September 2005 Insight Newsletter

SHAM – The Book

Browsing the bookstore last week led me to this book on the New Bestsellers shelf. The letters SHAM stand for the title words – Self-Help and Actualization Movement by Steve Salerno. It’s a tirade against this “movement” as he likes to call it. Most people will be intrigued with the tabloid side of his accusations about a number of well-known names in the field – Dr. Phil, Tony Robbins, even aging Zig Ziglar.

However, as with the books and speakers he hammers, one needs to take his criticisms with a grain of salt as well as an ounce of attention. If you check the reviews on Amazon.com you’ll quickly see they separate into strong pro’s and con’s. I’ve put the URL for the editorial reviews at the end of this since they also provide an excerpt that gives a good overview for those interested in more.

Is There A Self-Help Movement?

Perhaps Self-Help seems like a movement to some, but a movement is a concerted effort by a group to change some specific thing. This is more individual entrepreneurs jumping on a trend. That trend is for a great many of us to seek more information about how to help ourselves get ahead and get past old hang-ups.

More people are discovering it’s possible to break out of ruts and routines that used to shape most work and lives permanently. They’ve looked for guidance from a wide range of authors and speakers who offer motivation and advice as well as stories of successful people who’ve made the transition. We no longer expect to plod through 30 years on the assembly line for a gold watch, but instead have accepted the idea we can go beyond that if we choose and work for improvement through our own effort.

Moreover, we’ve generally picked up the idea that expensive psychiatry and other helpful advice won’t make miraculous over-night changes in old hang-ups, but that we can slowly change ourselves through various “self-help” processes. That opened the door to a mix of entrepreneurs and scientists offering insights and advice on everything from getting ahead at work to eliminating ‘toxic people’ and other limiting factors from one’s life. The wave of individual’s with pop science and homespun advice to sell is too diffuse to be a conscious movement.

Has The Author Found Something New?

This captures my main criticism. I doubt that the majority of consumers of self-help books are gullible enough to think each one has the authoritative answers it claims. We’re inundated with nearly as many exposés as self-help materials. Even if you become “addicted” to such books as Salerno suggests, the advice you’ll get is typically so conflicting, you’ll be forced to analyze what would work for you and what wouldn’t.

Eighteen years ago I was talked into attending an event of the type Salerno regards as particularly cult-like, a Tony Robbins “Date with Destiny” weekend. Like many (and apparently Salerno, too) I was impressed with Robbins himself despite the fact he freely admitted he’d stretched credibility beyond the breaking point a number of times in his work (and we had to assume was still doing so at least occasionally).

I was particularly shocked by three things. First, a group of trainees were attending who seemed like major scam artists, planning to take franchises of his techniques and bilk the public. They didn’t seem to give a hoot for his underlying message, but only money-making and the most outlandish promises. Clearly they seemed not only to be tolerated, but encouraged.

Second, there were definitely people there who wanted to be in a cult – and Robbins’ wildest claims of overnight million-dollar successes were all they were interested in. There will undoubtedly always be a small minority who are particularly gullible. Third and perhaps most important, the material wasn’t delivered in a thoughtful way with pro’s and con’s or information about where it would or wouldn’t work. It was pushed forward as an absolute winning strategy for all situations in life. I also noticed the wild diet claims Robbins believed in and promoted, which have since become even stranger according to Salerno.

I certainly came away with a vast number of skeptical questions about what could possibly work and what likely wouldn’t. Realistically it took a couple of years mulling this over off and on to sort out what I thought. What eventually impressed me was the powerful effect the information had to make me continue to consider what would work long after I’d forgotten most of the hype and obvious puffery. On the other hand, I certainly didn’t blindly apply anything I’d heard.

If a self-help program causes people to think and offers them new ideas they can choose to try, surely that’s a good thing. If it demands they follow blindly, like any cult that promotes this, it is evil. My chief criticism of Salerno’s new book is simply that his preaching delivery seems awfully close to what he insists he opposes, a directive to be followed by rote: that all self-help is to be avoided unless delivered by non-profit, certified individuals with Ph.D. research behind their theories. A better book would be how to evaluate which claims are scams and which show some promise. By now we pretty much already know even Ph.D.’s can be dangerous.

If you want to check out more you’ll find a lengthy summary in the editorials reviews section here. You can get it via Amazon.com… here and then put SHAM into the search box to get the main page for the book and look for the link to click for “See all editorial reviews.”

A Self-Limiting Movement?

One of the first things one notices about self-help books is that a great many aren’t shy about telling us what’s wrong with everyone else’s. In a sense this ensures the “movement” is self-limiting. If you become addicted to reading many of these, you’re bound to find them revealing the weaknesses of the previous ones. Surely this has to protect people from blindly absorbing them all. At some point one must conclude we should be careful about anything we read no matter how authoritative the source. Of course that’s part of Salerno’s point – that we might therefore reject truly useful advice. But is there an alternative? Doctors and psychologists have been shown to be just as seriously wrong with many of their theories as those less “qualified,” so inevitably we have to educate ourselves. What better way than to read some of the most outrageous claims some practitioners make, so far-fetched that surely no one at all could believe them. It helps put the rest in perspective.

Debunking Myths

Don’t get me wrong, I’m first in line to say we need to debunk myths, especially the myth that any miracle CEO or self-help guru has all the answers. Salerno is capitalizing by attacking half a dozen huge money-makers on the self-help scene. If that will help, that’s fine. I doubt that they care. I don’t think the issue warrants an all out call to arms against everyone who offers advice. Caveat emptor or “buyer beware” always applies. No self-help formula, including mine should ever be used without the individual thinking it through, choosing what works or doesn’t for oneself and modifying it to fit one’s own circumstances. I think that’s the overall point that gets lost in Salerno’s eagerness to point out flaws.