The SHAM Report

Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless

Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless

I’ve talked a lot about this book and Steve Salerno’s SHAMblog and I just now finished reading it. (I thought I had ordered the book before, but apparently never did.) It’s an insightful look into today’s self-help market (and market is precisely the right word - according to Steve).

He looks at the BIG self-help gurus like Tony Robbins, Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura Schlesinger, the sports-think crowd like motivational speaker Tommy Lasorda, and the felon turned motivational speaker type (along with a few others).


Now I have a my own collection of self-help books and tapes (no Dr. Phil though, I can’t stand the way he writes, and no Dr. Laura, I can’t stand what she writes), but I have become disillusioned with them lately - frankly because they haven’t delivered what they promised.

I know, I know, it’s probably all my fault: I didn’t do all the stuff or I didn’t do it all correctly. Maybe I didn’t have enough passion or set strong enough goals. Maybe I tried too hard or not hard enough. Maybe if I paid them hundreds of dollars for their private coaching or seminar I could get it right.

Nope, I am not going to try it. I’m tired of trying to make things happen. Once I let go of all that failure and not being good enough I felt a lot better - less stress, more relaxed, and able to enjoy what I am doing.

There was an interesting study about Oprah and stress featured in the book which I will comment about in a later post.

Andy Wibbels made a comment on his blog this morning about the movie “The Secret.” Here’s part of what Andy says (read his whole post, you’ll like it):

The Secret is the law of abundance. Or the principles of attraction or whatever we’re calling it this week. The old adage of “Think of stuff - get stuff.” Rapid-fire testimonials from our cadre of experts include things like a gay man attracting abuse by homophobes and a guy who suddenly gets checks for money in the mail (with absolutely no context to how this happened).

I don’t deny the amazing power of the human body and the human mind and the human spirit/soul/whatevah. I find the whole movie a bit unnerving. I think what irks me is all ‘the trappings’ put around this abundance stuff - the idea that meditating on the results you want focuses your attention on achieving results and forwarding action and momentum - none of this is new or secret or strange. But it is wrapped around this core of ‘THINK THIS - GET STUFF’.

I almost feel like the suffix should be ‘and then you work your ass off.’ That always gets left out of the picture - yes you do work you love - you attract the things you need and then… You Work Your Ass Off.



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3 Responses to “The SHAM Report”

  1. mary Says:
    July 20th, 2006 at 6:57 am

    I know you said you didn’t like Dr. Laura, I assume because of her very strong stance on morals and good vs evil. But her book “bad childhood, good life” is excellent. It is a self help in a way as it helps people who as children were hurt by the bad people (often their parents) move on with life and not get stuck in a victims syndrome. I have given each kid “10 stupid things women (or men) do to mess up thier lives” at graduation. It is very down to earth advice on how to cause yourself and those around you the least amount of pain and stress during your life time. You can’t stop what happens to you, but you can stop yourself from doing a lot of things.

    love
    Mary
    (hey is Dave Ramsey self help? I love him and we are debt free with our 6months of living expenses in the bank, except the house. We have to wait until we finishing paying for the kids, I mean college tuition for that to happen)
    See not all self help is bad.

  2. Theresa Says:
    July 20th, 2006 at 10:42 am

    I view Dave Ramsey mor as practical advice because there is no woo woo involved - his advice is concrete not think positive thoughts about your finances and they will improve and if they don’t it’s not my fault, you didn’t think hard enough. His stuff is something anyone can do if they want to - pay off bills, put money in the bank, etc.

    Dr. Laura rubs me the wrong way. I used to listen to her on my commute because she came on right after something else I listened to. I thought she was rude at best and at times downright obnoxious. She had a tendency to not really listen to what the people were saying and jump in with her agenda. I found myself shouting back at her - “That’s not what she said. That’s not what he meant.” Then I knew I just had to turn the radio off when she came on - why ruin my day and put myself in a bad mood wheh I had the choice whether to listen to her or not.

    Then I discovered books on tape and that put an end to my radio listening. Mmmmm….books.

  3. mary Says:
    July 20th, 2006 at 6:57 pm

    I love how Dave puts it “financial advice your grandmother would give you but we keep your teeth in” He does ask you to do things for mental reasons though. Not what a normal financial counselor would say. Like don’t worry about paying off your highest APR first, start with the smallest and kill it off. Then work on the next one. Don’t consolidate dept, sell a car even if you will end up with an upside down loan. etc. He does ask you to be very intense with debt, deliver pizza at night, sell your stuff, sell the kids (oh no not that)It is a lot of “mental” attitude adjustments that I think might fall in the self help in a good way. I love to read Dr. Laura, but I agree she can be abrasive on the air. But I love her stance on ALWAYS putting kids first, no matter what mistakes the adults make and I can’t believe what people call her up for. I mean don’t they listen to the show, how can they be surprised when she tells them what they don’t want to hear when that is who she is and she tells everyone the same thing. Gluttons for punishment I guess.

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