I might be stuck with certain inner disturbances forever [...] It turns out my really big problem was thinking I might one day get rid of all my problems, when the truth is that there's no escaping the mucky, malodorous compost-heap of this reality. Which is OK, actually. Compost is the stuff that helps things grow.
Self-help books are based on first telling you you have a problem, then selling the solution. I get that some are actually correct, but the industry as a whole can only be sustained by inventing new problems and/or making sure newer generations learn about existing ones.
Ferris is a self-help book author, and while I kinda get where he's driving at, it also feels like he's just doing the same thing again, but meta - overconsumption of self-help book is like a dog chasing its tail (or a snake giving himself a BJ?), here's a solution. I'm somewhat surprised it's just an affiliate link blogpost instead of a whole book.
Tim Ferriss has always been good at identifying the next trends in the self-help space and positioning himself as an expert for trending themes. I think he might be acknowledging that self-help markets are saturated with all of the life extension influencers trying to one up each other with their protocols and supplement stacks.
This might be a trial balloon to see if this topic has legs for another book or product.
> Self-help is dangerous precisely because it easily becomes self-fixation.
In my self-help journey I came across meditation which ultimately led me to altruistic-based practices. So can't relate.
> A focus on improving the self usually first requires finding problems with the self
Oh I got in there the other way around. I wanted a few things out of life socially speaking but society was blocking me somehow. So I went out to investigate why that is and then studied it all and then solved my own problem. In order to do that, I had to improve myself as I wasn't connecting well with the world. I'm much happier with how I do that nowadays.
I think it's worth it to be ok with everyone being a little bit in the same boat of wanting to self-help, then becoming enamored with buddhist ideas, then grappling with everyday being just another human. In whatever order.
I'm sure you mean well but just kinda irked me that you immediately put in the effort to "nope can't relate"
I think that hearing other points of view is important.
I see time and time again that posts insinuate that there's no other point of view, and I think that highlighting one perspective is enough to show that this (as in the article) isn't some mathematically perfect piece of advice.
> I'm sure you mean well but just kinda irked me that you immediately put in the effort to "nope can't relate"
In part that's because I see the message of the post way too often and I haven't seen my message around that much. It's just to counterbalance it. I don't think the message of the post is wrong per se, but to me it comes across as such a strong statement of "this is how it is" that I want to say equally strong back (as one vote of the general public) "nope, can't relate, here is briefly why"
It is superion in the sense that it is more honest.
When you frame "talking about own feeling and experiences as arrogamt, because it does not pretend generality, you are being wrong. Nothing in what I said implies superiority complex or arrogance.
And frankly, your twist is fairly manipulative sleazy bullshit.
> The older I get, the more I think that self-help can be a trap. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. I say this after ~20 years of writing self-help and a lifetime of consuming it.
so, the self help didn't help and he passed the problem on his readers. Great!
If Books Could Kill did a podcast on “The Four-Hour Workweek” and pointed out he explains the scam he’s running on his own readers. I guess he figures the smart (?) ones can recreate it and the rest just follow the herd.
I am reminded of the multiple retired US GOP politicians who show a change of heart and break with their party's direction, sometimes admitting they were part of the problem.
Didn't realize who's blog I'm reading. I was intrigued by the title, being a fan of 'self help' books. I mostly read about productivity (i.e. Feel-Good Productivity is a good one IMO), health, living a balanced life etc. and was expecting to find some a-ha moments in this post. I didn't. It confused me more than anything often talking about 'relationships' as if this is the only self-help kind of book there is.
And I have learnt a ton of lessons from self help books like the one I mentioned above, Arete, "how to make friends and influence people", Atomic Habits and others, without looking to fix any unhappiness, flaws of myself or whatnot. Was just curious what other, more experience people have learned about life that I can learn without having to wait 20-30+ years.
There is undoubtedly value in both the self-help advice and the self-reflection and self-assessment involved in deciding if the advice is for you.
That value likely will decrease with age and experience, but is still nice to consciously acknowledge and even reflect on, again after the lessons have been absorbed in whatever ways they have been absorbed, adjusted, or rejected.
Lots of good points. Just want to point out that this can quickly become another self improvement project with its own sources of stress, insecurity and so forth.
In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a lojong slogan: "Self-liberate even the antidote". It refers to exactly this -- the practices we use to get away from bad habits may themselves become bad habits. Rather than embarking on an infinitely recursive run of trying to stop self-improving, just don't be black-and-white about things.
I enjoy self improvement, but there is something deeply therapeutic about self non - improvement.
I don't say 'self acceptance' because that's often described as a necessary precursor to changing whatever we find difficult to accept about ourselves.
In his Essays, Michel de Montaigne had a neighbor whose doctor told him not to eat a certain dish. When Montaigne asked him why he ate it anyway, he said he needed something to curse at.
I believe it’s a lifelong journey towards healthy relationships with anyone. We don’t start there, and we might never get to the finish line. That includes non-violent boundary setting; not friends with everyone, but relationship. Soft boundaries, where you neither cling on to something that was but no longer is without the need to blame self or other, nor you avoid contact with something new and unknown. To let go of the fight against personal limits and circumstances one cannot change. Not at once, and not without testing, but layer by layer.
Everybody is adventurous; each in their own way. You can invite people to your personal adventure, and be part of theirs, for as long or short as it serves the both of you.
This is actually a common statement people make with whom I feel bored. I call it the "evasive defense".
Me: "Let's fly to Paris tomorrow!"
People: "Nah, I'm fine just doing what I did the last 3650 days. I wonder how I deal with this issue I have with my boss at work. That is enough adventure for me."
Me: "Trash the job! Let's start a startup!"
People: "Nah, that is not for me. The benefit-to-work ratio at my current job is just too good."
Have you actually shown genuine interest in their adventures, or is it you who defines what is adventurous and what is not, and not see that they defend against your interests, and by that protect their own? Why do you feel the need to make decisions for them? Is it you that is unhappy about their choices, or is it them? (How did your parents react to your wishes and desires? Was your autonomy celebrated, or dismissed? Do you find yourself subordinating your own interests below those of others, and say yes to things you would rather say no to?)
“NO is always a YES to something else.” - Marshall Rosenberg
I've been to Paris often enough, no thank you. And I prefer to go with people that respect and celebrate my autonomy. I wish you a good trip though!
I'm not making decisions for anybody. You can stay at home and watch your garden grow. Fine with me. I described what type of people I like. And that those are rather the pyramid climbers.
Things I consider most adventurous: Facing past trauma and healing from it, including coming to terms and re-arranging family relationships and other social relationships without causing harm. Taking responsibility in the world, both for past actions and future ones. Raising children with unconditional love. Settling conflicts in ways that result in a good outcome for everyone involved. Arranging life in a way to make these activities possible.
None of those adventures involve pyramids or startups, but a lot of courage, energy, and dragons.
I wonder how much you know about what people consider their own adventures, and how many they have had to face. Like divorce. Or sudden loss of job. Real world stuff.
Adventure can take many forms, you just have to look outside yourself to see. For example, I’ve flown to Paris many times, that’s no longer an adventure for me (though I do love visiting the Louvre any time I’m in Paris). Finding adventure and interest in everyday life whether it’s traveling to a new place or visiting my local coffee shop is the real adventure for me. So many people are amazing, but you have to be curious. I wish you luck on finding whatever it is you’re seeking.
K but the person in his example said he was fine doing the same thing he had been doing for the bast decade, not that he didn't want to go to Paris cause hed already gone there. People enjoy their little ruts because they dont want to leave their comfort zone.
This is something I keep thinking about: the spectrum between sainthood (selflessly hang out with the poor/uninteresting/selfish/etc) vs selfish optimization (becoming more interesting/pretty/rich/generous in order to have access to nicer people)
From my own experience, and yours might differ, I typically don't find that pretty or rich (or any other such attributes) make for more interesting and nicer. Why is it either selfless saint or egocentrism? You can do both!
I imagine the person is talking about optimising along the lines you personally value for. Some people may value being with other interesting people (and being interesting themselves), wheras others prefer to be around smart people, or beautiful people, or rich people. Many see some of these desires as misguided or foolish or vain or whatever (often when it conflicts with their own values), but it is true that at least some people seem to want these.
The book that changed the game for me is “Leadership and Self-Deception”. The thesis being that the root of resentment is self-betrayal, where self-betrayal is denying your impulse to do right by others.
Ever since I read it, I’ve been more aware of when I am fixated on I and me.
It’s amazing. You can be completely “right” about a situation, yet still be fixated about the self. Escaping the box - terminology from the book - doesn’t change what’s real, but absolutely changes how you feel, and how your situation progresses.
Whether it is self help or blame or resentment, they are all in the box activities. There is another world- a better world.
Hm - even an essay knocking down self-help has the same flaws that self-help itself. It tries to reduce everything to a couple of vague principles and clal it a day. It 100% reads like something written by someone who's been consuming self-help advice for 20 years. Useless.
This post strikes me as immature. Ask an older person like your grandfather what they think about “self help”. And ask like you believe they are wiser than you, not some doddering fool from “another time”. Look, we’re all slaves to our childhood learnings. But you can change and learn to think in a new way—in a way that’s you. Just be you.
The author is one of the biggest self-help book writers. Perhaps his self-help book sales started declining and he decided to pivot to some kind of anti-self-help genre.
Exactly, the whole website is super PR-marketing wise, and a pop-up promotes his book with a "laid-back" portrait photo of himself. I think people are smart enough to find actual evidence-based self-guiding if they look at wikipedia or so .. we do not need 100.000 self-help gurus or as the tide turn gurus first promoting the former, now switching to the opposite.
That's a cynical take. Ferris has been for years now focusing more and more on things like meditation and psychedelics. Plus he is super loaded and his podcast is huge
The "optimization" framing is where self-help tends to go wrong. Tyler Cowen has made a similar point that reading self-help books is often a form of procrastination disguised as productivity, because you're consuming meta-strategies rather than doing the actual work in whatever domain you care about.
Modern self-help is as much a sham as are management gurus, which is no surprise because they overlap. Who cannot recall "Start with why?" or the "7 habits of highly effective people"? They play on your insecurities and promise silver bullets. If they don't work it is because you are, of course, deficient. You need another self-help book or follow this guy on Insta. Indulging all this self-help stuff is just another form of procrastination, instead of doing it you talk and read about doing it. It's just like learning Org-mode (no offense) to be better organized instead of, you know, organizing.
My waking call was, ironically, another management book "The Management Myth" by Matthew Steward (I think), which just showed me the ridiculousness of it all.
Of all the self help books I have actually read, The 7 Habits is probably the one that had consistently been useful in actually navigating issues day to day.
There's definitely a procrastination trap that someone has to be aware of, but I wouldn't say all the self-help/management is a sham. Much like people who get stuck researching, there comes a point where you simply have to act. There's also value in learning how to quickly pull items out of texts that you can use right now and discarding the rest.
I liken it to jiujitsu in a way. When I first started and knew nothing, I needed a lot of instruction and of course then practice. After years of that, I can now take a simple tweak to something I've been doing for years and suddenly it's much more effective. Finding those tweaks is the challenge, while also avoiding chasing silver bullets or bouncing to new thing after new thing and never getting good at something.
Agree with most of what he says. Fundamentally, we are relational and moral beings.
In Africa there is the concept of Ubuntu "I am because we are". Identity and personhood arises within community, rather than being constructed indivudually.
I think we need to differentiate between self-help in the modern sense, and viewing the self as a continuous process of engaging in meaningful activities, within community, with purpose that helps cultivate virtue. i.e "Becoming"
When self-help is treated as only individual optimisation, without any ultimate end it risk becoming self-referential.
Philosopher Charles Taylor describes a similar shift with modernity that he calls "Disengaged reason" [0]. Where reason is disconnected from moral frameworks, that once helped orient us.
The deeper issue may be Self-help/Improvement that is often not contained within these larger frameworks of meaning, that answer:
I enjoy Tim's content and in the last couple of years he's definitely gone beyond his established "shtick". He's definitely done his own "dog-fooding", testing advice on himself and he's found some awesome people along the way.
I'm happy that he has gone beyond the "book / author of the week" format and this blog post is most welcomed.
Relationships are crucial, especially ones that help elevate yourself or, at least, keep you on a stable level instead of dragging you down.
These self-help people are always looking for one liners which are true in every aspect of life, and reality isn't like that. You can see this in how often 2 different deep-truth one-liners contradict each other.
On this post he says "it was the people around the fire", in other posts you have to find happiness in yourself and not depend on others for your happiness.
okay this was very interesting "To continually improve yourself, you must continually locate the ways you are broken" haven't thought of it this way. Maybe I need to look into why i keep finding new books.
Nonsense; This guy (and others of his ilk) is just a hustler.
People seem to lose all their common sense as soon as somebody trots out easy-sounding-without-effort-for-the-price-of-a-book soothing advice to solve all their problems.
Meanwhile the real "self-help" exists in plain sight in the domains of Philosophy and Psychology coupled with an understanding of Neuroscience/Biology.
People should checkout Hindu Philosophies of Samkhya and Yoga, Buddhist Philosophies of Japanese Zen and Tibetan Lojong, Greek/Roman Stoic Philosophies of Epictetus, Seneca, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius.
On the Psychology side checkout Self-Determination Theory, Applied Behavioural Analysis and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
On the Neuroscience/Biology front checkout the importance of circadian rhythms/diet/exercise/sleep along with needed essential minerals/vitamins/etc.
That will give you all the information you need to devise your own workable self-help regimen.
I would argue Jung (with a side of Freud and Adler) covers psychology. Relationship with the Self, our "internal generator of meaning", is the purpose of any "self-help".
A critical footnote got lost in the shuffle. In his later writings, especially notes compiled in The Farther Reaches of Human Nature from 1971, Maslow added a sixth level above self-actualization:
Self-transcendence
It means going beyond the self—seeking connection with something greater, such as service to others, nature, art, or the divine.
Why is it important? Well, for one thing, as Tony Robbins put it at an event long ago: “‘I, I, I, me, me, me’ gets to be a really fucking boring song.” But it’s not just a boring song; it’s dangerous to your health. Self-help [can be] dangerous precisely because it easily becomes self-fixation.
Is it a style like his that LLMs have been copying lately?
"It was cold out, but none of us were cold."
"In that moment, there was nothing to do. Nothing to improve. Nothing to fix. It was perfect."
"We’ve all seen it. Clear as day, you can see the goal post at the top: self-actualization. LFG! It’s time to journal and 80/20 myself! Pass me a shaman and some modafinil. That’s the mission. That’s the point. Right? But hold on."
"Because at the end of the day—and at the end of a Montana night—the point was never yourself. It was never the pyramid. It was never the optimization. It was the people around the fire."
Doubtful that any one dude could influence the model to that extent, unless deliberately weighted. Then again i don't know what the hell i'm talking about.
From what i gather, openAi particular flavor of response is from reinforcement learning, these PMs are intentionally gamifying it. just today literally every reply was followed with "… want me to show you the one trick you can implement to avoid…"
When my head-voice read "But hold on", I literally heard in my head the "record scratch" associated with comedy movie trailers from the 1990s and 2000s.
Yeah, the LLM is right. Sitting down with your discomfort and letting yourself feel it, acknowledge it, even maybe dial the volume up on it a little bit, without trying to process or think through it, is the only way that works.
During time of peace, prosperity and ZIRP like phenomenon, self help takes on the form of Law of Attraction, The Secret etc.
During time of war and uncertainty, self help takes on the form of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
We are conditioned beings, we respond to the macro environment and dynamics.
>> If I fix the things that aren’t OK, all will be well. If I improve myself enough, if I only work hard enough, I can finally eliminate my suffering.
>I hate to inform you, but this doesn’t work. I’m also thrilled to inform you that this doesn’t work. You can stop picking up a lot of boulders.
Really reminds me of Oliver Burkeman. Take https://www.oliverburkeman.com/never for a start:
I might be stuck with certain inner disturbances forever [...] It turns out my really big problem was thinking I might one day get rid of all my problems, when the truth is that there's no escaping the mucky, malodorous compost-heap of this reality. Which is OK, actually. Compost is the stuff that helps things grow.
"The purpose of psychotherapy is to turn neurotic anguish into ordinary suffering", or something to that effect.
Self-help books are based on first telling you you have a problem, then selling the solution. I get that some are actually correct, but the industry as a whole can only be sustained by inventing new problems and/or making sure newer generations learn about existing ones.
Ferris is a self-help book author, and while I kinda get where he's driving at, it also feels like he's just doing the same thing again, but meta - overconsumption of self-help book is like a dog chasing its tail (or a snake giving himself a BJ?), here's a solution. I'm somewhat surprised it's just an affiliate link blogpost instead of a whole book.
I agree with your assessment.
Tim Ferriss has always been good at identifying the next trends in the self-help space and positioning himself as an expert for trending themes. I think he might be acknowledging that self-help markets are saturated with all of the life extension influencers trying to one up each other with their protocols and supplement stacks.
This might be a trial balloon to see if this topic has legs for another book or product.
the post itself sells at least two books on buddhism already
> Self-help is dangerous precisely because it easily becomes self-fixation.
In my self-help journey I came across meditation which ultimately led me to altruistic-based practices. So can't relate.
> A focus on improving the self usually first requires finding problems with the self
Oh I got in there the other way around. I wanted a few things out of life socially speaking but society was blocking me somehow. So I went out to investigate why that is and then studied it all and then solved my own problem. In order to do that, I had to improve myself as I wasn't connecting well with the world. I'm much happier with how I do that nowadays.
There's a lot of "I"s in your paragraph there.
I think it's worth it to be ok with everyone being a little bit in the same boat of wanting to self-help, then becoming enamored with buddhist ideas, then grappling with everyday being just another human. In whatever order.
I'm sure you mean well but just kinda irked me that you immediately put in the effort to "nope can't relate"
I think that hearing other points of view is important.
I see time and time again that posts insinuate that there's no other point of view, and I think that highlighting one perspective is enough to show that this (as in the article) isn't some mathematically perfect piece of advice.
This is my intention, thanks. It's also not to say that my opinion is perfect either, it isn't.
> I'm sure you mean well but just kinda irked me that you immediately put in the effort to "nope can't relate"
In part that's because I see the message of the post way too often and I haven't seen my message around that much. It's just to counterbalance it. I don't think the message of the post is wrong per se, but to me it comes across as such a strong statement of "this is how it is" that I want to say equally strong back (as one vote of the general public) "nope, can't relate, here is briefly why"
If someone makes generic statements that apply to all, it is 100% ok to answer with I cant relate.
Frankly, even superior. Too many people frame own feelings and individual experiences and general universal or even rational truths.
I get that but it's also why i'm calling it out. it does come off as superior!
and then goes on to superior-ily talk about selflessness.
It is superion in the sense that it is more honest.
When you frame "talking about own feeling and experiences as arrogamt, because it does not pretend generality, you are being wrong. Nothing in what I said implies superiority complex or arrogance.
And frankly, your twist is fairly manipulative sleazy bullshit.
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> The older I get, the more I think that self-help can be a trap. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. I say this after ~20 years of writing self-help and a lifetime of consuming it.
so, the self help didn't help and he passed the problem on his readers. Great!
I am sure it helped his wallet though. Be wary of the aging sophist that repents.
If Books Could Kill did a podcast on “The Four-Hour Workweek” and pointed out he explains the scam he’s running on his own readers. I guess he figures the smart (?) ones can recreate it and the rest just follow the herd.
I am reminded of the multiple retired US GOP politicians who show a change of heart and break with their party's direction, sometimes admitting they were part of the problem.
Didn't realize who's blog I'm reading. I was intrigued by the title, being a fan of 'self help' books. I mostly read about productivity (i.e. Feel-Good Productivity is a good one IMO), health, living a balanced life etc. and was expecting to find some a-ha moments in this post. I didn't. It confused me more than anything often talking about 'relationships' as if this is the only self-help kind of book there is.
And I have learnt a ton of lessons from self help books like the one I mentioned above, Arete, "how to make friends and influence people", Atomic Habits and others, without looking to fix any unhappiness, flaws of myself or whatnot. Was just curious what other, more experience people have learned about life that I can learn without having to wait 20-30+ years.
There is undoubtedly value in both the self-help advice and the self-reflection and self-assessment involved in deciding if the advice is for you.
That value likely will decrease with age and experience, but is still nice to consciously acknowledge and even reflect on, again after the lessons have been absorbed in whatever ways they have been absorbed, adjusted, or rejected.
Wherever you go, there you are. :)
Lots of good points. Just want to point out that this can quickly become another self improvement project with its own sources of stress, insecurity and so forth.
In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a lojong slogan: "Self-liberate even the antidote". It refers to exactly this -- the practices we use to get away from bad habits may themselves become bad habits. Rather than embarking on an infinitely recursive run of trying to stop self-improving, just don't be black-and-white about things.
One source (of many): https://medium.com/kaitlynschatch/lojong-practice-journal-se...
I enjoy self improvement, but there is something deeply therapeutic about self non - improvement.
I don't say 'self acceptance' because that's often described as a necessary precursor to changing whatever we find difficult to accept about ourselves.
> I enjoy self improvement, but there is something deeply therapeutic about self non - improvement.
Good point! I wish I wrote that, haha.
In his Essays, Michel de Montaigne had a neighbor whose doctor told him not to eat a certain dish. When Montaigne asked him why he ate it anyway, he said he needed something to curse at.
self non-improvement.
love it.
existing
Maybe I have to climb Maslow’s pyramid to be compatible with those?
I believe it’s a lifelong journey towards healthy relationships with anyone. We don’t start there, and we might never get to the finish line. That includes non-violent boundary setting; not friends with everyone, but relationship. Soft boundaries, where you neither cling on to something that was but no longer is without the need to blame self or other, nor you avoid contact with something new and unknown. To let go of the fight against personal limits and circumstances one cannot change. Not at once, and not without testing, but layer by layer.
Everybody is adventurous; each in their own way. You can invite people to your personal adventure, and be part of theirs, for as long or short as it serves the both of you.
Me: "Let's fly to Paris tomorrow!"
People: "Nah, I'm fine just doing what I did the last 3650 days. I wonder how I deal with this issue I have with my boss at work. That is enough adventure for me."
Me: "Trash the job! Let's start a startup!"
People: "Nah, that is not for me. The benefit-to-work ratio at my current job is just too good."
Have you actually shown genuine interest in their adventures, or is it you who defines what is adventurous and what is not, and not see that they defend against your interests, and by that protect their own? Why do you feel the need to make decisions for them? Is it you that is unhappy about their choices, or is it them? (How did your parents react to your wishes and desires? Was your autonomy celebrated, or dismissed? Do you find yourself subordinating your own interests below those of others, and say yes to things you would rather say no to?)
I've been to Paris often enough, no thank you. And I prefer to go with people that respect and celebrate my autonomy. I wish you a good trip though!I'm not making decisions for anybody. You can stay at home and watch your garden grow. Fine with me. I described what type of people I like. And that those are rather the pyramid climbers.
Things I consider most adventurous: Facing past trauma and healing from it, including coming to terms and re-arranging family relationships and other social relationships without causing harm. Taking responsibility in the world, both for past actions and future ones. Raising children with unconditional love. Settling conflicts in ways that result in a good outcome for everyone involved. Arranging life in a way to make these activities possible.
None of those adventures involve pyramids or startups, but a lot of courage, energy, and dragons.
I wonder how much you know about what people consider their own adventures, and how many they have had to face. Like divorce. Or sudden loss of job. Real world stuff.
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Some empathy for other people would go a long way.
I agree that more empathy would enrich mundane interactions.
But I also think it is worthwhile to look for other adventurous people with whom I can share my own interests.
Adventure can take many forms, you just have to look outside yourself to see. For example, I’ve flown to Paris many times, that’s no longer an adventure for me (though I do love visiting the Louvre any time I’m in Paris). Finding adventure and interest in everyday life whether it’s traveling to a new place or visiting my local coffee shop is the real adventure for me. So many people are amazing, but you have to be curious. I wish you luck on finding whatever it is you’re seeking.
K but the person in his example said he was fine doing the same thing he had been doing for the bast decade, not that he didn't want to go to Paris cause hed already gone there. People enjoy their little ruts because they dont want to leave their comfort zone.
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This is something I keep thinking about: the spectrum between sainthood (selflessly hang out with the poor/uninteresting/selfish/etc) vs selfish optimization (becoming more interesting/pretty/rich/generous in order to have access to nicer people)
From my own experience, and yours might differ, I typically don't find that pretty or rich (or any other such attributes) make for more interesting and nicer. Why is it either selfless saint or egocentrism? You can do both!
I imagine the person is talking about optimising along the lines you personally value for. Some people may value being with other interesting people (and being interesting themselves), wheras others prefer to be around smart people, or beautiful people, or rich people. Many see some of these desires as misguided or foolish or vain or whatever (often when it conflicts with their own values), but it is true that at least some people seem to want these.
My point being: If you value hanging out with people you don't like, it's still "selfish" (revolving around your own values).
The book that changed the game for me is “Leadership and Self-Deception”. The thesis being that the root of resentment is self-betrayal, where self-betrayal is denying your impulse to do right by others.
Ever since I read it, I’ve been more aware of when I am fixated on I and me.
It’s amazing. You can be completely “right” about a situation, yet still be fixated about the self. Escaping the box - terminology from the book - doesn’t change what’s real, but absolutely changes how you feel, and how your situation progresses.
Whether it is self help or blame or resentment, they are all in the box activities. There is another world- a better world.
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Hm - even an essay knocking down self-help has the same flaws that self-help itself. It tries to reduce everything to a couple of vague principles and clal it a day. It 100% reads like something written by someone who's been consuming self-help advice for 20 years. Useless.
This post strikes me as immature. Ask an older person like your grandfather what they think about “self help”. And ask like you believe they are wiser than you, not some doddering fool from “another time”. Look, we’re all slaves to our childhood learnings. But you can change and learn to think in a new way—in a way that’s you. Just be you.
The author is one of the biggest self-help book writers. Perhaps his self-help book sales started declining and he decided to pivot to some kind of anti-self-help genre.
Exactly, the whole website is super PR-marketing wise, and a pop-up promotes his book with a "laid-back" portrait photo of himself. I think people are smart enough to find actual evidence-based self-guiding if they look at wikipedia or so .. we do not need 100.000 self-help gurus or as the tide turn gurus first promoting the former, now switching to the opposite.
That's a cynical take. Ferris has been for years now focusing more and more on things like meditation and psychedelics. Plus he is super loaded and his podcast is huge
The existence of this domain is to sell books to you and I don't think it's a cynical take. It's the norm.
what would the older person say? in your experience.
The "optimization" framing is where self-help tends to go wrong. Tyler Cowen has made a similar point that reading self-help books is often a form of procrastination disguised as productivity, because you're consuming meta-strategies rather than doing the actual work in whatever domain you care about.
Modern self-help is as much a sham as are management gurus, which is no surprise because they overlap. Who cannot recall "Start with why?" or the "7 habits of highly effective people"? They play on your insecurities and promise silver bullets. If they don't work it is because you are, of course, deficient. You need another self-help book or follow this guy on Insta. Indulging all this self-help stuff is just another form of procrastination, instead of doing it you talk and read about doing it. It's just like learning Org-mode (no offense) to be better organized instead of, you know, organizing.
My waking call was, ironically, another management book "The Management Myth" by Matthew Steward (I think), which just showed me the ridiculousness of it all.
Of all the self help books I have actually read, The 7 Habits is probably the one that had consistently been useful in actually navigating issues day to day.
And I read it probably closer to two decades ago.
There's definitely a procrastination trap that someone has to be aware of, but I wouldn't say all the self-help/management is a sham. Much like people who get stuck researching, there comes a point where you simply have to act. There's also value in learning how to quickly pull items out of texts that you can use right now and discarding the rest.
I liken it to jiujitsu in a way. When I first started and knew nothing, I needed a lot of instruction and of course then practice. After years of that, I can now take a simple tweak to something I've been doing for years and suddenly it's much more effective. Finding those tweaks is the challenge, while also avoiding chasing silver bullets or bouncing to new thing after new thing and never getting good at something.
In my experiences, professional help is often just as much of a sham too.
Agree with most of what he says. Fundamentally, we are relational and moral beings.
In Africa there is the concept of Ubuntu "I am because we are". Identity and personhood arises within community, rather than being constructed indivudually.
I think we need to differentiate between self-help in the modern sense, and viewing the self as a continuous process of engaging in meaningful activities, within community, with purpose that helps cultivate virtue. i.e "Becoming"
When self-help is treated as only individual optimisation, without any ultimate end it risk becoming self-referential.
Philosopher Charles Taylor describes a similar shift with modernity that he calls "Disengaged reason" [0]. Where reason is disconnected from moral frameworks, that once helped orient us.
The deeper issue may be Self-help/Improvement that is often not contained within these larger frameworks of meaning, that answer:
To what ultimate end?
[0] https://www.academia.edu/26548899/Disciplinarity_and_Islamic...
previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46743214
also here:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ismaildhorat_a-new-world-does...
I enjoy Tim's content and in the last couple of years he's definitely gone beyond his established "shtick". He's definitely done his own "dog-fooding", testing advice on himself and he's found some awesome people along the way.
I'm happy that he has gone beyond the "book / author of the week" format and this blog post is most welcomed.
Relationships are crucial, especially ones that help elevate yourself or, at least, keep you on a stable level instead of dragging you down.
> the point was never yourself.
> It was never the pyramid.
> It was never the optimization.
> It was the people around the fire.
These self-help people are always looking for one liners which are true in every aspect of life, and reality isn't like that. You can see this in how often 2 different deep-truth one-liners contradict each other.
On this post he says "it was the people around the fire", in other posts you have to find happiness in yourself and not depend on others for your happiness.
okay this was very interesting "To continually improve yourself, you must continually locate the ways you are broken" haven't thought of it this way. Maybe I need to look into why i keep finding new books.
Nonsense; This guy (and others of his ilk) is just a hustler.
People seem to lose all their common sense as soon as somebody trots out easy-sounding-without-effort-for-the-price-of-a-book soothing advice to solve all their problems.
Meanwhile the real "self-help" exists in plain sight in the domains of Philosophy and Psychology coupled with an understanding of Neuroscience/Biology.
People should checkout Hindu Philosophies of Samkhya and Yoga, Buddhist Philosophies of Japanese Zen and Tibetan Lojong, Greek/Roman Stoic Philosophies of Epictetus, Seneca, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius.
On the Psychology side checkout Self-Determination Theory, Applied Behavioural Analysis and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
On the Neuroscience/Biology front checkout the importance of circadian rhythms/diet/exercise/sleep along with needed essential minerals/vitamins/etc.
That will give you all the information you need to devise your own workable self-help regimen.
I would argue Jung (with a side of Freud and Adler) covers psychology. Relationship with the Self, our "internal generator of meaning", is the purpose of any "self-help".
Re: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
A critical footnote got lost in the shuffle. In his later writings, especially notes compiled in The Farther Reaches of Human Nature from 1971, Maslow added a sixth level above self-actualization:
Self-transcendence
It means going beyond the self—seeking connection with something greater, such as service to others, nature, art, or the divine.
Why is it important? Well, for one thing, as Tony Robbins put it at an event long ago: “‘I, I, I, me, me, me’ gets to be a really fucking boring song.” But it’s not just a boring song; it’s dangerous to your health. Self-help [can be] dangerous precisely because it easily becomes self-fixation.
Is it a style like his that LLMs have been copying lately?
"It was cold out, but none of us were cold."
"In that moment, there was nothing to do. Nothing to improve. Nothing to fix. It was perfect."
"We’ve all seen it. Clear as day, you can see the goal post at the top: self-actualization. LFG! It’s time to journal and 80/20 myself! Pass me a shaman and some modafinil. That’s the mission. That’s the point. Right? But hold on."
"Because at the end of the day—and at the end of a Montana night—the point was never yourself. It was never the pyramid. It was never the optimization. It was the people around the fire."
First impression is that's really his writing. He's a professional writer. Thing is it's like trying to be a professional writer.
very different from actually good writing, as in literature. art.
Nothing against Mr. Ferris, just very clearly happen to come across these "i'm trying really hard at good writing" styles in influencer type blogs.
> First impression is that's really his writing. He's a professional writer. Thing is it's like trying to be a professional writer.
I am not suggesting that this isn't his writing.
What I was wondering was whether these are the elements of style that LLMs have picked up.
Doubtful that any one dude could influence the model to that extent, unless deliberately weighted. Then again i don't know what the hell i'm talking about.
From what i gather, openAi particular flavor of response is from reinforcement learning, these PMs are intentionally gamifying it. just today literally every reply was followed with "… want me to show you the one trick you can implement to avoid…"
was gross.
He’s been writing for decades now so that should be easy to verify. I’m sure LLMs are optimized for engaging online writing that’s easy to digest
When my head-voice read "But hold on", I literally heard in my head the "record scratch" associated with comedy movie trailers from the 1990s and 2000s.
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damn, i'm finding this LLM response actually useful. It feels weird.
Yeah, the LLM is right. Sitting down with your discomfort and letting yourself feel it, acknowledge it, even maybe dial the volume up on it a little bit, without trying to process or think through it, is the only way that works.
Doesn't read like an LLM response. Its sentence structure is more sophisticated and it elides commas where I expect an LLM wouldn't.
Poor Timmy. It’s hard when you spend two decades recycling the same crap-now we have to denounce said crap and gargle more “new” crap.
Self-help has never helped anyone. If it did, there wouldn’t be a massive industry waiting to prey on the people who are desperate for help.