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.
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.