Self-help is the opium of the masses.
The first time I came into contact with self-help was several years ago when I was in my early to mid-twenties. I was eating lunch by myself one day, watching YouTube to pass the time, when I stumbled onto this video. The video showed some mountain climbing stock footage while playing an audio lecture about how to get ahead in life. Essentially, the speaker argued for the value of education when climbing the ladder of success, the main message being that career progression is not just about working hard, it’s also about picking up the required knowledge and skills. At the time, I felt like I’d been holding onto my old teenage philosophies for a bit too long, and I wanted to add some nuance. So I liked the way that this speaker challenged some of my preconceptions. I found myself internally debating what he was saying: agreeing with some of his points, disagreeing with others.
Later, I looked him up and found that he used to be a motivational speaker from the 1970s and 1980s. Let’s call him George, even though that’s not his real name. There were several old videos online of him speaking on stage. Here’s what you’d usually see.
George stepped on stage wearing a dark grey business suit, matching dark grey tie and white shirt. It looked classy without being overly ostentatious and it fit him like a glove. Tailored more than likely. His hair had prematurely gone white, making him look like a grandfather in his seventies. The audience gave him a quick applause as he entered. The camera panned to show a packed audience. A handful seemed to be in their thirties, but most looked over fifty. All the men wore suits, the women were dressed more casually.
Like usual, he started off his speech with a joke. It went a little something like this:
‘Did you hear about the man who got hit in the head with a can of soda?’ George paused a beat. ‘He was lucky. It was a soft drink.’
The audience responded with nervous laughter. Not that it was all that funny, but they didn’t want to leave him hanging.
‘It gets better,’ George quickly added. ‘Don’t leave just yet!’
Now, the audience burst out in laughter.
If you think that line was improvised, you’d be mistaken. George had been in the business for decades by now and every part of his speech was practiced.
Then he started by telling his own personal story. Long story short, he was in his mid-twenties and not doing all that well in life, until he found a businessman willing to coach him, teaching him some new ideas and philosophies.
George continued by saying, ‘I’ll share some of those ideas with you tonight. You don’t have to buy them all. Take what makes sense and try it out.’
It’s not that George shared anything all that groundbreaking. He mostly talked common sense, but it was all in the delivery. He’d honed his voice like a fine-tuned instrument to the point that he could mesmerise his audience for the next four hours of his talk.
George was a strong proponent of goalsetting, which is what I did. I thought about some long lost dreams and set out to achieve them: getting fit and writing a novel. Each day I worked on reaching those goals and it felt almost intoxicating to see how I got closer one small step at a time. Eventually I achieved those goals and found that there was a lot of truth in the old saying: the journey is often better than the destination. Nevertheless, I’d proven that George’s philosophies had at least some merit. I wanted more, so I listened again and again to his speeches. After listening to him, I always felt motivated and driven, like I could conquer the world. But not much happened in reality. George mostly discussed general principles and left the rest of it up to the listener. I was fired up with nowhere to go.
Later, I learned why. The key was in the personal story he told every time he went up on stage. Let me reframe the story slightly. Somewhere in the 1950s, George had been invited to a sales pitch. Not for a product, but for the opportunity of selling products to others. Someone who had all the regalia of a businessman sold him on the opportunity of selling vitamins and supplements to others, a multilevel marketing scheme as it’s called. George joined the scheme and received some much-needed sales coaching by the businessman. He not only had to learn how to convince people to join, but he also needed to keep them motivated for them to stay. Fortunately, he’d caught the wave early and rode it all the way to the top. He made a fortune. Until it eventually crashed. He tried a few more multi-level businesses afterwards, and when that didn’t work, he eventually turned to motivational speaking. He took away the pitch for joining the organisation and kept everything else the same. So, no big surprise I felt fired up… with nowhere to go.
For a long while, I didn’t know what to do with that information. I still liked listening to George though, so I made all the excuses in the world for him. I’d tell myself that this happened back when door-to-door sales still was a thing and there is worse in the world than selling overpriced vitamins. I didn’t yet catch onto how these schemes actually worked: joining the scheme meant buying large quantities of product as a prerequisite before having made a single sale. I also didn’t yet fully understand the language games that were being played. How “success” is code for “rich”, how words like “the keys to…” implies quick and easy results, and how “getting more education” really means buying more self-help books and tapes, and parroting quotes to replace critical thinking.
Today, the 1980s motivational speaker has all but died out. Or so it seems. The truth is that self-help is everywhere nowadays: from business podcasts to manosphere YouTube channels. Even celebrities want in on the action, promising the keys to success. Arnold Schwarzenegger claims he has found the seven principles for good fortune, Steve Harvey turns into a motivational speaker, and Jimmy Carr becomes an oracle dishing out life advice. The names and the faces change, but they all share that same look in their eyes: they are all true believers, high on their own supply. Watch them deliver their speeches, and it’s hard not to feel a rush of excitement. Just keep in mind that these dealers of the self-help high are not in it for your benefit, and that if you dig deep enough, you may well find that there is more to their story than they’re sharing.
In the end, it’s not that self-help is a complete sham. It might even work some of the time, as it did for me. But more often than not, it leaves you chasing that same high long after it has worn off.