All help is self-help – all persuasion is self-persuasion
Mincing no words, Seth Godin gets to the point (as he frequently does!). Here’s part of what he wrote:
If you read a book that tries to change you for the better and it fails or doesn’t resonate, then it’s a self-help book.
If you read a book that actually succeeds in changing you for the better, then the label changes from self-help book to great book.
By the way, the only real help is self-help. Anything else is just designed to get you to the point where you can help yourself.
I agree. And, just as all real help is self-help, all persuasion is self-persuasion. A lot of people write and speak a lot of words hoping for one thing – that you will listen to their arguments closely enough and well enough to change your own thinking, feeling, or behaving/acting.
They can’t make you change (maybe they could – but that would be coercion, not persuasion). Their best hope is to give you tools to help you change for yourself.
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Randy Mayeux
Bob Morris
In response and speaking only for myself:
1. No one ever motivated me but hundreds have inspired me.
2. And many more have helped me to help myself. Without their assistance, I could not have helped myself to the extent I did.
That is why I think the statement “all real help is self-help” is at best simplistic and at worst an insult to all the people who inspire others as well as to those who do so much to help others help themselves.
As for “all persuasion is self-persuasion,” I will respond to that another time after noting that self-deception is self-persuasion at its worst.
One final point: ultimately we must take full ownership of our efforts…and of the consequent results.
Comment by Bob Morris | Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Bob, I don’t disagree. This is a little simplistic — but I do so to make a point. No one can can “do it” for us. We are all and each responsible for our decisions.
But, of course, I am a big fan of the need to read, to learn, to listen, to research, to collaborate — to do everything that I can to put myself in a position to make the best/most educated, most informed, most inspired “self-help/self persuasion” decisions I can. And to vigilantly guard against self-deception and self-delusion.
Comment by Randy Mayeux | Wednesday, March 31, 2010