Why You Should Stop Relying on Self-Help Books and Gurus
Expected to reach a market value of $14 billion by 2025
Self-improvement is not easy. It is the hardest job on earth.
You do not get paid for it, it is painful and it never ends. How amazing is that?
Nowadays, people try to avoid this long-term investment, by optimizing their choices. Optimization is usually pursued through self-help books and self-improvement videos on YouTube.
This has reached such an enormous size that it has led to a multi-billion industry. The industry is expected to reach $14 billion by 2025 in market value.
An epidemic of self-improvement has begun and the actual implications of it are not yet clear. Is it good to care about yourself or is it sometimes much too much?
Globalization and ChatGPT
We live in challenging times.
Upskilling is not an option anymore, it’s a need. Otherwise, you are out of the market.
The talent pool is wider and more competitive.
People can no longer solely focus locally, they now face global competition not only with other individuals but also with machines.
It’s not easy. Everything happens fast.
With the huge advertising of self-help videos on Instagram and Tiktok, and the emergence of ChatGPT 4 there is no way out.
People are stuck on it. They want to become better and fast.
Better is good, fast is the problem
The notion that reading self-help books and watching videos will profoundly transform us is often romanticized.
The general formula is to place the stories in hopeless circumstances, resolve them with an uplifting ending and instil hope in the audience. That hits high.
Self-help books love to sell hope in big words. Big words attract big audiences. Big words bring money.
People like big words. They like to think they are special and their life is worth some uncertain accomplishable big dream in the distant future.
And the more they watch, and the more they read big, the more they dream big.
I do not question that belief. I question the size of that belief.
The bigger the size, the bigger the desperation.
The complexity of life can easily interfere with it, and one has to be aware of it at every single point in time. Otherwise, deception arrives and your belief is gone.
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Self-help gurus tend to promote financial wealth, and especially financial freedom, making a big cut on essential life factors, such as family, friends, health or well-being.
Having big dreams should be a side dish, not the main dish.
This is the main dish you are fed, that financial wealth and financial independence are essential.
The King of Productivity, Tim Ferriss promotes that in his book The 4-Hour Workweek, and so do many others. I don’t blame them.
Money sells money.
Hope sells hope.
But maybe the mainstream formula could include more healthy parts to the equation, so we all don’t become obsessed with ourselves.
If I can be, you can be
Another problem with self-help is that the knowledge is personal to the author, not to the audience.
The self-help gurus usually sell the audience their actions, disregarding their background. You start thinking you can do the same, but you can’t just copy-paste the experience, the network, or the geography of events.
The individual must construct their own personal path.
Consider the content but do not make it your truth.
Self-help acts as guidance but too much of it will make you lost.
It’s great to think you can achieve great things, but it’s not helpful to think you will achieve them all the time.
When you read next time that book or watch Gary Vaynerchuk, ask yourself — do you need this help?
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