“You trail from street to street, smelling of beer…like a broken rudder, good for nothing…you have been found preforming acrobatics on a wall.” Possibly, one of the first guides to everyday behaviour found in the Egyptian “Codes”. In recent times, the self-help phenomenon has soared in popularity.
Chances are, if you are reading this, you will have at onetime read a self-help book. The fact is, people desire to be better: a better golfing handicap; move to an upmarket location; retain a youthful complexion through advancing years, and so on.
If you found yourself “smelling of beer” and “performing acrobatics on a wall” maybe it’s time to break some old habits and start afresh.
It could be said, aiming to improve oneself is part of the human condition. The US$11 billion industry is proof Mr. and Ms. Average is eager to become, well, above average. The need to gain new skills and knowledge to become a better version of themselves is a worldwide industry ranging from millennials to boomers.
Stars such as Jennifer Love Hewitt, Oprah Winfrey, Elizabeth Taylor, Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, and Cher have endorsed self-help books.
Surely, there must be something to the self-improvement “intelligence”.
But the self-help spectacle has its fair share of detractors.
When Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich asserted that repeated positive thoughts attracts wealth, political satirist, Christopher Buckley in his novel God Is My Broker claims, “The only way to get rich from a self-help book is to write one.”
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