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How to Read Self-Help

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Re: How to Read Self-Help

#41

Post by Lindenmayer »

lsinger wrote: post #33
jborichevskiy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that longer books are almost a natural spaced repetition system for ingesting content? While I agree many 300-page books can be compressed into 10-20 pages of high density summary, I can't help but wonder if the length of a book almost ensures we spend a minimum length of time playing with/thinking about/considering the idea being presented. And that for certain books, the typical time it would take to re…

It’s a relatively known piece of “wisdom” from storytelling: “The more specific we are, the more universal something can become. Life is in the details. If you generalize, it doesn't resonate. The specificity of it is what resonates.” [ https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/jacqueline_woodson_882873 ] You can repeat a generalization over and over again. It sounds right — but it doesn’t stick. You can’t translate it into…

This really reminds me of the concept of elaborative encoding whereas we learn by connecting facts with preexisting knowledge [0]. Abstract things do not stick because we have less touch points to connect them with. The Baker Baker paradox for instance describes the fact that we are much more likely to remember that a person is a baker than the more abstract fact that his name is Baker [1].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaborative_encoding

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mental-mishaps/20100...

Re: How to Read Self-Help

#42

Post by ahoka »

zentiggr wrote: post #37
ahoka wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Enchiridion is like 60 pages and contains the wisdom a lifetime.

And many read it and can't digest it, let alone put it into practice. A couple of very capable people I know can hear the story of something that happened to someone, and they get glazed eyes and can only say "Huh?" Then I rephrase it as "Imagine you were _______ and then _____ happened and afterward you were _____" and they're like "Well why didn't you just say that?" Or the exact opposite. Or like me. Give me an an…

"It's not the message, it's what the listener gets from it."

I begin to think that if you don't understand the advice, you simply don't need it _yet_.

Re: How to Read Self-Help

#43

Post by znpy »

The thing I dislike the most about self-help/self-improvement books (example: Getting things done, by David Allen) is that they spend a lot of the book trying to convince you that their method work.

What I'm saying is: I already bough a copy of the book, you don't have to convince me anymore. I already gave you my money. Just explain me the stuff.

Re: How to Read Self-Help

#44

Post by zentiggr »

ahoka wrote: post #42
zentiggr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And many read it and can't digest it, let alone put it into practice. A couple of very capable people I know can hear the story of something that happened to someone, and they get glazed eyes and can only say "Huh?" Then I rephrase it as "Imagine you were _______ and then _____ happened and afterward you were _____" and they're like "Well why didn't you just say that?" Or the exact opposite. Or like me. Give me an an…

"It's not the message, it's what the listener gets from it." I begin to think that if you don't understand the advice, you simply don't need it _yet_.

I've sen quite a few quotes around that very point, similar to "You'll get the teacher you need when you need them" or

"You'll read it again and understand it on a whole different level" or

"The people in your life are there because you need them now. Don't mourn the loss of an acquaintance, it's because you don't need their lesson anymore"

Re: How to Read Self-Help

#45

Post by dredmorbius »

ska wrote: post #22
jordanpg wrote: post #6

My main objection to these types of books is how overly verbose they tend to be. With a few exceptions, this category of book is built around a nucleus of few possibly valuable pearls of wisdom , and then 300 pages of filler is added. Usually lots of anecdotes ("Let me tell you about my friend Alice..."), checklists, and needless exposition. If this really is wisdom , it does not follow that it takes 300 pages to com…

There are I think two important factors at play here: 1) A lot of the 'filler' isn't filler at all, but the process of communicating ideas in ways that work for many different people (since we don't all process information the same way). 2) More validly, the publishing industry doesn't really have a workable model for a 100 page book. The effort to put this out is not 1/3 of a 300 page book. Would you buy the 87 page…

The American publishing industry perhaps.

Other traditions (notably the French and German) are far more comfortable with shorter monographs of 100 or fewer pages.

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