Stop Looking, Self-Help Cannot Save You

Bookshop shelves groan with self-help books.

As you browse, the words blend into one another as they smilingly, eerily tell you about the seven subtle habits of thinking and growing positive about the rules of winning friends and getting into flow to influence grit and become happy after changing your mindset by meditating and doing hard things only after getting good sleep to fuel creativity to think big and become an outlier that only works 4 hours a week.

Selling for $20 a pop. What a bargain.

Tim Ferriss has this brilliant question he frequently asks his podcast guests. If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it—metaphorically speaking, getting a message out to millions or billions—what would it say and why?

My billboard would proclaim:

The grass is greener on the next page

"Learning more is the most seductive form of procrastination. Planning more is the second most." - Mark Manson

Have you noticed the astonishing number of people who know exactly how to fix you? Books, seminars, online courses, podcasts, blogs, coaching, and keynote speakers all offer the antidote to your problems. It pays extremely well to sell that fix. In fact, the self-help industry's global market value was estimated at 48.4 billion dollars¹ in 2024. The business model runs on a disturbingly simple slogan: make them feel dissatisfied. We're assaulted with pressure to examine every corner of our lives. Gurus, influencers and hustle bros parade their success, productivity and curated inner peace. We compare.

Why don't I have that? What's wrong with me?

Then, the discontent is monetised. Buy this book, sign up for that course, and then you'll unlock the secrets to a happy life. The biggest threat to the self-help industry is for you to feel content. Imagine you were the CEO of Self-Help Media Inc., a fictitious company behind every motivational video, pop-psych book, and morning routine influencer on Earth. Ask yourself, what's better for business, a customer who feels empowered to act or the one who’s always chasing the next life hack? This pursuit isn't accidental. It’s a meticulously designed addiction loop. A dopamine drip dressed as personal growth.

Buying the book feels productive. You get that short-term hit of motivation. Reading gives you the illusion of progress. Why clean your house when you can read about Marie Kondo's perfect method to do it? Even better, why bother reading if instead you can just tell your friends about the amazing book? You get to look smart and productive with zero effort.

I think a lot about this cycle and why we get so easily trapped in it. I've settled on two main reasons:

1. Good advice that genuinely helps does exist. But at some point, a lot of it became a watered-down echo of things already said. Still, when hundreds of new titles promise breakthroughs, we assume they must contain something novel. They promise a science-backed approach to success, wealth and happiness that comes with an app and a subscription.

2. The alternative is sobering. If all the good advice has already been said, we are faced with a tough reality. We might already know everything we need to know. It's hard to accept, because absorbing advice feels safer than acting on it. When we realise there are no easy answers, no quick fixes or hacks, all that remains is the Work.

It boils down to a belief implanted in us that we need theory to do something. Study before you take the test. Get the degree before doing the job. Naturally, you need to read the self-help book to live a good life. The problem is that this isn't entirely wrong. Humans thrive because we learn from each other. We can avoid a mistake we've seen someone else make. We can pass down knowledge and benefit from what others figured out the hard way.

The wisdom lies in recognising when you know enough to start. Most of what's out there is time-tested wisdom cleverly packaged as novel advice. Once you realise the difference, you're free. Free of the fear that there is more to seek. Free to start doing the Work.

Certainty sells. Complex science doesn’t.

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman

Science is a beautiful, messy brawl with reality. At its core, it's an ongoing process of questioning, not dogma. It’s a tool to poke at reality and see what holds up. The best scientists are sceptics, not preachers. Yet, science is often used as a shiny bumper sticker, especially in pop psychology, where flimsy studies fuel TED Talks and your co-worker’s cold-shower obsession. The problem isn’t science—it’s how it’s twisted to sell simple answers to complex problems. Let’s unpack an example.

Red wine is often promoted as heart-healthy due to its resveratrol, a compound found in grapes that has proven cardiovascular benefits², as claimed, for example, by the article The Scientific Studies Showing The Health Benefit of Wine. Sounds good, right? Well, if you dig a bit deeper you'll find that between 1.5 to 2.5 grams resveratrol is needed to gain the health benefits from it. A glass of Pinot Noir contains around 3.5mg per litre³. That's 3,432 glasses a day to reach 1.5 grams. You’d be dead long before your arteries thanked you.

The formula for bad science works like this: resveratrol is good → wine has resveratrol → wine is good. It’s neat, persuasive, and untrue.

Take the classic Marshmallow Test to see the sleight-of-hand in action. Originating in the 1960s, it suggested kids who could resist eating a marshmallow until they receive a second one later were destined for success. Parents started testing their own kids to spot future CEOs. But a 2018 study⁴ found the link between willpower and success was weak. They couldn't replicate the original findings. The far stronger predictors were parental income and home environment. Maybe some of the kids didn’t wait because they were hungry. Or because they’d learnt adults don’t keep promises. Despite this, the study remains remarkably common in popular culture. The simple narrative—self-control leads to success—is too seductive to die.

This isn't anecdotal. A landmark 2015 study found that out of 100 popular psychology studies, only 36% of them, including behavioural ones, held up when retested⁵. Over half the "game-changing" breakthroughs you hear about might be noise. I don't believe researchers are trying to scam us. They’re navigating a messy web of human variables. But sensational findings hit headlines before they’re vetted, and the self-help industry turns them into the next big thing. Not all pop psychology is bunk, but many won’t survive a second test.

This isn’t an attack on science but a warning on certainty, especially when it’s packaged to sell. Your grandmother's advice didn’t need a study. It survived war, heartbreak, recessions, and raising three kids on less than your coffee budget. It’s not always sexy, but it’s durable. And in a chaotic world, durability is underrated. Trust what’s endured.

Knowledge is to skill what fat is to muscle

"Knowledge is useful when applied, but over-accumulated for its own sake is a burden." - Naval Ravikant

The world is drowning in information. It's never been easier to mistake hoarding knowledge for making progress. You can sit on the couch, scroll through threads, nod at a video, and feel smarter by osmosis. It feels like momentum, but it's not. The reality is that knowledge is fat, and skill is muscle. Fat accumulates easily. Muscle takes effort. Nobody gets strong reading about deadlifts. Muscle, not fat, creates movement, just as skill, not mere information, creates sculptures or novels.

This isn’t entirely our fault. Our brains evolved to hoard scarce resources, like fat and knowledge. The modern world offers it in unlimited supply. The result is a mind overwhelmed and bogged down, unable to think clearly amidst the noise. Nothing moves. Snapping out of this means challenging the idea that all skill is preceded by theory. If mere knowledge were enough, we’d all be rich, flaunting six packs and emotionally bulletproof by now. Instead, we’re buried in advice, paralysed by options, and constantly planning to start on Monday.

If you haven't thought of the Roman Empire this week, allow me to help with that. The Romans built the Pantheon and aqueducts without knowing formal Euclidean mathematics. These structures are still standing today, yet they were architected and constructed long before the formal mathematics for complex engineering existed. This means a high school graduate has more mathematical knowledge than the ancient Romans, yet is none the wiser on how to build a Pantheon that lasts millennia.

The Romans relied on failure and iteration, developing heuristics of what worked, passed down through generations. What didn’t work, collapsed and was left behind. Nassim Taleb calls this 'know-how', the intuitive understanding gained from doing, as opposed to 'know-what', which is the abstract theory thereof.

They understood how to make arches stable, even if they couldn't write down the precise equations we use now. This distinction is important. It shows that practice can, and often does, precede theory. People do things, and only later does someone write a book explaining why it worked. You don’t need to understand fermentation chemistry to bake a great loaf of bread.

You just need to start baking.

Burn the blueprint

"A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." - John A. Shedd

Like many, I stumbled into the self-help aisle when I was young. I bought a provocative red and yellow book telling me I can win friends and influence people. I devoured its content and found that, surprisingly, much of it worked. But it didn't take long for the hunger to grow. If one book helped, wouldn't ten be better? Wouldn't fifty transform me entirely?

It won't. It's a beautiful, profitable lie.

The self-help industry needs your insecurity to offer its seductively comfortable product: a world where everything is figured out, digestible, packaged, and sold to you. It's begging you to believe that success means mimicking others—their routines, their reading lists, their five steps—hoping the magic rubs off. The thing is, advice for the masses rarely fits the individual. A stranger's mass-marketed words won't save you. You must internalise this fact. The real work is yours alone.

A friend once told me the story of how he got unstuck in his career. He wasn't happy, and unsure of his next move. Instead of buying another book, he did something much simpler. He asked his closest friends a simple question: "What do you think I'm better at than most people?" Today, he's thriving in a new business doing exactly what he's good at. I think it started with that one obvious, human thing: asking people he trusted what they saw in him.

Have you done that recently? I rarely do, often shying away from vulnerability. If we're brave enough, that’s where we'll find real guidance—not in a podcast episode, but in the words of someone who cares enough to tell you the truth.

Here's another truth: nobody really knows what they're doing. The people we admire aren’t necessarily smarter or started out with better resources. Mostly, they just had the courage to take the first step. Think about it. When was the last time you took a real risk? Many people live an entire life without taking a single risk. What else could possibly follow but an average life?

If you seek guidance, as we all do, look to those who have lived lives you truly admire. Not just financially successful lives, but lives of substance and quiet integrity. Look at their hands and their eyes, and if they’ve suffered well, they’ll have something worth sharing. There, you'll find advice worth hearing. If you read books, by all means do it. But choose the ones that outlived their authors. The ones still breathing after a century. Look for the ones people are still debating after decades.

Even then, the truth remains: you’ll have to figure this out yourself. You need to apply the advice you receive to make it worth something. It's easy to convince yourself you need more knowledge, more skill, more learning. It's fear dressed as rehearsal. Stop rehearsing. This is it.

There comes a moment—and perhaps it's this one—when the years of preparation must end. When the countless books, podcasts, and videos no longer serve you but begin to hold you back. When life must be reduced from its highly complex existence, with a thousand petty problems, to one of the barest simplicity. The moment when the noise fades, and only the doing remains.

The begging for permission is finished. The hypocrisy of knowing but not doing is over. The endless planning must give way to the simple act of beginning. That act alone carries you beyond the world of rehearsals, frustrations, and inanities.

And as you sail out of the safety of the harbour, when the noise falls away, what remains is startlingly clear: it was never possible to know enough.

The knowing only emerges in the doing. The clarity comes from movement. The theory becomes wisdom only after it meets reality. This truth—inconvenient to a billion-dollar industry built on endless preparation—is what awaits beyond the pages.

Put down the manual. Burn the blueprint. Step into the arena.

Footnotes

1. The Global Market Value of the self-help industry is estimated to be USD 48.4 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.7% from 2025 to 2030. ↩

2. What to know about resveratol ↩

3. Resveratrol, at Concentrations Attainable with Moderate Wine Consumption, Stimulates Human Platelet Nitric Oxide Production ↩

4. Watts et al., 2018 ↩

5. Open Science Collaboration, 2015 ↩

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Thanks to Mignon Duminy for reading drafts of this.

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