[__alexander]

Personally, I see the self-help industry dying because people are starting to realize that it’s just a network of individuals selling products, promoting each other’s products, and creating new avenues to sell more products. I refer to it as the “self-help mafia.” Tim Ferriss kind of created it.

[kdheiwns]

Every time someone has said some goofy thing will go away because people are getting smarter or realizing something, it's absolutely not the case. A large number of people will always want someone to tell them that they have everything figured out and others just don't see how great they are, that they'll wake up rich and famous one day, that they're powerful, that they're beautiful, etc. Many will pay to be told this. Many will pay for subscriptions to become even bigger and better.

As an extreme example, pickup artists had a wave of success a few years back and people paid big money for those ridiculous courses. They got replaced with Andrew Tate style "a real man just smokes and fights and hates women" type content and people paid money with the hopes of becoming like them. Trends and life goals change, but people still gobble up self help.

[vidarh]

I went down a rabbit hole of reading some of the "pickup artist" material many years ago, and it was fascinating because there was a whole range from the really ridiculous "one trick" peddlers who in some cases probably were proto-Andre Tates - isogynists who looked for all kinds of underhanded tactics to trick women and saw it as justified because they saw things as stacked against men - to people who were just a hair shy of more mainstream selfhelp of making yourself better to be more attractive. On the extreme end you'd see NLP, hypnosis and in some cases coaches trying to legitimise things that'd easily cross into assault. On the "near mainstream" end you'd see people pushing meditation, exercise, and mainstream authors on getting better at social situations (e.g. Dale Carnegie).

The former imploded in the aftermath of Neil Strauss' The Game, which made some of the popular techniques well known and/or mocked (e.g. you had Howard on Big Bang Theory who in the beginning "demonstrated" several of the more ridiculous methods) and a lot of the field pivoted towards closer to regular self-help because the weirder stuff would get them called out.

I wonder to what extent that contributed to channeling the people who didn't want to put in the work towards people like Andrew Tate, with the mockery that followed and the less extreme coaches in that field moving away from it leaving a whole bunch of angry young men ripe for the picking, now with one more bone to pick.

[mettamage]

I went down that rabbit hole too and actually improved myself. I recommend Juggler (old school), Austen Summers and AttractionGym (Dutch). I would still recommend to use your common sense though. Not everything they say is good advice but I find them giving quite good advice while not being toxic (most of the time).

Though what helped me most was a mix of being more assertive, meditation and a strong sense of playfulness.

I always went the improv route, so while I read a lot of mainstream pickup stuff back then, I was too lazy to use it. Also, when it was clearly mean then I didn’t do it either (such as negging). It was fun to get some skill in being cocky and funny, but ultimately I fell in love with being playful. Communicating that way is so much fun, and it’s fun to go balls to the wall creative. Yep, I am in love with a communication style and way of looking at the world. So there’s that (I also was in love with learning Italian for a while). But my default mode is looking at the world in an analytical and data-driven/empirical way (while not noticing my irrationality).

The more reasonable dating coaches are still out there. They simply aren’t part of the mainstream advice.

The current mainstream advice about dating sucks. Though, to be fair: the mainstream pickup artists from back in the day also sucked. It’s a lot like mining: you dig through a lot of advice that is plain dirt so you can find the gems of advice that are sparsely scattered around the dirt.

I gave some dating advice to some HN’ers. If anyone wants some, feel free to message me. My email is in my profile.

I am married nowadays (after a few relationships).

What I do find interesting is: I can turn this part of myself off and then no woman sees me. Mostly because I lack initiative and look at the world too seriously. It’s handy because I never get into weird situations like a certain woman liking me at work, for example. It also helped when I didn’t know how to break off contact with someone who I knew wasn’t for me.

[Levitz]

>The more reasonable dating coaches are still out there. They simply aren’t part of the mainstream advice.

I really want to ask: what would their reputation be if they were mainstream, in your opinion?

I find it to be a very interesting spot of culture and society, like at one point you had a bunch of guys who were dealing with the cognitive dissonance between what society asks of men and what society wants from them in a context that wasn't yet politicized.

It is my impression that when it started showing up a little bit in the mainstream, the accusations of misogyny came, and with that most who actually cared about misogyny left the boat, in public terms. So now all we have left is Tate and the likes.

[vidarh]

A lot of the accusations of misogyny were well founded, but there were also a lot of people who genuinely just did struggle with why they couldn't meet people, and who wanted to genuinely improve.

I think effectively those coaches who worried most about reputations to a large extent pivoted from focusing on the dating aspect to more general self-improvement, where dating success might still get mentioned but without so much focus on it, and especially not so much focus on getting sex.

There's lots of mainstream self-help around overcoming shyness and getting better at socialising for example that was/is directly relevant to a lot of people who struggle with dating, and there are lots of ways of framing the non-manipulative, non-creepy parts of a lot of dating coach advice in ways that nobody would consider misoygynist.

But, yeah, I think at least to some extent the attention given to some of this subculture unwittingly ended up driving some of them into the arms of people like Tate. It's not that there weren't plenty of those coaches that deserved negative attention, but the end result might well have been worse.

[mettamage]

> A lot of the accusations of misogyny were well founded, but there were also a lot of people who genuinely just did struggle with why they couldn't meet people, and who wanted to genuinely improve.

Agreed

> and there are lots of ways of framing the non-manipulative, non-creepy parts of a lot of dating coach advice in ways that nobody would consider misoygynist.

Yea, agreed

One issue is that pickup artists always framed it as men seducing women. But quite frankly, most ideas would also work the other way around. I remember talking to some dating coaches who strongly disagree with me but they view women too much as women and men too much as men, whereas my view is that we’re humans first and our sex/gender second.

Viewing things in such a gendered way was a factor for misogyny.

Back in the day, I coached a woman to be better at dating. I taught her what I knew and she took her own spin on it and had tons of fun.

Just some examples as to what is interchangeable:

1. Being playful

2. Emotional intelligence

3. Good style

4. Cold approaching

5. Disqualification technique (e.g. what work do you do? I’m a hermit in the woods and sing to birds all day - when you are clearly not)

6. Open body language, and the concept of tonality, body language and non-verbal communication in general

7. Good logistics such as having a place of your own, moving a date to a second or nth location etc. (this just requires planning)

8. Being able to signal intent at the right time (I do it 10 to 60 minutes after when the playful vibe is clearly established)

Women can do these things too, and it works. This is just from the top of my dome. There are many more examples. Such as being optimistic, adventurous and genuinely yourself (I know sounds contradictory, it’s a long topic but yeah works for women who want to seduce men too).

I wouldn’t be surprised if all of this also works for gay/lesbian people but I never thought about that.

[JimsonYang]

agree, there's always going to be a belief for a majority of people that by reading or doing this ONE trick, they can avoid the hard work and sacrifice needed to get to a place/do a task

we've seen it with exercise/dieting we've seen it with women/dating this types of things always persist

[carlosjobim]

How is the bucket, Mr Crab? Personally I admire all people who want to improve themselves, or crawl out of a hole, or fix their issues. It's not easy, and it's not easy to find the right advice or help.

[digitaltrees]

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.

[myaccountonhn]

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.

[whateverboat]

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.

[im3w1l]

"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.

[KellyCriterion]

> and cured my depression over night.

Which book is it?

[wwqrd]

What was the book?

[brainzap]

my book was one by Terry Real. The excersise to find love for myself was life changing

[digitaltrees]

Please expand! What’s the exercise!

[alexitosrv]

He also took a course in baiting and suspense short stories

[YinglingHeavy]

"Read self-help books until they all start sounding the same, then move on with your life"

[JumpCrisscross]

Can you share an easy-to-understand example for someone who is similarly highly sceptical of self-help products?

[randycupertino]

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.

[delbronski]

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.

[joshmoody24]

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.

[delbronski]

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.

[ragequittah]

>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".

[digitaltrees]

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.

[K0balt]

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.

[AussieWog93]

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.

[parineum]

> 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.

[ragequittah]

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.

[onoesworkacct]

I haven't read it yet, but reading it is not going to change your personality. Personality defines how you receive it.

If you change your entire personality based on a self-help book.. that probably says a lot about your personality.

And anyway twin studies make the hardware seem more impactful than the software in many ways..

[digitaltrees]

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.

[apatry]

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.

[coliveira]

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...

[laserlight]

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.

[kamaal]

There is more than that, though. Deadlines, Next Tasks, Weekly list purge/build, Yearly alignment etc etc.

Also how you teach somebody a thing matters.

Stories have a profound effect on humans since the earliest of our days.

[rustystump]

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.

[sanswork]

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)

[digitaltrees]

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.

I could keep going and going and going.

[seizethecheese]

Kudos for delivering.

#1 sounds a lot like stoicism.

[digitaltrees]

Question for you, is my handle orange? I realized my company went stale after a pivot. Just curious if that is reflected on HN.

I was recently surprised by a bookface status change :) might need to reach out to say “hey still alive just not in the original form”.

[seizethecheese]

I’m colorblind but it looks either orange or green, not normal color

[sethammons]

Diff person here. Your handle is not orange, it is grey. I have not seen an orange handle. Grey or green (green for new accounts).

[jasonfarnon]

"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.

[thepryz]

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.

[phlsa]

Exactly that.

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.

[nmcfarl]

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.

• they still have a very high DNF rate.

[sanswork]

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.

[rfc3092]

Please share “better father” books.

[AnimalMuppet]

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.

[frankosaurus]

Well stated.

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.

[digitaltrees]

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.

[murkt]

“Never Split the Difference”, which is a book about how to successfully communicate with terrorists. Very suitable for talking with kids!

I’ve even read aloud a few chapters to my kids, because it’s very suitable for communication with parents as well

[Fantosism]

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.

[vincnetas]

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.

[sanswork]

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.

[digitaltrees]

Thanks for the recs. I’ll check them out. I am reading “How to raise humans” right now. Not far enough in to have an opinion yet.

[monknomo]

How to Talk so Kids Will Listen (and How to Listen so Kids Will Talk) is excellent

[DrewADesign]

Only hard facts change your perspective?

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.

[jayers]

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.

[digitaltrees]

You don’t come out of the womb with common sense. And you don’t know all common sense possible.

[nephihaha]

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.

[matwood]

> 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.

[noufalibrahim]

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.

[digitaltrees]

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.

[kqr]

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.

[lotsofpulp]

>it was persuasive enough to get me to exercise for health

Why was this one guy more persuasive than the recommendation of basically every medical organization in the world?

Also, his correspondence with Epstein is quite damning.

[kqr]

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.

[lotsofpulp]

> 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.

[eru]

> Do these books/seminars actually teach you something new about being married or a father, that you didn't know before? Like what?

I'm as skeptical as you are, but teaching you something you didn't know before ain't the only channel they could conceivable help through.

Eg reading their bible can help a devout christian, even though there's nothing in there they didn't already know.

[n4r9]

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.

[digitaltrees]

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.

[coliveira]

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.

[TeMPOraL]

Knowledge has to come from somewhere. Not everyone has perfect parents to couch them on marriage and parenthood.

[groundzeros2015]

Yes. I think about a few framings from books all the time.

[Fr0styMatt88]

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.

[keybored]

I reach for my revolver when someone says that they are a better leader. That might mean that they have a captive audience of sycophants.

The outdated sense of leader of the willingly lead is a different matter.

[digitaltrees]

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.

[keybored]

There’s not much to it. There’s a difference between performed N and N as reported by the performer.

[mettamage]

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.

[keybored]

Thanks for the laugh wizard of Metta.

[adaml_623]

Tell us about this good leader concept and why you think it's outdated? Is it just uncommon?

And why can't you believe someone's statement about themselves? How is it different to saying they're a good runner?

[keybored]

Thank you for demonstrating leadership on this topic. Maybe that illustrates the point.

[Npovview]

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uyR_cXGBMY

[ubercore]

Willing to bet the fact that you went looking to improve is the thing that made the difference, not anything you learned from those seminars.

[dartharva]

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.

[ChrisRR]

There are no doubt a lot of good self-help books out there. But there's very likely way more crap ones out there from armchair psychologists

[lstodd]

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.

[digitaltrees]

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.

[lstodd]

> Academic literature isn't written to be applied.

Thank you. You made my point.

[senordevnyc]

Yes, because the PhDs in those fields famously have their lives all figured out and are extremely happy and successful at everything.

[lstodd]

It's your life. To the left there is the tank for those like you. Please jump.

[senordevnyc]

lol, seems like people struck a nerve. I’d assume all your study would have given you more equanimity. Might be time for a self help book.

[paulryanrogers]

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.

[digitaltrees]

That's an unfortunate experience, sorry to hear that. I think skepticism is healthy. Experimentation is a more effective position that faith in experts.

[alberto467]

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.

[toasty228]

You know it's a cult when you can't tell if it's an erowid LSD trip report conclusion or a comment about the self-help community

[breezybottom]

Well grifters can also be marks. It sounds like you're both.

[digitaltrees]

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.

[JackFr]

> limit your availability to effectuate your will in the world.

It might limit his ability to effect his will in the world, but I see his availability as unchanged.

[digitaltrees]

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.

[altmanaltman]

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.

[coliveira]

> That being said. I thought it was a funny comment.

This is very passive aggressive. You should think about how you communicate to people.

[DrewADesign]

Not if that boorish behavior alienated their administrative assistant.

[digitaltrees]

Thanks for proof reading for me.

[breezybottom]

That's fine, but at least I don't sound like a Linkedin serial entrepreneur.

[digitaltrees]

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.

[breezybottom]

Maybe, but you're gullible enough to buy self-help books, so you'll probably lose any money you make in a crypto scheme.

[digitaltrees]

Like Paul Graham or dalton Caldwell or half of YC? We are all serial entrepreneurs

[breezybottom]

I guess the prompt engineer thing didn't work out huh

[chrisweekly]

I think you're arguing with a trollbot

[rimliu]

too much sugar is never healthy.

[an0malous]

> it’s just a network of individuals selling products, promoting each other’s products, and creating new avenues to sell more products

I've got some bad news for you about the SaaS industry

[gdhkgdhkvff]

Considering he named it “the Tim Ferris mafia” makes me think he’s fully aware of that.

[watwut]

The sooner people realize that, the better.

[curuinor]

Dale Carnegie created it, Tim Ferriss is a century too late to point as origin.

[lanamo]

Or you could say in other words: Everything is a remix!

Dale Carnegie and Steven Covey have both been heavily influenced by Alfred Adler, the Austrian psychotherapist and founder of individual psychology.

[ransom1538]

Dale Carnegie -> Jim Rohn -> Tony Robbins -> [all hacks now]

[adamtaylor_13]

It is wild to me that people consider Dale Carnegie and Tony Robbins in the same boat. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie completely changed how I communicate with people, for the better.

For nerds (like me) who think data and statistics are the way to persuade people, you're doing yourself a disservice by ignoring the truth. Lots of people think sales are icky, but much of life is influenced by your ability to persuade and sell, even yourself, to others.

[curuinor]

the man leveraged the fact that his name was the same as Andrew Carnegie (having no relation) to launch a publishing empire. it was hacks from the beginning

[MengerSponge]

Highly recommend "If Books Could Kill"

https://bsky.app/profile/ifbookspod.bsky.social

It really is all the same book.

[ctoa]

The very first thing I did when coming to this thread was search for if someone had already mentioned "one book theory". My favorite episodes of IBCK are mostly the self-help trash.

[sharadov]

All the writers that I love to hate - hariri, gladwell! Will give it a listen

[sanswork]

I wanted to love it since despite being a self help reader I can definitely see a lot of the bad/dangerous advice given all over the place but I often found them really stretching to make stuff negative and being very smug about it which just made it the same issue as the source material. Especially annoying since in most cases there were really solidly valid negatives to go after in the books. It's very much a lets build a straw man then tear it down podcast.

[xKingfisher]

Even worse he changed his name from Carnagey, presumably to deliberately cause confusion.

[dzonga]

people in tech i.e engineers discount sales - but damn the book by Caldini - Influence & Jim Rohn In terms of sales training - help a lot.

[tiahura]

Robbins is much more an unintentional heir to Sartre (ducks) than Carnegie.

[HatchedLake721]

Why is Tony Robbins a hack?

[anitil]

I think calling these people 'hacks' is not quite the right word. They're very good at what they do, it's just a lot of people don't like or don't value what they do. I actually have a fair bit of respect for their craft (the ability to draw attention and turn that attention in to customers) even if I feel like what they're selling is fake, or fake-adjacent

[senordevnyc]

Why can’t you go back to things like Meditations? Or Proverbs in the Old Testament?

It’s almost like the designation of “self help” is so broad as to be totally useless.

[Cthulhu_]

I can't stop referring to the irony that the gist of "the 4-hour work week" is to write a book about working only 4 hours a week.

But also pretty much all of the self-help books I've read can be summarized in a few paragraphs, that is, a blog post. The rest is repetition or examples. Which are important for learning and understanding, I suppose, but when an AI can both tell you the gist of it while applying it directly to your current situation, they can't compete.

[wyclif]

Tim Ferriss has been called out on these "ironies" for years now: https://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/01/08/5-time-management-...

[NeutralCrane]

The repetition and examples aren’t there for learning. They are there for monetization.

This is my biggest issue with the self-help industry. There is a lot of self-help books out there with ideas that are genuinely valuable, or at least worth considering. But as you say, the entirety of the idea can be conveyed perfectly well in a blog post. But you can’t sell a blog post. So it has to be padded out with cruft into a book length publication that can be sold to people.

That’s how AI undermines the industry. It has those general ideas and can convey them in the simplistic, cruftless versions that are most helpful, and can iterate back and forth with someone on applications to their own life.

[vld_chk]

I do not have data, but from first glance, if anything, the overall demand for self-help and self-improvement increases Y/Y. We can correlate it with a sharp drop in alcohol sales, or raising revenues of therapy industry or fitness industry. YT and podcasts still looming too.

But the form of books … Yes, by some reason it collapses. I personally attribute it not to “people realise those guys are salesmen”, but with the fact that none of really good ideas were produced by such books for a while. Now anyone who really has a new angle or new idea to say — they go straight to YT/podcasts, bypassing writing a book altogether. Because of this, me personally, when I check bookshelves, do not see any really new or interesting idea published in the field.

[mcmoor]

I'm curious how correlated they are to decline of books in general

[throwaway2037]

Your comment gave me an idea. First, start with this assumption: Self-help is "someone trying to sell an idea that may improve your life (health, business/wealth, relationships)". Second, consider the mediums that we use to sell self-help. Traditionally, it was in-person/live events. Basically, 100 to 1000 people sit in a big room and listen to a person talk on stage. Usually, there is some Q&A, raise your hands for voting, etc. Now think about the revenue side: How do you scale that business? Publish a book with the same ideas. The in-person events create a personal brand, and books help you scale the business.

Next, consider the mediums for selling self-help: (1) in-person events, (2) books, (3) YouTube. (1) scales the least, but has the highest branding building effect. (2) scales medium, because it costs money for the customer to buy the book. (3) scales infinitely, because it is nearly free. Further, the most financially successful YouTubers first build a personal brand, then begin sell product placement by sponsorships. Further, they also begin selling "merch" (channel merchandise). That is the real gold mine of YouTube. Even sponsonships for most channels with less than one million subscribers pales in comparison to selling "merch".

About (1) (2) and (3) above, I would say that humans are usually more influenced by [the most] (1) seeing a person live, [next most] (3) seeing a person on video, and [the least] (2) reading their book. Thus, it seems logical that YouTube will replace books for self-help.

Without reading the article, my first instinct (after writing the above) is that self-help books are not being replaced with AI/LLMs. Instead, they are being replaced by self-help YouTube channels.

[raincole]

Self-help industry is something that literally can't die. It's in the same category as astrology and technical analysis.

[throwaway2037]

    > starting to realize

You think people didn't know the same in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, 00s, etc? Related: Every single diet fad in the last 50 years (except GLP-1) did not work. Yet, many people continue to buy into every new diet fad.

[arethuza]

"It’s just a network of individuals selling products, promoting each other’s products, and creating new avenues to sell more products"

That's hardly unique to the self-help world - doesn't a lot of tech also fall into that category?

[ElProlactin]

If you're looking for self-help, why would you read a book written by somebody else?

- George Carlin

[mettamage]

For real? Because certain people might know things about the way the world works that could help you?

[darth_avocado]

Also personally, my self help consumption (across all media) has been dropping lately. Part of it is that quality of content has been worsening over the years. But the part that’s put me off the most is the general burnout I’m facing in life: professional stagnation, uncertain future (will I be employed in a year?), more work, financial pressure, politics upending my life directly etc. Funnily enough I’ve started consuming more content around hobbies, crafts and other fun stuff, which the blog mentions was one of the only two categories that saw growth in sales.

I wonder if that is a reason for the decline rather than AI.

[throwaway2037]

    > my self help consumption (across all media) has been dropping lately

I want to propose an alternative theory about why your viewership is dropping. Whatever made you originally watch self-help on a particular topic is no longer as interesting. Let's say you were struggling with (a) exercise/fitness/diet, (b) personal/romantic relationships, or (c) business/"success"/wealth. (These are easily the three biggest categories for self-help.) You watched a few hundred hours of self-help YouTube videos over a few years and you learned how to improve. Now, the content is less interesting.

I share this idea because I see a similar pattern in myself. For the self-help YouTube videos that I do watch, I am/was most interested in (a) exercise/fitness/diet and (b) personal/romantic relationships. After 1000 hours or so of this sort of content, I learned how to improve and "ascended". Now, I don't need to watch as much because my thinking on these topics is more advanced.

Deeper: How will these channels sustain themselves? It does not look obvious to me! If I were running a self-help channel, I might intentionally delete old videos after 6-12 months. Why? So that I can remake the same content again (and again)... to get a revenue boost from new(er) viewers. For anyone who is a full-time self-help content creator, probably 90% of the revenue is made in the first 30 days. (Wild guess, but there will be an extreme cliff of some sort.)

[protocolture]

Yeah I got a free medical "coach" and the coaching was sub par, and mostly used to try and press me into non free services.

A lot of those non free services seemed to involve very poorly written and syndicated coaching apps.

[rapidfl]

This is a good point. If there was timeless material, they would continue to sell. Maybe War of Art or Meditations still continue to sell. Deep Work is a joke.

[XCSme]

Kind of, the 4-hour work workweek was one of the first book's I've read (I started late, was never interested), and it had many good insights that lead to me living a freer and more fulfilling life, that I might have not done otherwise.

Sure, you don't need to read an entire book to get the idea to do something, but that's way in which ideas get into your head and consciously or not, guide your steps in certain directions.

Of course, everything in self-help books should be taken with a grain of salt and also applied differently for each individual. It's just a way to get more ideas of what's possible, similar to travelling: it doesn't force you to do things in a certain way, it just shows you what's out there.

[piltdownman]

There's an influencer self-help industry, and then there's the likes of Alain De Botton whose output like 'How Proust Can Change Your Life' firmly sits in the self-help arena. Important to distinguish the two imo.

[wang_li]

Self help is just education from a book rather than from an in person instructor.

[wouldbecouldbe]

I just don't see it changing, people don't buy knowledge, they pay for trust and authority. It's already been for decades that you could find every workout & workout program for free online or youtube. Yet people decided to buy anyway, because they trust that that person is right, and perhaps they tried the free stuff before and it didnt work (not because it wasn't correct, but because they didn't stick to it)

[throwaway27448]

Is this really a new revelation?

Anyway, "self help" is still one of the largest sections at my local barnes and noble—certainly by far the largest non-fiction section.

[mmahemoff]

Why now though? Based on the sharp decline since 2022 (according to Ferris’s numbers), s/books/chatbots seems like the Occam’s Razor explanation here.

[Razengan]

> the self-help industry

About 15 years ago my friend showed me this video of a "self-help" guy he was impressed with and inspired by.

..it was over 30 minutes of rambling that sounded like it makes senses but meant nothing and lead nowhere.

Looking back it was like listening to how early LLMs were: Just long strings of random words and vague sentences without actually saying anything.

Or how Saruman's power of the tongue was described as.

It's depressing and obvious to see how many people could be misled by this kind of charlatanism.

AI if done right could cut a lot of crap from human society.

[Quarrelsome]

you've giving people way too much credit here. People never start to realise en-masse.

[dimitrios1]

Not to be a contrarian, because I agree for a lot of the industry, but there are some genuine gems out there. Few examples:

Extreme Ownership really helped me be a better leader and take more accountability for my own actions

Atomic Habits really helped me think about goal setting and what the underlying driver was

Coaching Habit improved my 1:1s drastically (I basically stopped talking or advice giving and just listened -- profound, I know, but the book helped smack me in the face with it)

Many more examples, but there is definitely a ton of self-help hack slop out there as well.

[nephihaha]

I'd agree with that. A lot of rubbish is out there, but there are some helpful things. Even the Law of Attraction can be helpful if viewed through the lens of positive thinking (i.e. you can handle bad situations better if you are in a good frame of mind which will make your life better.)

[digitaltrees]

Totally agree. So many people talk when they should listen.

[doctaj]

Yeah I trust nothing. I listened to a hubermanlab podcast and found myself using AI to take a first pass at verifying claims he was making, but everything he suggested was complete bull crap.

[627467]

A self-help movement worth their reputation is one that sells more than a book. In fact many give away the book and then charge you a sub for being part of a club

[PatronBernard]

I'd say it's just moved from books to influencers on social media. Still plenty of money in misleading vulnerable people.

[teekert]

Yeah, there is just too much Tony Robbins referring to cells living of light in some jar linked directly to your work productivity (and thousands of other debunked BS "facts"). The levels of coaches for coaches for coaches for coaches on LinkedIn is approaching levels that shouldn't even be possible. I feel like almost everything about this topic has been said, but the amount of things being said is increasing exponentially, and it's all coming out of thin air. Like an LLM expanding the current body of work.

I for one used to enjoy such books but have turned more to mind-fuck scifi (i.e. I keep hunting for the Ted Chiang level books, although they are also very rare). I find meaning in those.

[thomassmith65]

There was a self-help industry long before Tim Ferriss.

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" is still popular today. Dale Carnegie wrote it in 1936.

Back in the '80s and '90s Tony Robbins infuriated millions of North Americans by spamming late television with his obnoxious self-help infomercials: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gUczh_vsRUI

As long as there have been dissatisfied people, there probably has been someone promising to be a deus ex macchina with the secret to turn their lives around.

[kevin_thibedeau]

This isn't a new phenomenon. Tony Robbins was doing this 40+ years ago.

[tiahura]

* Tim Ferriss kind of created it.*

There’s literally 100 years of self-help books before, who?

[tbmtbmtbmtbmtbm]

Then you could frame the collapse of this writer's book as a 'hit'

[mannanj]

this self help industry completely reversed my diabetes, brought my adventure and satisfaction, and let me to making the best friends of my life.

maybe you are judging and dismissing something with prejudice?

[HPsquared]

This description fits a LOT of economic activity in general.

[1-6]

OP is describing Dave Ramsey

[dartharva]

Tim Ferris? Bro humanity has invented religion that served exactly this purpose long since before it even invented the wheel.

[enos_feedler]

Unless you have hard proof this is occurring then I would rather believe my own and others positive testimony on self help. Its powerful and relatively affordable if you are committed to making changes in your own life. Is good advice. Authentic stories (generally). I am just grateful that people take the time and effort to reflect and encode their experience into something digestible by others. It’s pretty cynical to have your view.