Hard disagree. I have read lots of books, participated in events and training seminars and had profound results in my life. My marriage is better because of what I learned, I am a better father and leader because of what I learned. And the fact that people sell things as part of that growth journey is how they support their ability to share the lessons and techniques.
Self-help books are so often ridiculued, and that ridicule is often well merited. At the same time there was a self-help book that basically gave me a whole different outlook on life, and cured my depression over night. So I can't deny they have a place and can really help people.
Most of the effective self help advice is personal advice meets trust means relevance at that point in life.
Same book can be ridiculed and appreciated by different people, sometimes even by the same person when they are in different stages of their life (especially if they have less self-awareness).
"You already know whether you are in love or not, you just need to trust this voice."
Depending on where you are in life and who you are as a person, this statement can simultaneously be called a platitude, or a meaningful statement that someone finds allows them to decide what is important in life at that point.
"You already know" advice amplifies your existing belief. It's about taking a 60% confidence guess to a 95% confidence guess. Stated like that it becomes obvious that it's appropriate if someone vaguely suspects the correct thing, but dangerous if they vaguely suspect the wrong thing.
How to Win Friends and Influence People helped my career a ton. I stopped having to job search and started getting pulled up as people I knew from work advanced they would bring me with them. I haven't had to job hunt in 9 years and it's solely because that book made me more likable and personable.
It made me enjoy life more too, because I have a diaspora of cool and interesting connections who would go to bat for me if needed. I'm friends with the grocery store checkout guy now, he asked me to go antiquing with him two weeks ago. I made friends in my neighborhood, I have a lady I walk with every week who offered to help me garden and even when ordering flooring from Home Depot the dude invited me to come to NASCAR with him and his buddies.
It honestly just changed my perspective to see the good in everyone and through this process boosted my personal, professional and family relationships immensely.
I too read the book in my younger years, and it helped me a lot with making friends and my career. However, the book itself is filled with some terrible advice for communicating with people. I realized that as an older person. But as a young person it filled me much needed confidence. Like many of these books, the actual advice is crap, but I think it gives people the confidence they need to change something in their lives they are not happy with.
I highly recommend the podcast: If Books Could Kill. They have an episode on this book.
As someone who has listened to this If Books Could Kill episode and read the actual book, I think the podcast is mostly looking for problems where there aren't any. Despite the book's sleazy title ("influence people") it's mostly just basic, innocent social advice.
The core advice of the book is to smile, flatter, avoid all criticism, and feign “genuine” interest. People can sense this performance from a mile away. It is a dated, salesy, conflict-averse (to the point of dishonesty) way of communicating. It is too surface-level to address real, sustained relationships.
>it's solely because that book made me more likable and personable.
This is the part that gets me to have an almost allergic reaction. It feels like an almost homogenization of people's personalities. In my mind I picture it like this: business man A reads How to Win Friends and Influence People. Businessman B also reads it. Business man A meets B and see that they're doing the psychological tricks of the book and think "wow this guy sure knows how to win friends and influence people like I do" so they get along fantastically.
It's similar to my aversion to books like "The Game" where some men seem to have the idea there's a surefire way to pick up women. Humans are diverse and should have differences in how they treat others and react. "Remember their name, smile, talk about the other person" and all the other tricks often gets me in the mindset of "this person is media trained / inauthentic".
I would reframe the question you’re asking. Instead of assuming that the interaction with business man A and B is fake, that it’s done for an ulterior motive, that it requires being inauthentic and suppressing your personality, all of which isn’t part of what makes people connect to each other ask “but did they enjoy the experience and make a friend”. There are known interactions patterns that result in people connecting to each other. If you want to connect with others learn how to.
And the book “the game” isn’t an example of that skill. People that follow those techniques find out quickly that they end up destroying the connections they make really quickly.
Except that is not what the book teaches at all. Sometimes people can’t take the advice of “just be a better person and care about other people” unless it’s explained to them more specifically and anchored to their goals. It’s not because they are inauthentic, it’s because they are lacking skills and understanding.
I actually crashed out semi-recently about this exact thing, quit church and all and was genuinely surprised when the people who were speaking politeley to me reached out in a genuine, non-public and non-coerced way.
I don't think the word "inauthentic" quite captures why people react negatively to this sort of communication.
At least part of it comes from the fact that this particular style of "kindness-is-cool-coded" (for lack of a better word) communication happens to be the preferred style of insanely passive-aggressive people who take it upon themselves to brutally sabotage anyone who they deem unacceptable. It can also feel like you're being lead on by someone who actively dislikes you but is too polite to say it. Or you just start second-guessing every single thing they say and do.
But honestly, there's a pretty sizable minority of people who are repelled by this type of person and if you're naturally bad at reading the room you're probably better off making friends with other people that say and do dumb things.
I know I went through a "How to Win Friends and Influence People" phase when younger and basically ended up just putting off a whole of people.
If your were (never mind presented as) inauthentic after reading HTWFAIP your reading comprehension was lacking. HTWFAIP is about building authentic, mutually beneficial relationships with people, not shining them on. I’m totally with you about fake people, but HTWFAIP is not about that.
Aside from being about forming sincere relationships, it handles influence with essentially this advice: Stop trying to force people to care about what you want. Understand what they want, treat them with respect, and align your request with their self-interest and self-image. If you come off as false doing those things, it’s because you didn’t actually do them, you pantomimed them.
I see this as a type of psychological manipulation. Almost everyone is interested in other people's story and the basic human trait of listening gets you over that hump. The "and align your request with their self-interest and self-image" part is what gets me. As an off-the-cuff example that someone might use this advice to craft:
“You’re such a generous person. I know you love being there for friends. Could you help me move Saturday?”
It's an example that of course sounds ridiculous to anybody that reads it, but it's essentially what the book teaches. Gather information not even about the person but how the person feels about themselves and then use that as a tool to make them feel good when you're talking to them.
I suppose it's also not helped that many of the people I've met who use this and admire this book have psychopathic traits. They're very good at faking caring but actually can't. It's a cold calculation to them and admittedly it's very effective at getting them ahead.
Manipulation seeks to get someone to do what you want against their interests.
Persuasion seeks to align their interests with your interests in a mutually beneficial manner. The act of speaking to their interests by definition takes their well being into consideration.
I guess if you are feigning interest it is manipulation, but the book speaks specifically against that. If you want to make friends, you have to be genuinely interested and invested. If you want to influence people, you have to be sincere and aligned. (Modern politics puts the lie to these requirements, but that is what the book teaches)
I don’t know how you could read that book in a modern frame and get syrupy insincerity out of it in good faith, but it is true that many people read this type of book looking for shortcuts and hacks, so they are not looking for the good faith reading. If you read the rest of NH’s work, you will find that his philosophy is firmly based on genuine good faith and delivering disproportionally high value to the people you interact with. (As well as some very 19th century metaphysics you can safely ignore)
But yes, many people read that book, ape the ideas, and act like asshats. It’s hardly a failing of the book.
> Humans are diverse and should have differences in how they treat others and react.
Even though I agree with you, that's not a fact and, if a bunch of people are happy all being exactly the same, that's great for them. You can have any amount of ideas about how things should be but if someone is happy the way they are, that's what's important, that's the end goal.
I just wonder if some people don't often get to their end years and regret putting on an inauthentic mask their entire life because a book told them to. Having dialogues with people like it's a transaction to win instead of a conversation.
> putting on an inauthentic mask their entire life because a book told them to.
I think the key difference- at least for the book I mentioned - is that it actually teaches to you take a genuine interest in those around you. It's not a mask or a ploy, it is making you engage positively in a way that yields genuine connections.
If at any point in a natural conversation you're going to a trick a book taught you instead of just speaking your mind I'd argue it's a mask of a kind.
Example: if at the start of a conversation a personal anecdote comes to mind but you think 'no that's not what the book said, I should talk about the other person instead' I'd argue you're masking your natural persona. If your natural inclination is to raise an eyebrow but no that's not what I was taught smile instead, that's a mask. You see it often among high earning people and it's pretty transparent. Luckily you often also see people who are not at all like that everywhere and they're the ones I'll prefer having a drink with 10/10 times.
Maybe. But many people have a tendency to speak more than listen because they were never taught how to be social and civil. You see that with toddlers. They talk about themselves and what they like. Good parents teach their kids to introduce themselves, ask questions, be curious about their friends and adults in conversation. It’s literally a key developmental phase that determines whether a kid is more narcissistic the rest of their life.
There are similar socialization rituals. When you are in karate you might be taught to bow before entering a dojo or sparring with a partner. Is that an inauthentic mask because you are conforming to the respect rituals? Or how about a military salute? These norms are part of the social lubrication that makes relationships easier to form. And the process of socializing a person is teaching them to incorporate them as authentic parts of themselves.
Personality is not a static entity. It’s a feedback loop, a conversation you can have with yourself to adjust over time. My brother had intense anxiety in cars. He applied techniques that improved his ability to handle the situation. Saying he has an anxious personality is ultimately defeatist and not reflective of the agency we each possess.
And twin studies, while persuasive that biology does have a massive impact are not dispositive compared to similar studies on human development theory that has longer population sizes that show self dialogue can shape behavior over time.
Getting Things Done by David Allen gave me a framework to get out of the weeds when I am overwhelmed (usually once or twice a year when I stretch myself): build a to-do list that us complete enough to stop thinking about what you have to do, if a new task take less than 5 minutes just do it right away, and then prioritise the rest.
Deep Work by Cal Newport gave me a way to think about my time management: information work is not the same as a factory line where doing the same thing at similar productivity from 9 to 5 makes sense, and it is important to dedicate long stretch of quality time to be productive (vs busy).
There are no silver bullets, but learning what worked for a group of people, testing it for myself, adapting it, and using it as needed has been helpful to me.
Yes, I read "Getting Things Done": he teaches you to make todo lists! That's it, nothing profound or from another planet. Basically you could get that information in 1 paragraph: "if you're overwhelmed, make a todo list", but he wouldn't have made a lot of money that way...
That's quite a reductionist view of Getting Things Done. There's nothing magic about the system, but someone had to put it together. It has been useful to me.
After reading digital minimalism I did the digital declutter process and found a lot of extra space in my life once I removed distractions that felt "essential" but didn't actually miss once they were gone. I also found other things that were low value/distractions that I still wanted in my life so I've just accepted them(like browsing reddit occasionally during the day though I've changed it so I don't comment on reddit anymore since that ties me to a feeling of wanting to check responses/look for upvotes/etc)
Most self help books can be boiled down to very obvious tools and coping strategies. If it is the first time you have come across the concepts, it can be useful but if it isnt, it is useless.
Is paying 15$ too much to pay? If learning about an obvious but unknown idea for doing the things saves 10 minutes a week, it is.
Do you need to pay 15$ for the result? No. But a result is better than no result.
1. Fact vs interpretation. Many things we think of as facts are really our narrative interpretations that are incomplete. A few self help books talk about the story of 4 blind men that are asked to interact with an object: one says it’s a snake, one says it’s a tree, one says it’s a wall, one says it’s a flag. Their interpretations are all wrong, it’s an elephant trunk, leg, body and ear. So when someone says my boss was unfair and mean, that’s not a fact, it’s a narrative interpretation, for all you know they are committed to mentoring you and sometimes that requires trial by fire. Drill Sargent, medical residency, and many professions have converged on that type of training. It’s much easier to stay connected to a spouse, child or coworker when you are operating on the assumption that your beliefs and their beliefs might both be equally valid. The righteousness of having “the facts” destroys a relationship. It’s not that there aren’t facts or right answers but a little humility as a finite being has a lot of benefits.
2. Dispute resolution. There is a three step process that transforms how you fight. A) what did I do to contribute, B) what I’ll do different next time, C) I am sorry and I’ll do X to make amends. When you do this you stop blaming others, which is what causes defensiveness, escalation, and the cascade of in tractable conflict. When you lead with this you’ll be amazed that your counter party feels heard, seen, validated, and connected to you and all of the sudden stops attacking, defending and starts to listen.
3. Characterization. In our lives we often define people based on aspects of their personality that are incomplete. The problem is that stunts their growth and limits the depth of the relationship. So the “ambitious” daughter, “funny” son, “techy” coworker gets defined as only that and can’t break out of it in relation to the person characterizing them. So when the ambitious kid has a failure they turn to the parent for support and get characterized instead treated like a human being that can change. So when an “ambitious” kid says I don’t want to go to university are they suddenly not ambitious? Are they allowed to redefine themselves? There are entire categories of books written by people with a chip on their shoulder because they were characterized.
I did a leadership training that had a session on purpose. They discussed the Harvard study that followed people over their lives and careers and their reported sense of wellbeing. The clear trend of what creates fulfillment at the end of life makes it hard to dwell on a lot of what most people suffer for during different phases of life. I have seen people in college, law school, early careers, doing startups, being parents, even all grinding it out and then looking back with the realization they were and remain miserable.
YC alum have orange handles. New accounts have green. Most the community has black. And I don’t know if there are other colors but I could imagine YC partners having their own.
"because of what I learned." Do these books/seminars actually teach you something new about being married or a father, that you didn't know before? Like what? I always figured they were more about coaching, persuasion, convincing. To the extent I've scanned them, I never saw any kind of new fact, definitely not about something like being married.
I view self help books in a similar light as management books. They're usually not going to teach me anything new. What they will do is present something I already know, in potentially new ways and new contexts that allow me to contemplate them and keep them more front of mind. I tend to think of it almost like right thought right action. It's also worth noting that sometimes you just need to be at the right moment in time for a lesson to resonate and stick so reading such books can provide more opportunity for that to happen.
I do, however, try to limit who and what I read though because there is a lot of derivative garbage out there.
I also think of reading self-help books (or management books) as giving myself time to engage with the subject. Even if there is no groundbreaking new information, it gives me time to think about the topic. If you couldn't tell yet, I'm a slow reader.
I am not a slow reader, but I realized what you did - that these books give me a chance to engage with the topic and if I spend enough time with a subject, I might learn something from myself even if I learn zero from the actual book.
My solution to this problem is to set these books next to one of the two comfy chairs in the house. When I sit in one of these chairs, I consider whether I want to read a chapter, I can only read one chapter, I can only have two of these books going at one time.
And under the system it takes me about three months to finish one of the books up from less than a week. I also find I no longer hate• most of them and I learn a lot more.
I'm definitely a better father because of a bunch of the self help books I've read. Things like better ways to communicate with my son, more effective ways to transfer knowledge, encourage independence, etc. Other areas of my life have definitely improved too though I agree when people say most self help books could be a blog post and in cases where it's an expansion of a blog post I'll generally just go read that.
With these types of books(and I read a lot of self help) I generally expect to get like 1-2 good pieces of advice/ideas per 200 pages so I generally just scan through them until I hit areas that seem high value then read those areas more deeply. I've read all of Tim Ferriss' books and haven't really gotten anything I can think of from his stuff to be honest they are a bit too general for me but I've gotten some good advice from his podcast though I only listen to maybe one episode in 10 when it is with someone or about something that sounds very interesting and even then I tend to scrub through it since there is a lot of filler in a 2 hour podcast.
Here's the problem: You can be a bad father by being too strict, or you can be a bad father by being too lenient.
In Zion National Park there's a hike called Angel's Landing. You wind up on this ridge, with a 1000 foot cliff on one side and a 500 foot cliff on the other side. And the ridge is not very wide - only a couple of feet in some places.
Parenting is like that. You think, oh, I see people causing problems by being too strict, so I want to back away from that cliff. But there's a cliff behind you, so don't back too far...
And the problem with parenting books is that, if you're the kind of parent who needs the books warning you about being too strict, then the books that warn against being too lenient are probably the ones that resonate more with you. That is, you're drawn to the ones you don't need, not to the ones that you do need.
All that said, yes, get books and read them. Be sure to get a variety of them.
I can't give specifics off the cuff, as I'm well past that phase now.
I read Nurture Shock before my kids were born. One of its main arguments is to praise effort rather than natural abilities ("you worked hard" rather than "you're smart"). Being one who naturally withholds praise, its message of not over-praising resonated with me.
In retrospect, I should have praised kid #1 more. It took me 10+ years to realize that. The book was not wrong but also not the message I needed.
I am definitely of the same generation. I notice my mom will praise my kid’s intelligence while we praise their effort. But I’ve definitely noticed my son responds to praise about ability more than my daughter and likely would appreciate more praise than her.
What did you notice and what were the consequences of the strategy of praise. I’d like to learn from your experience.
I have noticed that my daughter responds so much better to compliments like, "I am really impressed how you handled situation X, you stuck up for yourself in a way that doesn't alienate yourself with your friends. I know how hard that is to do well ..." When I give the reason for the praise it doesn't come off, intended or not as "you did good for a kid." I don't do it everytime, but sometimes the praise works to give another reflective or metacognitive pass over the event.
Praise is a verbal activity. And while words definitely matter, I think holistic encouragement is needed. Pats on the back, hugs, and periodic ambient physical presence when the kid is working on a new skill.
Children the Challenge chapter 3 discusses encouragement.
All this stuff should be done tastefully and without being overbearing. Like the previous poster said, it's a balance.
Totally agree especially since each kid is different and responds to the same technique differently. But there are common things like attachment theory, boundaries creating safety, the tactics of repair after conflict.
I mean this with the purest intentions. I've read Never Split the Difference, Never Eat Alone, Getting More, How to Win Friends and Influence People, etc. How do you get it to feel like it's not manipulation? I get all of these books advertise not to lie, but at the end of the day, I'm reshaping my speech to achieve a certain goal, rather than to convey facts. The best line I've come up with is something like: am I serving the other person's actual interests, and would I be fine with them seeing exactly what I'm doing? Honest persuasion seems to survive that test; manipulation usually needs the other person not to notice. Curious how you draw this line? Keep in mind I don't have kids, so haven't really ventured into white lie territory being a necessity.
> I'm reshaping my speech to achieve a certain goal, rather than to convey facts.
When communicating, you don't simply recite every datum you know. You edit, you choose facts to communicate a specific set of points. Those points themselves are not random; they are in service of helping you achieve some goal (to get someone to laugh, or to get someone to do/not do something, or to change someone's opinion of you, to make someone feel comfortable, to get a person to bond with you, or whatever).
> am I serving the other person's actual interests
This is the key.
> would I be fine with them seeing exactly what I'm doing
See my first paragraph. Nobody thinks you are reciting facts at random when you talk to them. QED to the extent anyone thinks about it, they understand that you are trying to advance some agenda (drop the connotation on that word). Because this is how human communication works.
At their core all these self help books are not teaching you how to reshape your speech, but emotional intelligence. They are teaching better understanding of other and yourself. You can then use this understanding to have more fulfilling relations, or more easily manipulate others if you are less well intentioned. The line is very easy to draw, being honest is natural, you say the truth and are open to genuinely understand and build on the other person responses. On the other hand manipulating takes a very different mindset of faking being open to what others are saying.
Many people, especially in the tech field, have false perceptions about the inner workings of the human brain. We aren't rational automatons receiving exactly the data that has been sent out by the other automatons. That's for a multitude of reasons, the most obvious of that is the fact that only a very miniscule part of our thought is conscious (about 2% is the last number I've read about it). Even the fundamental inner workings of the brain differ from the idea you alluded to. Our brain isn't just a parser interpreting the data we receive - instead it is a black box constantly predicting what happens next, and only uses sensory input, both from the outside and from the inside of the body, to validate or falsify the prediction [1]. One of the obvious side effects if this is for example our tendency to ignore facts that don't fit to our current worldview.
So if I know that these things are as they are, and use them to communicate more successfully, is that manipulation? Then it would also be learning manipulation if kids are sent to school to learn how to write well, or how to do a presentation.
I had a situation with my kid a while ago. They were already tired, but had to take a shower. When I proposed that verbally, they denied. Then I showed them the warm water coming out of the showerhead, and they instantly agreed. So I got what I wanted (the kid getting clean), because I knew how to communicate successfully. But that isn't manipulation: I didn't lie, I didn't have a personal advantage at their cost etc. I just made it easier for them to anticipate what taking a shower would feel like.
So perhaps the distinction should be: If I can honestly and wholeheartedly argue to myself that my intentions are to the best of all participants, then that is communication. If I only care about my outcome, or even want to have adverserial outcome for the others, then that is manipulation.
But we can't use "not noticing" some mode of communication as part of the definition of manipulation simply because we all notice almost nothing consciously, compared to the sensory input we get every second of our lifes.
[1] A pretty approachable book about that, written from a researcher: How emotions are made, from Lisa Feldman Barret
Exactly this. And I'll share a similar comment. I found myself repeating instructions to my 4 year old ans getting frustrated. I watched a parenting video that suggested getting down on her physical level and gently touching her shoulder to get her attention. The theory being when she is focused on something fun or interesting she literally can't hear me or shift her attention.
It worked the first time and has reduced my own emotional reaction and create much more peace.
And while I won't suggest it will work for everyone or this is a scientific process with sufficient information (but should be explored) I find resources like this useful.
I think you’re on the right track. Manipulation is overriding someone’s will in service of your motives. Persuasion is offering new information, while respecting their autonomy to make their own choice. So you are right that intention matters a lot. And the reason it matters is that your commitment to their wellbeing is an investment in the relationship which is a mutual interaction over time not a single event.
That’s also why authenticity and honesty matter. If you lie to your children or spouse or colleague they might do what you want one time but over time not trust you. If you are inauthentic they will also learn that you have ulterior motives and become distrustful.
The last thing I’ll say is it’s not always a negotiation. With young kids or direct reports there is elevation in the relationship, meaning one person gets to make the decision and the other gets to follow the instructions. So when a toddler is saying I don’t want to brush my teeth if you treat it like a negotiation you actually make them less secure about their place in the world because they aren’t ready to make every decision for themself. One good technique I learned is to simply present two choices. “You can brush your teeth or let me brush your teeth”. That’s very different than “let’s go brush your teeth” which can be answered yes or no. So it’s not always necessary to engage in persuasion. Sometimes framing is all you need.
I've often felt the same way; I've read some of these and (think I) can spot people using those learned things a mile away, and it immediately raises my hackles up. Management and sales people especially. Touch my shoulder or try to shake my hand palm-down just raise alarm bells.
But that's the other side of these books, understanding "the other side" of people.
I like to believe it all adds up to a big pile of knowledge that finds its place in one's personality / outwards behaviour. But to more observant, introspective, overthinking, possibly neurodiverse people, it just adds to a giant pile of social behaviours that some people seem to have naturally while others have learned / are forcing them.
Doing them costs me energy and makes me feel underhanded / ungenuine. At the same time maybe doing it more often will make them feel natural? I have no idea.
Touching shoulders and shaking hands palm-down is “persuasion” bullshit.
Can’t say anything about other books, but Never Split the Difference is about hearing and understanding other peoples’s wants and opinions. Not this pickup-artist-like bullshit.
> but at the end of the day, I'm reshaping my speech to achieve a certain goal, rather than to convey facts.
The idea that the only goal of communication is to convey facts is (charitably) a pretty autistic view of interpersonal relationships.
There are many situations where conveying facts is not the primary goal, and there's a world of difference just in how facts are conveyed. Facts probably aren't going to stop your toddler screaming for ice cream. Telling your wife that dress makes her look fat likely isn't going to help either one of you. Calling out a coworker when they are wrong isn't going to improve your working relationship. And so on...
Humans convey emotion and thoughts in conversation. We have mirror neurons that literally model an approximation of the internal mental state of the person you are talking to.
Facts won't stop a toddler crying for ice cream. But a clear unmoving boundary conveyed with love stops the intensity of their request and allowing them to have the sadness and anger at being told no and treating them with kindness and love even while they are expressing big feelings of disappointment creates a trusting, safe relationship.
I’ve genuinely read only Never Split the Difference from your list, and it’s kind of the opposite from manipulation.
The book teaches how to actually hear people even in the very emotionally charged situations, how to properly ask them questions to understand their point of view and their needs.
If I understand my son’s needs and can give him what he wants in exchange of him giving me what I want, how is that a manipulation? I can yell at him, impose sanctions (eg no minecraft for two days) and we both will be greatly dissatisfied. Or we can both get what we want, which is a win-win.
I think we're describing different halves of the same book.
I don't have a problem with generally understanding someone's needs. You ask what he wants, you say what you want, you both find a common middle ground.
But that's not what I'm worried about. He also teaches you things like give gifts to instill a sense of reciprocity. Use odd numbers so it appears as if you've put in research to arrive at this figure. "Bend reality" by moving around deadlines. Take advantage of cognitive biases like loss aversion.
Actual empathy is one thing, steering someone into thinking that your preferred outcome was their own idea is another. And that steering is precisely the manipulation I can't shake off. I'd be fine with the other person knowing I'm actually empathizing. But all those other techniques rely on the other person not noticing, which falls into my definition of manipulation.
Yeah, probably different halves of the book. I've read it a few years ago, and it looks like I've just ignored/forgot all that "bending reality" stuff. It's not my cup of tea, so I remembered only the good parts of it
I have read How to Win friends and Influence People and I haven't felt like its manipulation.
[I can be wrong and I usually am ;)] but the book teaches just some way to better re-phrase your best intentions and I have started to think the phrases in my head...
Just be honest with people is what that book taught me. I highly recommend people reading it.
Now I will be honest that reading the book itself isn't gonna give you something. It depends highly on variety of factors. For example, the book also teaches to listen more often and I genuinely try to do it as well but I sometimes fail to do that as I am a bit expressive/talkative
I think it also depends on who you are and how the book reinforces some particular topics. You dont have to completely do everything the book says to have meaningful impact as then it would feel manipulative to other person, yea.
And at the very least, reading this books makes you aware of some logic behind what he's saying (for example. I speak a lot but I should listen more, because people like me are so many and everyone likes to speak and be heard but people who actually listen are rare)
and then I can realize that I am speaking too much and so I think that I am more aware.
More Awareness of a topic doesn't mean complete and utter mastery of it but long term persistence of that awareness helps out meaningfully.
TLDR: Just be yourself and see if something sticks from the books and to implement it slowly and the way you like. There isn't one perfect way (not one even in the books) to living life. At best, its collection of what other successful people are doing. I wouldn't suggest (completely) living off the books because you have your own life and way of living it and you should be honest about it to yourself as well.
Read AI summary what “Never Split the Difference” is about. And its a bit scary that you think its suitable for talking with kids. Its pure manipulation technique. If you need to do this to your its most likely you were unable to create a real connection with them before.
Thank you for proving Tim Ferris right and showing that AI actually degrades the knowledge adding a second order harm to human society.
The tactics themselves are morally neutral. They can be used to manipulate or elevate another person whose well being you are deeply committed to, the intention behind the tactics are what determines if it is manipulation or connection/persuasion.
The self driven child was one I just finished 2 weeks ago that I really enjoyed and felt had a lot of good advice that ran counter to my natural tendencies.
The How to talk books(there are a few of them for different ages), no drama discipline.
Cal Newports books while not specifically about parenting have helped me with disconnecting more from my tech which has always been a challenge since it's my job and a part of a lot of my hobbies which has definitely led to being a better father.
No worries, I have "Outdoor kids in an indoor world" next that I'm really looking forward to since I struggle with being an indoor dad despite being the type of kid that would leave the house in the morning on my bike and be back at night and went camping every couple weekends. I'll have a look at yours.
Lacking happiness or charisma or confidence or the ability to quit smoking or any other run-of-the-mill self-help topic isn’t caused by a lack of relevant data: it’s a matter of perspective. Often, the best way to push through the problem is getting the perspective of someone that’s thought about it more. Whether self help books are an effective medium for that is another topic, but if they’re not, lacking hard facts wouldn’t be the problem.
Self help usually doesn't teach you anything that is new. Usually they just repackage the same common sense that you've heard a million times before in a new way. That doesn't mean it is useless though, I have had my own life changed by several self help/business books.
Sometimes you just need someone to tell you common sense in the right way so that you actually listen to it.
What if you are raised in a toxic environment? Many are. The news media is also packaged in such a way as to cause fear, alarm and misery. Sometimes you have to break free of that. There is a lot of bad advice out there especially in the modern world.
> Do these books/seminars actually teach you something new about being married or a father, that you didn't know before?
Maybe you were born with all the knowledge necessary to be a good father/husband, but I certainly wasn’t. I imagine most people just have their parents to go off of, and we all know what a can of worms that can be.
I'd wager that most people have just their parents to go off of and a few recallibrate using their own experiences, learning, and introspecting about them. Those are the few to whom books and seminars are useful as sources.
I think, for a large number of people, self-help (especially the short form high intensity style content that influencers post is just "content" to "consume" - a form of cheap entertainment that's thrown out almost as soon as it's consumed. There's no enduring change. That takes time and an semi-innate desire to change. Then, all these things become sensible and useful.
I'm not a big fan of Ferris but I'm willing to bet that someone who sits down with one of his books and works through it slowly applying the lessons to his or her own life will see some kind of change as opposed to the typical person who just asks an LLM to summarise the book or a video about it and then decides that they've changed.
Yes. I learned new techniques like: victim vs author perspective. wife and I did a training where she went first, learned the the technique (tell a story of a fight like you are the most sympathetic victim then tell it again like you were the author) and it immediately shifted both of our perspectives about a conflict we hadn’t been able to resolve for 6 months because she told both versions and immediately understood where I was coming from. I am personally grateful we both know that technique now.
I recently read Attia's Outlive which is about what sort of lifestyle makes one more resilient against diseases of old age.
I'm not in a position to verify more than a few of the factual claims made by the author (and a lot of it sounds like mumbo-jumbo), but it was persuasive enough to get me to exercise for health (instead of performance at a specific event) and my life has gotten much easier since I came to that realisation. Maybe I would have done so eventually without the book, but I'm glad the book sped the process up.
Mainly that the advice was more structured, maybe?
Note that I was exercising before, only I didn't do it for health. But I also didn't suffer from any obvious problems. What I got out of every medical organisation in the world then is "You're fine. Don't worry about it."
I was probably fine, but I'm even more fine now; I'm capable of doing more of the things I enjoy.
> What I got out of every medical organisation in the world then is "You're fine. Don't worry about it."
This is alien to me, because for at least 50 years now, heart disease and diabetes has been at the forefront of basically every developed country’s health problems, for which the only solution proposed by all health authorities has been to eat less and healthier, and to do cardiovascular exercise almost every day. Even from elementary school, I remember being taught in gym or health class that being active and exercising was necessary for long term health.
I think there's a bit of a "marketing" failure happening in this context.
I've been exercising for most of my life, I'm the guy that has been going to the gym since forever to many of my acquaintances, and so they have often talked to me about how they want to start exercising or how they are doing etc.
Nobody, and I mean nobody has ever said anything like "I'm so happy to decrease my risk of diabetes". My father stopped smoking and started riding a bike, motivated by cardiovascular health, what actually makes him happy though is to be able to go up the stairs without breaking into a sweat.
Ask anyone in a gym why they exercise, they will talk about health, just not in the way doctors do. The stick of "You will die in 20 years rather than 35" pales in comparison of the carrot of "you will feel better basically all the time"
It's "learning how to..." rather than "learning that...". Good self-help books can provide a framework to understand how your own childhood development influences your current behaviours, and how you can work to change. I'm currently reading "Parenting from the Inside Out" which goes into both the psychology and neurology of the developing brain, and explains how insecure childhood attachment can propagate across generations. I have a mixture of dismissive/avoidant and anxious attachment thought patterns, and it's been helpful to put this into context by reflecting on my own childhood and where they might have come from. Those patterns gradually feel less like something I'm "stuck with" and more like something I can challenge and master.
That's awesome personal insight. My next door neighbors are childhood psychologists and when my daughter was 18 months old I mentioned I was trying to be very intentional about creating secure attachment and the things I was doing to facilitate it. They said in a very supportive and amused tone "oh it's too late, the attachment window has closed by now" then after a long pause said "she is fine and clearly has secure attachment to you and her mom"
By I myself have done a lot of work to understand ways to shift attachment styles similar to yours.
What I find funny is people saying in social media that they read dozens of books, and when you see what they're reading is mostly self-help volumes! If you read one or two of these books you already know what they'll say in 100s of others. It's very similar to religious books: the content is always the same, they just rearrange things so people will continue consuming more of the same ideas.
I mean I can see it. Books are just a way to transmit one’s thoughts and experiences to other people. So it’s no different to being exposed to someone with a different viewpoint. Common sense isn’t common or innate, it’s tribal knowledge.
There’s that XKCD about someone learning something new that was just thought to be something everyone knew.
Also you don’t know what you don’t know.
Agree though — coaching and persuasion are a huge part which is why I think a lot of these books seem ‘fluffy’ if all you’re wanting is a collection of facts.
Why such a strong reaction? Do you think good leaders exist?
I have received multiple emails from alumni thanking me for my leadership, mentorship, and the culture I created. Leading is a skill like any other it can be improved with practice and I have worked hard at it.
My team has no problem disagreeing with me and knows I don’t want sycophantic agreement, they know that even if I ultimately make a decision I will consider all opinions and have seen me change my mind in response to a direct report disagreeing with me in public.
There are known mechanisms to foster a safe and effective environment like that such as separating people from ideas, removing consequences for failure and commitment to experimentation.
Why reach for a gun? You want to kill people that proclaim to be better leaders because of a self-help book? I know people drew guns for less but this is the first time I am reading something like this on HN.
I’d suggest you’d read a few books so that you don’t have to reach for your gun but can use your words instead. Though the moment you’d claim any of those books helped you will be a bit of an ironic moment but so be it.
I recommend Non-violent Communication by Rosenberg for you. It got me out of a few pickles (arguments). Also going to a meditation retreat helps.
You shouldn't laugh off the recommendation. That is a good book. I haven't read it personally but it affected my life deeply.
My wife and I both grew up in physically violent homes. My mom read that book and taught me and my siblings the lessons along with others. And my children have only ever experienced shouting or physical violence when they went to their grandparents house.
I understand you were using that phrase as hyperbole and did really mean it but there is a lot of evidence that the language we use shapes our prefrontal cortex and limbic system responses in every moment. By using that phrase you're subtlety sending your body and brain and anyone that read that into an anxious fight or flight response. That shuts down the ability to listen, persuade or connect. It triggers defensiveness, avoidance etc.
So even though you have a valid point lot of bad leaders exist, and often claim loudly to be good leaders with no self awareness of their actual weaknesses. Its hard to listen when a rhetorical gun has been drawn.
Thank you for a thoughtful reply. To my reading you demonstrate that you listened, even though I didn’t give you much to work with considering my curt[1] comments, and these resources look helpful.
But I don’t understand the problem with this phrase. Maybe it’s an ESL (second lang.) issue, because I have only read one author that I recall that has used this phrase (poverty of stimulus?). But to my mind it isn’t even hyperbole. It’s just an expression saying “I am on my guard now”. Which means that you are skeptical, maybe even cynical. Yes, the immediate interpretation is that someone is reaching for their holster—not to shoot but to anticipate an ambush. But even that is just, you know, colorful in this context. In this context I am intending to express that I am skeptical. Not that someone is trying to fool me. But I am on guard against just taking someone’s experiences at face value; that their lifeworld is such-and-such is not even under debate, that is fine and no one is doubting that. What is under doubt in this context is what the proverbial room looked like when only one out of five people reported on it. Does that make sense?
> But to my mind it isn’t even hyperbole. It’s just an expression saying “I am on my guard now”.
I'm Dutch, so English is a second language. I started at 7.
To me it comes across as hyperbole or something literal. Maybe different for native English speakers. Though I haven't heard my American family in law using it. And they say, to take some inspiration from you, all kinds of colorful things and I'd expect them to say stuff like this.
I don't live in the US with my wife though, so maybe I didn't have enough interactions with them. I will ask her.
You’re welcome and thanks for being open to the conversation and clarifying.
I get that an idioms in a second language can be hard. “I reach for my gun” is an idiom but among the more aggressive range. Not quite true fighting words (which a reasonable person would interpret as an indication of imminent threat) but close, especially with the amount of gun violence in the US.
But as I said I heard your valid point. I would be curious about your experience with leaders. What has your experience been so far? What have you identified as effective and ineffective traits?
*(notice I don’t say good and bad because those words often have a value judgement or moral implications and influences people’s cognition. If I say a “bad” boss someone might think corrupt, evil, dishonest etc. someone might think lazy, too friendly, stupid which don’t have the same moral posture).
I ask because I am always interested in learning about how leadership is received in the world so can improve.
One of the most challenging realizations in my life came from band of brothers the hbo show. Everyone thinks they are captain winters but I saw more similarities in myself to the ineffective leaders (especially the guy that disappeared randomly); and had to do a lot of work to improve
I remember I had a bit of a relationship crisis with someone. Just learning the 10 min. TL;DR of a good friend of mine who was well versed in it helped a ton. Later I read it twice.
Sometimes I think I can get away with and flow on intuition. In tense conversations that sometimes go sideways and then I notice I have to use this way of communicating in order to keep things from not spiraling out of control and ultimately resolve things.
I agree with you. Self-help industry has evolved to cover lot of nuanced topics. Depression, anxiety adjacent topics. Once the basics are recognized, the other aspects like what to expect when you grow old. what to expect after retirement etc.
How to care less about what other people think, but in a healthy way
Pretty sure that's a result of the larger gestalt driven more by your own drive and savviness to seek new ideas on living than the books themselves, as it is for everyone who claims to have benefited. If the books are gone today and only LLMs remain, nothing will change in this front.
Yup, so one just reads up on psychology, psychiatry and neurophysiology branching into sociology and anthropology, approximately to a graduate level. After which all this self-help looks quite naive. This sure takes 10-15 years, but the result is that you begin to understand wtf is going on around.
Academic literature isn't written to be applied. Some of the books I like the most distill the Academic findings into actionable frameworks. I do agree it's a good idea to also look at the research. But also recognize that the research changes as new studies deepen our understanding or invalidate prior findings.
Self-help parenting books and blogs caused my spouse years of anguish and disappointment because most declare they've found the one true way. It just so happens to be the least productive and incompatible with many readers' children, bodies, minds, etc.
Many of the authors are selling their narrow experience as if it's divine revelation, often literally because they're religious. The grift usually continues with sponsorships, plugging their other books (or their friends' books), or seminars.
I've read enough about sociology and psychology now that the whole self help industry disgusts me. Receiving such books or recommendations unsolicited strikes me as an insult from folks to naive or lazy to really get to know me first.
That's an unfortunate experience, sorry to hear that. I think skepticism is healthy. Experimentation is a more effective position that faith in experts.
Exactly. People have just been told that there are some grifters in the field and they're unable to make the mental effort to not lump the entire field together.
Oh and the fact they're making money? Yeah everybody has to eat, psychologists don't work for free either, neither does any doctor for that matter. There are people doing good out there and yes they will charge you plenty of money for it.
Sounds like you need to learn some healthy communication. If this is how you show up in relation to others your network of collaborators will be small, keep you weak and limit your ability to effectuate your will in the world.
What do you feel when you make a comment like that? Satisfied at your intellectual superiority? Confident in your status as someone able to see what’s right? Proud of yourself that you “tell it like it is”
Have you ever stopped to think about the prices you pay for that behavior?
Let’s game it out. You don’t know me. I could be Paul Graham for all you know. I could be the person in the world that would unlock the very door you need to open to get what you’re working towards. I could be someone totally vulnerable and insecure and end up cascading into despair based on your comment.
That being said. I thought it was a funny comment.
Your first paragraph is just a barrage of personal insults.
Your second paragraph is playing the victim while you just acted the agrresor in the previous.
Your third paragraph seems to make it sound like you have a point but it essentially boils down to we are all strangers on the internet. And okay?
If you had just written the last sentence, i would have respected your comment much more.
I know i am just a stranger but we are talking about perception and self help here. And from what I've read, i am not leaving with a positive perception of you based on your comments sorry.
Your interpretation was that they were meant as insults. They weren’t. I was asking a question about their intentions with several posited motives. Based on the statement, I wondered how they were feeling and I invited them to engage in self reflection. I don’t care if they were having those feelings, and I don’t think anyone is wrong for those types of feelings. It’s just that there are consequences to acting on those feelings in the way that they did.
I don’t think anyone is a victim or an aggressor. Both people do something to contribute to any conflict and are responsible to acknowledge what they did as the first step (see my previous post).
The point that we are strangers is that 1. he is making assumptions on incomplete information and expressing it with confidence that is unwarranted and 2. For all he knows I could be someone that, in real life, he would regret alienating like that.
As far as your opinion of my comments, your perspective is as valid as mine. I am curious, what do you think my positions are? What do you think my intentions are in this thread?
Not really passive. I made my position clear. I can take a joke and wasnt offended. It's also true that such behavior has a cost. Your interpretation that I offer that perspective to hurt them or defend myself is inaccurate, I actually want to help improve people, so it was actually an act of kindness.
I cant respond to your last response, probably because it was flagged. But I'll say, after looking at your other posts that drip with disdain and what appears to me to be arrogance masking self loathing I hope you recognize the price you pay for speaking to people that way. You don't know me, who I am or what I have done. And life isn't about the transactional potential of relationships, but saying something like "i guess the prompt engineer thing didn't work out" on hacker news is naive and risky. There are world class engineers, VCs, senior execs and beginners that will end up doing amazing things. Your behavior has consequences for you and the world.
Your pattern matching couldn't be further from the truth. I am in the krugman camp on currencies and economics generally which is to say I have been a long term skeptic of crypto since the beginning.
I am not a failed prompt coder, I personally built am a health care ehr that integrated a wide range of legacy tech well before AI as a coding agent was a glimmer in anyone's eye.
I say that in the hopes that you understand your insults are missing the mark so maybe it's time to update your wetware.
