upon me?
Are classics classics because people like them, or because they are slowly and perseverantly working away on all of human culture, century after century?
Do books yearn for a reader? Do they patiently await a willing ear? Do they die when read for the last time? Do they rejoice when dusty and picked up off the shelf?
Does it really matter what I think of a book – or does it matter what the book thinks of *me*?
Are the images in my head really my own?
Is the author in the book? Or was the book in the author all along? Whom wrote whom?
Did we create AI to express all the world's information – or did all the world's information work upon us such that we might do just that?
I dunno. But sometimes I wonder if the modern relationship to books has become a little... selfish? We want entertainment, help, wisdom, escape, this, that, and the other.
Fair enough. But what about the book? If nobody reads, the book dies.
I wonder if we have a responsibility to read certain books – not because we will profit from it, but because there are books whose sole reason for existence is for you to hold them in your hands and attend to what they must express.
When you think to yourself "perhaps I'll read XYZ", maybe a tiny little star in a distant Platonic Galaxy of Eternal Ideas, Feeling, and Forms is mustering up little a bit of courage and – for a fleeting moment – burning bright enough to catch the corner of your eye?
I dunno. I don't have any evidence that it's true – how would I ever prove it?
But maybe it's true?
And if it's true, our distracted, wandering attention is their *life force*.
Perhaps Self Help books need us to read *them*, because their whole reason for existing is to feel that maybe they can help someone, somewhere? To set something right.
And in this distant, fleeting, earthly world – maybe this is our reason for existing also?
I dunno. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies. (Did I write that? Perhaps not.)
Great read, Paul. I'd love to hear more about the point about reflection sometimes messing things up. That's such a finding! Such interesting possible implications. If you ever write a post on it one day, I'd love to read it!
Ideas are not useful as abstract entities. There must be scope for practice, Aand readers must have the willingness and curiosity to experiment. Gandhiji called his Autobiography, an experiment in truth.Self-help books are useful only when they provide workable solutions. Platitudes are of no use. At least, there must be incremental benefit.
P P Sarma