photo by: TW Collins

In a comment on my previous post, Z. Hereford raised a very important point; defining the truth and beauty on which I want to build personal-development 2.0 on.

Differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth and beauty, how to define and identify them, whether they is subjective, relative, objective, or absolute, continue to be debated by professional philosophers and scholars. However, it is not my intention or desire to go into that direction as it would uselessly complicate things. Here is my simple clarification on what I mean by truth and beauty.

(continued from part 3)

I don’t know what feelings did the last three posts send out, but this one should make you feel good. No, not superficially good, but good because you are invited to innovate a concept that has a worldwide reach; good, because you can change something influential in this world, and change it for the better.

What is it about

Basically, I would appreciate feedback from as many people as possible, regarding the creation of a new standard: self-improvement 2.0 – name could change.

If you’ve read the previous three posts, or if you came in contact with the current self-improvement ideas and analyzed them, then you know they don’t work as advertised and exist mostly for profits.

Self-improvement 2.0 is the idea that came to my mind after realizing that I can’t really change what is wrong with the self-improvement concept; if new, working ideas are to appear, a fresh ground based on truth is required – thus self-improvement 2.0.

There are many sites offering quality information and thoughts that get little if no traction at all, for they don’t fit the popular self-improvement (or self-help) concept. And that is a shame knowing that they can genuinely help people have better lives – not only in the middle-class sense of having more cars, money, friends, etc.

(continued from part 2)

In the previous two posts I wrote about some of the ethical issues with which the self-improvement “industry” is faced these days. However, those problems might be of small importance for the end-users, the consumers at the market end of the chain.

The #1 issue for the consumer is this, “does it work? Do I get any value for my time/money?”

And unfortunately, the answer to that question when it comes to self-improvement is a resounding “no” – in most cases.

Even though we could probably ignore the ethics of the people involved in self-improvement, we can’t ignore the results of the work that comes in direct contact with those ethics.

We don’t buy rotten tomatoes or untested vaccines, so why would we buy ideas that don’t work?

One could argue that they do work, that people are motivated by them; but how motivated are they? And in what direction? I would believe that they are motivated to buy the second book and attend another seminar; not motivated to start thinking for themselves and to take real action.

If I would buy a car that would need 50% of its parts replaced weekly, I would think of it as a poorly constructed car; self-help is that car.

(continued from part 1)

The first four issues of self-improvement, from the previous article:

1. Industrialized short lived artificial value;
2. Lack of coherence and/or connection between the presented ideas;
3. Lack of closure;
4. Inexistent entry bars.

The target of the series is to innovate the self-improvement (or self-help, whatever you call it) concept so that it will actually benefit real people.

At the moment, the general area of self-improvement has become very unethical, being focused on selling cheap candies for piles of money.

Other than the previous four issues, there are some more, as follows.

“Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.” – William Pollard

You might have noticed that my posting frequency has slowed down lately. Don’t worry (or start partying), I’m not leaving. I’m just getting started, actually.

The less frequent posting is due to two reasons:

1. The offline world requires more of my time this period of the year;
2. I have a rather strong feeling that there is something wrong with what I do on this blog.

I’m sure no one will have trouble understanding the first reason, but what about the second one. What do I mean by saying there’s something wrong with what I do on this blog? What could possibly be so wrong as to make me question doing it? If you’re a personal-development blogger yourself, or if you enjoy the topic of personal-development, you need to read this.

But first, look again at the title. It says “fixing the self-improvement concept,” implying that there is something wrong with it.

To better understand what you’ll read further on, you might want to read one of my older articles, called The 5 principles of sustainable innovation. In that article I wrote that the logical chain leading to innovation (which is a pragmatic crystallization of creativity) has five steps.

1. Dissatisfaction
2. Problem-solving
3. Imagination
4. Vision
5. Luck

The first two steps are the ones that are relevant to this article. Those two steps are the reason why I’m writing this.

In the same article on innovation, I wrote that an innovative idea isn’t necessarily a completely new one, but often times an improved version of an old idea. Improved either by introducing something new, or by fixing something that was broken. And because there’s something wrong with the self-improvement concept, it needs fixing – through innovation.

Now let’s change gears and see what is wrong with the current self-improvement environment (the concept and most of its applied forms).