Self-Improvement Aftermath discussion

Am I allowed to comment on my own book? I am happy not to, but the idea of this group caught my eye. It is indeed an important question, something the management consultants call "implementation". It is all good and proper to have lots of excellent ideas, exercises, and advice to offer - but how much of it actually makes a difference in somebody's life? And how much of any change that does occur can be backtested to the book somebody read?

It is probably not for me to offer an answer to this, as I have never read a self-help book. But I have thought about the question how to develop the elusive 'authentic life' for a very long time, and I think I can say that I, for the most part, got there in my own life.

That's why I wrote this book, as a sounding board for those who are trying to do the same. As to whether it works - well, I have just published it, and some readers here on the site were kind enough to summarise their impressions and left reviews. If my book has something to offer, I think it is this message:

You have to know yourself in order to know what you need. And when you do, you need to go after what you need. This is the way to build a zone in which your strengths matter, but not your weaknesses. And if you are successful in building this zone, you will have built the authentic life.

So I can say that this approach definitely worked for me. And there is no reason that it might not work for anybody.

Hi, Mark! Thanks a lot for your post. You are more than welcome to comment on your own book (although you obviously are biased). However, I see your post as a great starting point for discussion!

I'd love to hear from your readers what they have to say about your book. I love the idea (and I'd love read your book!) but I think we have to wait a while before we can get objective feedback about the book and how it actually made a difference.

The point of this group is to discuss books and their effects in the long run, also to avoid what is called a "false hope syndrome". In other words, we want to discuss books after the "high" is gone because we humans are really good at pretending that being excited about change is the same as actually changing.

If you have other (older) books that we could discuss or books by some other author, go ahead and start a new topic.

I'd love to ask some questions about your book and the research behind it (maybe in private though or in another group).

Ollie - yes of course, I'd be delighted to tell you more about my ideas and how I developed them. If you look at some of the reviews I had (here on GR or on amazon), you get an idea of what some initial responses were like:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

Just one thing - and forgive me, I am not defensive - I would not say "bias" is quite the right word. The reason I say that is that I am not advocating my book as the best way to find happiness, all I am saying is that I have thought about the issues for a long time, and have developed, for the most part, the authentic life for myself. There are many ways to find it, I am just discussing my take on it.

I'd be delighted if you picked it up, and we - and others - could share some views on it, possibly in the context of other books people have read, and compare and contrast.

If you are interested, here's a link to the UK amazon webshop;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Happiness-Ru...

Hope to chat more soon,
Kindest,
Mark

If you have other (older) books that we could discuss or books by some other author, go ahead and start a new topic.

Unfortunately I am not a good person to contribute, as I have never read a self-help book all the way through. I have leafed through some of the better-known ones in bookshops, but that's about it. From my superficial knowledge of the market, it seems to me that there are some subgenres in the self-improvement sector.

The that stood out for me are NLP and Popscience. Allow me to share some thoughts on each of these, always caveating my comments by emphasising that I am in no way an expert on these topics:

1/ NPL. From what I understand, this method basically rests on the assumption that if I tell myself often enough that I am able to do something, I will work up the confidence to do it, and then succeed at doing it. I am sceptical that this can work in any but the most simple situations - I would be surprised if it was possible to build a life through this method that is meaningful to the individual, and provides the fundamental satisfaction that comes with the authentic life.

But of course, I may be wrong. Perhaps this works like 'bootstrapping', little successes build confidence in one area, and they spill over into other, more important areas of life.

2/ Popscience. There are several books out there that feel like popular academic studies in the field of sociology or psychology. These studies tend to screen groups of people in a population, rate happiness in accordance with a specific method, and look for a correlation between rating factors and specific scores. Studies in this field, for example, have suggested that the Danes are the happiest people in the world, and by extension of this insight suggest that emulation of certain behavioural patterns common to Danish people can be a path to happiness.

I am not a fan of these books as I believe they offer an approach that is fundamentally wrong. It is not by looking to others that we can develop life-competence, confidence in ourselves, and happiness. The ability to lead an authentic life must always start with the individual him/herself, it is self-knowledge, not knowledge of others, that is the potential key. That basically is the message I am developing in the first chapter of my book - this is the philosophy on which I rest my own life.

So in the context of the group you started, perhaps it would be interesting to hear from people who tried to implement lessons from books falling into these categories?