If you had read one of my first few blogs, you will know that I am extremely critical of the huge (billion dollar plus) self help industry. (By the way a billion is one thousand million in the UK and a million million in the US – a trillion is one thousand billion in the UK and a very large number in the US!)

It is amazing when you go to any shop at any type of travel terminal, the books that are most prominently displayed are the ones belonging to the self-help genre. They only help the authors!

By definition, if the books worked you would only ever need to buy them once to solve each problem. I really would like to meet the ‘sixty second manager’ or the ‘reawakened giant’. Buying more than one book on effectiveness implies that the books don’t quite deliver. The book that has really made it big in the last couple of decades has been “The seven habits of highly effective people”. I know many people who have that book on their shelf and yet very few that have read it. I like the audio version that tells people to focus and to have narrow vision – not the best thing to pay attention to when you are driving I guess.

I am not disagreeing with what some of these books say – or the bolt of energy they may give you from time to time. I just really doubt their power to actually make you feel better or transform you. I was therefore heartened when two weeks ago, a report from my new adopted country, Canada, seemed to show that self-help books can actually lower your self-esteem.

The crucial ingredient of any self-help formula is the self-affirming mantra. This is where you are encouraged to say to yourself “I am brilliant/ effective/ funny/ charismatic/generous” (enough about myself – let me get back to the blog). These affirmations said with enough conviction and over enough time, will lead to you becoming that person you want to be. There is something sinister in this. If you do not end up becoming that person (and trust me you wont through this exercise) you are made to feel that it is because you do not believe enough. You cannot become funny just because you will it. And all the money in the world will not make Peter Jones (from Dragons Den in the UK) funny or charismatic.

I am always nervous about self-affirming types. I have always believed that if you want to be effective or anything else – just do things that demonstrate you are effective! If you want to be thought of as generous – behave generously! To me it really is as simple as that.

So, save your money – and wait till next year when in a complete turn around I will be releasing my own self-help book!

Pre-orders will be accepted from now.

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