Success: Do You Really Need Someone to Change Your Life?

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

I recently sat in on a video call with an author who had just written a book that he said would lead to ultimate success.

Everyone on that call was pumped up. As the author was hoping, people were accepting his special offer and buying books. I felt good for everyone. But at the same time, I was wondering whether that author’s ideas would still be working their magic in six months, in a year, or further into the future. It might be, or it might not. As you know, few ideas really stand the test of time.

You can probably name some of the books that gave birth to truly durable ideas, like Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, and possibly Stephen R. Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Maybe there is no downside to reading every new book from every new guru, accepting every idea, trying everything, and waiting to see what “sticks.” I don’t know. That seems to eat up an awful lot of time, and maybe there is a better way.

A Bit of Context

I have been kind of hanging around the motivational, self-help world for nearly 40 years. For more than a year, I attended services at Norman Vincent Peale’s Marble Collegiate Church in New York, where I heard him talk about positive thinking. He was a great speaker, with razor-fine comic timing. Next, I went on to write two spiritual/motivational books with Dr. Arthur Caliandro, the wonderful minister who took over from Dr. Peale there. I also wrote and co-wrote five or six self-help titles myself, including the Amazon Self-Help Bestseller Good Stress, Bad Stress. I was also the editor of several publications where I reviewed a steady stream of self-help books from would-be gurus. I got to meet and interview a lot of them, people like Stephen R. Covey. (I sat with him and his wife at the press intro for his Seven Habits book, when he was not all that well known, except in certain circles.) I also wrote and edited the blog for one person who became one of the most influential people in America. I can’t tell you who, because I am not allowed to.

I am not describing those experiences because I want to impress you. Believe me, I am not all that impressive. (My wife will back me up on that.) I am only telling you about those experiences to document the fact that I might have spent more time being exposed to self-help books than the average person has.

I have seen a lot of big ideas “stick” and a lot of others fade into memory. And if you are willing to consider a few suggestions (you don’t have to), here are some ideas that have risen to the top as I have been thinking about advice over the years.

Remember, You Are an Expert Too

Yes, you are. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay Self-Reliance, “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind,” That’s a pretty weighty statement that people have been trying to interpret since he wrote it in 1841.

I think Emerson was simply writing about relying on yourself, which I don’t think is very puzzling. If you add up your experiences and abilities and the things you do well, you will quickly discover that you don’t need a lot of advice in certain areas. You certainly don’t need a guru to tell you everything. You got where you are by doing a number of things exceptionally well.

So it might be a good idea, when deciding which advice will change your life and which will not, to identify the topics where you need advice, and the topics where you don’t. I have found, for example, that I need help in budgeting my finances and my time, but I don’t need help getting motivated to do my work. I have found that kind of add-and-subtract equation helps me direct my attention to where I need the most help and advice. That’s just a suggestion. As Emerson was saying, it is ultimately up to each of us.

Decide How You Will Accept or Reject Authorities

This can get personal. Call me a positive skeptic, but I have noticed that a lot of motivational authors and speakers really don’t have the kind of credentials that make me want to accept their advice. I’m willing to listen but for me, simply having high energy is not always a guru qualification. Neither is having achieved success in an unrelated field, at least not always. For example, not all football coaches or great athletes are qualified to tell people how to run a business or their lives, though some might be. Another thing I have seen – and this is surprising – is that people who have built extremely successful businesses are not necessarily able to tell me how to do it too. Some can, some can’t.

As another example, not all professors who teach at prestigious universities can necessarily tell me just what I need to know to do a better job of running my life. Though in general, I have found that if a smart person has really conducted research into his or her area of expertise, he or she will generally have something valuable and helpful to say about something. But that is just my view and of course, you can pick or reject your own authorities.

But Accept the Fact that We All Have Limitations

This idea might seem to contradict what I wrote just above – that we all have the authority to manage our lives well. But as for me, I have plenty of foibles and limitations, and I could doubtless operate at a much higher level if I understood them and did better.

For example, I let other people waste a lot of my time, because I want them to like me. I am actually quite a terrible boss, for similar reasons. I also am awful at budgeting and numbers. And if I got in the habit of sending out invoices to my clients at the start of every month, my whole financial situation would cause me less stress.

How can you identify where you need help? One way is to fill in the blank in the sentence, “I need help with _____.” Another way is to ask a close and trusted friend to comment on where you might be tripping yourself up. That might be a very good idea or a very bad one, so proceed with thoughtful caution.

It’s Complicated

This whole business of dealing with authorities is complex. I have noticed, for example, that there is a lot of hunger for experts today – the airwaves and the internet are chock full of people who have not done the hard work to become genuine authorities.

So, who do you let influence your life, and who to you reject? There are no simple, off-the-shelf answers to that. I don’t know the answer, but I do know one thing. It is a question that is worth considering.

Barry Lenson is an author, editor and journalist who has spent more than 40 years writing books, articles, blog posts and more.

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