Self Help Books are Effective

My second speech at Toastmaster's, Another best speaker ribbon :)


How many of you believe in the effectiveness of self help books???
So do i.

I was exposed to the world of self help books by my brother in law when I was in college. He handed me one on anger management because of my then infamous temper. Before I started reading the book I assumed it will right away tell me the solution for my problem
A well researched, effective but elusive solution like counting 1 to 100 backwards including the decimals or breath in and out six hundred and thirty seven times. But it was nothing as per my expectation.
It generally described the general demerits of short temper. It did not assume that the seeker of anger management book was already aware of them.
For any one who knows a short tempered person you would know they are short of patience too. By the end of the first page I was disappointment, end of second page agitated and furious by the end of third page.
I never went beyond the third page but I experienced my lack of patience first hand and realized what it meant. Yes the book helped me.

Probably because book helped me in a subtle and unexpected way, it took me many years and a rather desperate situation to seek help again from books

My first job was not going very well. The fact that I lived away from family added to the stress. I bought the best selling motivational and self help book of those times "you can win"
I read the book this time with the determination to finish it.
I was so determined not to miss the point, that I read with a pencil, ready to mark and underline the solution as soon as I found it.
I completed the book though without a single pencil mark. When I looked at the unmarked book, my first reaction was ‘wow!! I can reuse it by gifting it to someone’.
But then it dawned upon me that when I can come from work and read a self help book, which did not even seems to help me… I should rather show similar dedication to prepare for interview to get a new job.It worked.

In my humble opinion this is how the self help books help.
When someone identifies a need for them and decides to read them. This proves that there is an awareness with the problems
And solutions are easy … difficult to implement but in themselves very easy. To reduce weight “eat right and exercise”, for time management “prioritize” even the mantra for something as big as world peace is extremely straightforward “to live and let live” ….
So these books tease the readers by staying at the brim of the solution while again and again referencing the problem, so that the reader can find their shade of solution
May be that is why they call them self help. whichever way, but Self help books do help