>> ^alien_concept:
I have never seen quite such a perfect example of someone trying to be everything they're not. It's like he's read a whole bunch of women's self help how-to-find-your-soulmate books and written a script from it. This guy made my ladybits spontaneously close over



Oh my goodness.

I liked the part about the ladybits moving every which way..

In reply to this comment by alien_concept:
I have never seen quite such a perfect example of someone trying to be everything they're not. It's like he's read a whole bunch of women's self help how-to-find-your-soulmate books and written a script from it. This guy made my ladybits spontaneously close over

I have never seen quite such a perfect example of someone trying to be everything they're not. It's like he's read a whole bunch of women's self help how-to-find-your-soulmate books and written a script from it. This guy made my ladybits spontaneously close over

you can be anything you want to be... but not in 2008.

i really dislike the "interactive discussion" format that encourages yelling out from the crowd and seems to characterize most speeches and rallies these days. it is that same "who's awesome? we're awesome" self-centered, self-help, (literally) flag-waving, greater-than-god groupthink mentality that has gotten us into nearly every embarrassing situation of the last decade. think like us or suffer our scorn.

how about no.

Some are so caught up in combating real pseudoscientific bullshit like acupuncture / homeopathy / the latest "natural cures" fad that they treat any challenge to the medical status quo as if it must be quackery. Just because something has been done for 150 years without most doctors realizing it was wrong, does not make it right. Leeches were used for 1000+ years, take that! Take no comfort in suckling on the teat of the majority dogma.

Rembar, how about that Swedish scientist who wrote the standard textbook on metal toxicology and consulted for the WHO, and helped get amalgam banned in Sweden? Did you watch far enough in this documentary to see him? Or did you skip the whole video as soon as you identified it as something contradicting your dogma?

I've got no problem if you remove actual pseudoscience, like homeopathy, astrology, acupuncture, 'creation science', chiropractors, raw foodism, diet fads, crystal healing, 95% of the self-help books ever written, and all the other bullshit from the Science channel. But this documentary definitely interviews many respectable practitioners of *science and is not bullshit.

Really good episode. First because of the realities that everyone has personal life issues, and that there are ways to affect real change, and second because these charlatans trying to sell solutions in a can (walking into friggin arrows!?) is bullshit. This video is downright disgusting with it.

For real self-help, stop and think about your life; really examine it. For years. Answers will come, with time. Get a library card in the meantime, if you need someone else's words.

Wow. Wow. I can't tell you how many times a week I sing these numbers to myself. It so reminds me of being a kid that it's an anxiety-killing magic bullet. Bet I could base a self-help seminar on this tune ( http://www.videosift.com/video/Penn-and-Teller-Bullshit-Self-Helpless )

Motivation itself is not enough. Motivation doesn't address the cost/benefit of what you end up choosing to do. Someone could end up becoming motivated towards becoming one of these self-help instructors, for example, and end up causing more harm than good despite thinking that they are doing good. Tony in Scarface was highly motivated to do something bad and he fucked up everything around him. Being motivated only magnifies the effects of what you're doing. It doesn't change what you're doing. The only thing that, on the average, leads to better results, is knowledge and reasoning skill. But where do people go for that? There are countless places to look, countless people you could turn to. Who is right and who is wrong? Somehow, you have to go and figure it out. School won't be enough, and most of us don't have parents with foresight enough to talk about credit cards and home buying and ethics and how things fundamentally work. We don't normally have parents who recognize and remember all the mistakes they made in the past so that you can avoid doing the same.

"I think you still have to be a fairly intelligent person, because your brain cannot work if it doesn't have any understanding of the simple stuff in life."

Intelligence is in part a biological condition, some people are able to learn faster, and understand complex ideas others can't grasp, while others struggle with material most people understand. That seems like a factor that could limit a person's success to me, its not something they can appreciably change. So how does that fit in with being able to do anything you put your mind to? Are they just as guaranteed to succeed as someone who is smarter? If there goal is to be smarter how much smarter can they be? Sounds like a situational factor to me, one that might limit chances for success.


"Also people who believe in theirselves, who are strongly rooted in their own reality can that way better affect other people around them."

I'd label this one 'under what costs'. I'd say George Bush is strongly rooted in his own reality, he's had a lot of success, he's rich, charismatic (in the way a macaque is charismatic)well connected, and president of one of the largest countries on the planet. You could argue he got there because he's rooted in his own reality, I'd also argue his strong roots in his own reality has caused some very big problems for vast amounts of people. Osama Bin Laden is strongly rooted in his own reality, and by some measure successful (he certainly seems to think he is), but to a lot of people he's a cancer that's killing society. I'd like to think ethics still has a place when achieving your goals.

I suppose I'm playing devil's advocate because I really do believe a person's ability to motivate themselves and be persistent can have a great effect on the direction in their life, and their progress towards their goals. But at the same time I don't think there are any guarantees, hell the only guarantee you'll ever get is that at some point you're going to die. There are things you can control in life and things you can't, sometimes things just don't work out (sometimes they work out great). I suppose the smart thing is to set goals that are within your limits, or the ability to recognize what is likely possible. The problem I frequently see (and probably amongst the self-help goers in the video) is that they set limits that are well below their actual ability, so the problem becomes not that they lack the ability to do something, but the belief that they can.


On a side note my book Ten Simple Steps to Demotivation isn't exactly flying off the bookshelves.

>> ^Crosswords:
I think the bullshit part of these self help seminars isn't the notion that people are unable to help themselves, or through attitude or behavioral changes make significant positive adjustments to their lives. I think the bullshit is the notion they're trying to pass off that you can do anything if you put your mind to it!


Well, it is truth actually. You can do practically anything if you have the motivational power and don't give up. Of course it excludes impossible things as flying, becoming a world champion at boxing at age 44 or becoming a model if you are ugly looking. However, if you have realistic goals, for example, build a condo, buy a lamborgini or become very professional at something you are just good at. With huge effort+willpower+mind state+self hypnosis you can attain any almost any goal you want. The problem is - a lot of people can't motivate themselves, they don't have enough willpower, they give up easely and then they deside they have to pay for this simple information you can find practically anywhere.

BTW - That self hypnosis thing is not bullshit, I've tried it and it works. You can somehow hack your subcosncious mind to be in the positive state and it will come out and you will be another person. I didn't pay for it tho' (read: torrent shop).

I think the bullshit part of these self help seminars isn't the notion that people are unable to help themselves, or through attitude or behavioral changes make significant positive adjustments to their lives. I think the bullshit is the notion they're trying to pass off that you can do anything if you put your mind to it! Not to mention their motivation appears to be based of slogans and gimmicks. While slogans and gimmicks may have some place in all of this, at some point you actually have to address the person's problems, otherwise they're always going to be at issue.

yea, i always get the impression that the type of stuff these "self help" guides say is pretty much what you'd expect a friend to say. For some reason when people pay for advice they assume the information given is of value.

I agree that certain aspects of the self-help market are absolute BS, but as I can attest, it does work. I've been a long time advocate of Tony Robbins (or at least only his Personal Power II series, which is the only one of his seminars I've ever listened to). 5 years ago my life was a mess, I was overweight, I was a *severe* video game addict, I was breaking up with my girlfriend of 8 years, and I wasted my 20's not really doing anything constructive with my life.

Today, I'm on my way to getting my BA in Theater, I have a 4.0 GPA, I'm starting Improv classes, no longer addicted, I'm losing weight and I've got a great job. It may not work for everyone and everyone may not agree with it, but it works for me. You just have to be smart about it.

Geez... "How to be a Narcissist" Lovely.

To be fair, that's what an awful lot of 'self help' books boil down to. Matthews does have a point in that it probably is effective but only in a purely superficial-goal oriented lifestyle. I haven't read it, and I wouldn't be surprised if it actually deals with the various philosophical ramifications of that viewpoint, but geez... I pitty the person who takes that seriously.

It really is representative of all that's gone wrong with American values.

lol I had to pause this video to see if I SOMEHOW opened a self-help video somewhere else without knowing

...trickeration!