A History of Self Help/My Own Journey to Where I am!

One of the first books I read of a "self-help" nature was "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. I believe I was perhaps 20 years old at the time. The book is a classic of the genre. I later read "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill.

I have said at times that those two books were written and then every other book of the genre just repackaged them and sold them under different titles. Whether that's true or not, it certainly seems like a lot of the books sometimes referred to as "pop psychology" seem to say a lot of the same things over and over again.

Some will state that they simply repeat platitudes that are obvious. While I can see why some would say that, I'm not quite there and do believe there are some good points made by this material, and I would definitely recommend the two books named above. (but don't stop there)

Later, I discovered Tony Robbins' material and what I particularly liked about him that I thought was a step forward from most material I'd read to that point, was his insistence on applying his material immediately and not just listening to it or just reading. I can still remember listening to one of his tapes where he prodded the listener, "if you're not going to actually do this, turn the tape off, put it back in the set, and give it to someone who will actually take action!" (I paraphrase from memory)

I agree with much of Tony's work, but definitely not all, but I think his greatest strength is his ability to "sell" the material and for me, in any case, convince me to actually take action.

In fact, as a result of listening to Tony, I took steps towards buying a house after a divorce when I had no down payment, by contacting a realtor to see if he could find a seller, willing to hold a second mortgage for the down payment, which I wound up doing. The interesting thing is that same realtor eventually referred me to a lady as a recruiting lead for my financial services organization. I met and eventually recruited this lady, but more importantly, I eventually married her and Lorraine has been one of the main reasons I've been able to grow in my personal life and my career, so I could literally say, as hype would have it.... "Tony Robbins changed my life!" Corny, I know, but nevertheless, taking "massive action" as Tony would put it, did lead from one thing to another to another that led to the best decision I've made in my life!


Later, I read "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. Covey made the distinction between the "character ethic" and the "personality ethic" where he differentiated between "techniques", for example on how to win trust (win friends and influence people) as opposed to actually having the underlying charater trait of trustworthiness.

I felt this was a major step in going beyond the superficiality of much of what I'd read before. I eventually read virtually all of Covey's works, and actually became certified to facilitate the "First Things First Time Management/Life Leadership" material.

Also, his emphasis on "prinicples" that were timeless, universal and self-evident went deeper than Carnegie, Hill and Robbins, and I thought, OK, here it is I've transgressed "pop psychology" to something of substance.

Along this journey, I began to engage in my fitness program, and in so doing, discovered the works of Arthur Jones, Ellington Darden and Mike Mentzer....(more on fitness in future blog, a critical part of self-development that will be integral to this blog and my future book).

Mike Mentzer's continual references to Ayn Rand in his writings seemed to me, to be besides the point in strength training material, and I patiently waded through these references to get to what I really was looking for, the actual material on exercise per.

Then one day while visiting my cousin, I noticed a paperback copy of Atlas Shrugged, Rand's most famous book, and asked if I could borrow it. Frankly I had understood little of Mentzer's references to her in his book, but he'd peaked my curiosity so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I would recommend reading her fiction before her non fiction or especially anyone else's non fiction about her or her works. (Many if not most of her critics have never actually read her material)

To say that Ayn Rand's work is revolutionary is not hype; in fact it is an incredible understatement. As a result she is very controversial as she should be, because she will challenge everything you think you know about morality and that is just the beginning.

Through her work, and Objectivists (people who ascribe to her philosophy of Objectivism) would likely wince at the thought of having her listed along with "self-help" authors, I discovered the underlying flaw in all the previous works, which is a proper moral base. The title of this blog is "Being the Hero of YOUR Life" with the word YOUR in capitals, and in my first post I talked about putting the "self" back in self help.

Altruism, the idea that the highest moral ideal is to sacrifice to others is unortunately virtually universally accepted as being self-evident, however, how can one seek SELF-fulfilment when on another level they believe that to be truly moral they should be totally selfless. In fact, if they achieve self-fulfilment, often their reward will be to be labelled as selfish, causing them to feel they've "climbed the ladder of success only to discover it was leaning against the wrong wall."

Usually and tragically, they will never get to the top of any ladder because along the way, they will be plagued by "self-doubt, where their mind's wings should have grown".....(note Napoleon Hill did not die a rich man.) Enough for today... it will take several posts to elaborate on Objectivism (a philosophy for living on earth) and of course, I will not do it justice, but will refer you to the actual works of Ms. Rand. Coming up....more on how a proper morality based on reason can set you free... as well as why you only need a few minutes of exercise a week to be in optimum physical condition and why more will actually be counerproductive....stay tuned....