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Putting the Success Books On The Couch: Notes from Dr. Kevin Fleming
Written by: Kevin FlemingArticle Overview: The self-help industry and success books are a huge bestseller to the American public. Many of the points of the success gurus certainly "make sense". But are all things that make sense TRUE? Read on for this key distinction....
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Putting the Success Books On The Couch: Notes from Dr. Kevin Fleming
About 80% of my clients are in that population where information doesn’t change them. Telling, prodding, pointing out, pushing, convincing and outlining a plan doesn’t cut it— no matter how “right” the ideas are.
There are now 5,421 book titles on Amazon.com that have the “7 Secrets” in their title. Maybe the best way to create sustainable impact is to “shrink” the best success secrets down to actual reality; that is, to see what is more instrumental to change—the half truth that is silently on the other side of these quick tips. Ever try to bargain with one of those seven tips you read about? To see how you can keep one foot on one side of the fence doing something you don’t really want to change about yourself, while seeming to do the quick tip fix? If you have, then you’ve been bitten by a pseudo-attempt at transforming your life and potentially you could use a new paradigm. One that uncovers the half truth—the real key to change— that eludes the best of the best success-oriented books because it sits underneath mere information or advice, like a germ spreading and outwitting the best antibiotics.
In my research I’ve found that good habits form not just by practice, but by unlearning the illusionary aspect hidden beneath each well-intentioned tool. In every truth, there is a half-truth lurking and enticing one to believe that by doing the half-truth you are “basically” or “for the most part” doing what needs to be done. If you have a success book on your shelf, and its potential is gathering dust, maybe you need a model of unlearning, of behavior change not information—a book on un-learning your “would do’s” first in order to learn a new “should do.”
Below summarizes what I’ve seen in my executive coaching practice as the most common client-initiated factors in the beliefs about success—and then what I see as the half-truth that’s truly stopping one from reaching a personal or business goal.
SUCCESS FACTOR #1: Don’t Sit Around Wondering What to Do—Just Do It! Half-Truth: Search for the elements in your life where pro-activity has gotten the job done and use that as comfort for the reactive elements that you say you don’t need to look at now.
SUCCESS FACTOR #2: Have a Vision of the Endpoint in Mind Half-Truth: Define a vision in life, set goals, then accept your own early successes as evidence that it is your own goal and standard of success, that you are on your track, not that of someone else (parent, spouse, advisor, or for that matter a career professional).
SUCCESS FACTOR #3: Make Your Pile of Priorities Half-Truth: Get jazzed that because you’ve graphed your urgency and importance matrix, then you’ve adequately addressed time management effectively, while ignoring that many of your perceptions for each factor actually come from reactive parts of your brain (thereby violating Success Factor #1).
SUCCESS FACTOR #4: Smart Negotiations of a “Big Picture” Type (Win/Win) Half-Truth: Because conflict sucks, reinforce the belief that your solution truly is a win/win and not just a rationalization that someone actually does “lose.”
SUCCESS FACTOR #5: Get a Deep 360-Like, Self-Detached Understanding of the Other Position Half-Truth: Seek to understand but do so as a technique and hope that the other party won’t see that you’re using empathy so strategically that you’ve become inauthentic.
SUCCESS FACTOR #6: Brainstorm Non-Defensively/Creative Solutions Half-Truth: Brainstorm beyond reactive “gut” solutions until you are utterly convinced that you are co-creating an “optimal solution” and not one of mere compliance.
SUCCESS FACTOR #7: Seek Enlightenment Half-Truth: Get so caught up in the mechanics of self-development that this turns into narcissistic self-absorption. If one could really connect with these half truths, one is for sure on their way to success—the kind that lasts. The kind that is real, not the kind that you want it to be.
Reprinted with permission by Executive Decision Magazine, May/June 2007
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Related Forum Posts
Top 19 Copywriting books
- 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley.
2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner.
3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill.
4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin.
7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books.
9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association.
11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books.
12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books.
13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books.
16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books.
17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall.
18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop.
19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley.
This should keep you busy for at least a year.
Enjoy!
My entry
- 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read
- this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody.
2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto.
3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book
Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Recommended Books?
- Hi Kevin
Just a thought, have you ever thought about placing a section on your homepage called "Recommended Books"? It's often a known fact that people will be interested in what an expert recommends and could possibly increase the popularity of particular book reviews that you might like to promote more than others.
Let me know if you've thought of this before or not and if it worked.
Kind regards
TheAnonymousMan
Re: What is your age?
- Kevin,
Success is the best revenge. they are telling the world that been raised by sinlge parent will not determine their success in life
Re: THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IS ALL IN YOUR HEAD...RIGHT NOW!!!
- Success = Thinking (Head) + Heart (Feeling / Interest) + Hand (doing/ action).
Success - H3
Robert
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