Self-Help Nonsense
I wrote a post yesterday that was sparked by a quote about Tony Robbins. One of my friends wrote me and said “You don’t actually like this self-help nonsense, do you?”. I laughed because more than a few people have characterized my work as the intersection of self-help and sorcery. I don’t know if they mean it as a compliment or not, but its a badge I wear proudly. I didn’t always think this way though.
See, I too was once one of the very “spiritual” money hating people I always talk about. I tended to think that self-help books and programs were all just efforts by charlatans to pick your pocket. I would see titles in the bookstore like “Rich Dad Poor Dad” or “Start Late Finish Rich” and think “Bah! Rubes! No one actually makes those book work”.
Then, after the tech bubble burst in 2003 or so, I started working in, of all things, Window Treatments. I’m not talkin blinds to go. I mean the high-end stuff. I became one of the most highly paid and sought-after installers in the state. I still get e-mails from clients. You might not think this is a good career, and in the long term its not , but for that period of life it was just right. Literally half my work week was down time that I could write or study, and I was getting paid a healthy middle class wage with benefits to tinker with rich peoples window shades, shutters, and automated blinds.
Why am I telling you this? Because that job put me in the homes of rich people all year long. Often a second home on the beach. People who could spend 50-80 thousand dollars on window treatments and not fucking blink. Know what most of them had on their bookshelves? Those same books that I used to laugh at.
I am a friendly dude, so I started talking with the homeowner about their books and what they liked and what they didn’t. The books differed of course, but they all loved to talk about what worked for them and what didn’t. Often I would leave the house with that very book as a gift, or with a list of books to go buy at the bookstore, where I would read and drink coffee until I had to return to the warehouse and clock out. Did I mention I had a lot of down time?…
All these rich bastards with books had two things in common.
1. They didn’t swallow everything the author was saying. Instead they kept their critical thinking in tact and evaluated the books without succumbing to the “success fervor” that some of them are meant to induce.
2, When they found something that made sense: they did the work and got the result. Ever notice how people who criticize these books never actually DO what the book tells them? Yeah, if they did, they would find that a lot of it does in fact work.
About 11 years or so ago, when the only thing I had to do that day was go adjust a blind at the beach house of a former National Security Adviser, I picked up a copy of a new book “The Four Hour Work Week.” I had my criticisms, and still do, but for the most part, this was my jam. I read most of it in one sitting at a Pizza Hut and left with napkins filled with ideas written on them. One of them had the words “Strategic Sorcery” in blue ballpoint. Eleven years years later, I work for myself and pay more in taxes than I used to make at that job, as such I am pretty passionate both about the potential for people to be entrepreneurs and the potential for those self-help books to actually help.
Next week I will be announcing details of a new course for 2108 on Strategic Business Sorcery. If interested pop your info in here to get a special deal. If not, than take a look at what books or other courses you may find and resonate with. Some of that stuff you laughed at might just change your life.
