Success! You Can Be Anything That You Want! How I Got Disillusioned by Motivational Material and Speakers and With Some Self-help Books and Material.

I am very fortunate, but also permanently worried, that my brain is a super-class knowledge-seeking dynamo, high capacity-learning and knowledge acquisition machine, a prolific idea-working, fun-loving, creative fireplace and a super-intuitive, solutions-generating and problem-solving engine.

Delving into subjects beyond my formal education has always been part of my life. As early as my Cambridge Advanced Level studies where you are narrowed down to studying four subjects at most, I always did some extra reading in other disciplines that I liked especially psychology, philosophy, literature and anything to do with thinking and "life strategies." Even when I went to university the habit never left me including when I was doing my Master of Science degree, reading books in other subjects was part of how I "relaxed and rested."

So when I finished my Master of Science degree, I found myself with loads of free time so I filled the time with more reading. Apart from these other practical subjects, I fell deep into self-help and motivational and self-help stuff.

You see, after going through a lot of this motivational self-help stuff, I realise that there are different types of self-help and motivational versions. There is the good and practical versions and the useless, hype, misleading and even dangerous versions. It is very important to know the difference so that you do not go down a path that lead nowhere.

When I started in this area, I never thought about it this way. I thought that any and every self-help book or self-help and motivational material was good, useful and productive.

Some motivational and self-help material is pure fluff while some is misleading. Let me explain with examples of the following statements;

1.???? You can be anything that you want to be

2.???? Vivid imagination is all you need to achieve any goal or manifest any dream

3.???? Passion is all you need to achieve any goal

4.???? The solution to achieving any goal or solving any problem is found in this one book.

5.???? If you do just this one thing you will be successful or solve this problem or realise that dream.

6.???? Life is straight forward and if you have enough of this or of that they you will not face problems and you solve all of your problems

7.???? ?There is this one secret that you must have for you to achieve this goal or solve this problem.

8.???? Success is hard

9.???? Success is easy

10.? This one person has a full solution to your problems

11.? Instant success

12.? Quick fix solutions

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Some of the statements and assertions forwarded by self-help people and motivation people are valid but they are only partial solutions, not full solutions.

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Some motivational speaking and motivational material is practical and produces results; some of it is delusional and creates a lot of belief in things that cannot be achieved by the person to whom the motivation is targeted.

A good number self-help and motivational gurus and speakers are there to con people of their money by taking advantage of people’s gullibility. They make people pay large sums of money to give you “the secret” that you need to solve this problem or to achieve that goal, for example to be very rich.

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You will realise after paying large sums of money that you bought hot air. Fortunately, most of the people who pay these large sums of money can afford to do so and their loss has no financial impact on their lives because they already have a lot of money or cash anyway.

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Have you noticed that a lot of people in self-help and motivational people who talk about helping people to achieve financial success charge a lot of money? They want their potential clients to pay large sums of money, as much as four-figure United States Dollar sums.

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I am not talking about people who are talking about business or marketing or sales but those who promise success through some elusive means such as using “a secret formula” or changing something.

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When you get deep into self-help and the wrong type of “motivation” you get hooked and start believing it so much that you ignore common sense solutions. The stuff can be very addictive and can take you way from real life where you have to do real life things to succeed and achieve your goals.

?Motivation and self-help are important. However, they are not a replacement of other forms of effort and resources needed to achieve goals, manifest dreams and solve problems. It is important to be as practical as possible and to understand the environment in which you live. What works in one area does not always work in other areas. For example, Africa is very different from Europe, America and Oceania in terms of culture, economy and environment.

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??Simon Bere, 2024