A review by nancf
Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone by Beth Lisick

3.0

The note/over title on the cover reads, “one skeptic, ten self-help gurus, and a year on the bring on the comfort zone.” This book documents Lisick’s year of self-help including Jack Canfield (The Success Principles), Stephen Covey (The 7 Habits…), Richard Simmons, John Gray (Men are from Mars…), Julie Morgenstern (Organizing from the Inside Out), Thomas W. Phelan (123 Magic…), Suze Orman, Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way), Deepak Chopra and Sylvia Browne. (Did I miss anyone?) Lisick reads the books and sometimes attends seminars with the selected gurus. Interspersed in the account are details of Lisick’s life. I have bought some of these books and sometimes even read these self-help gurus (and others). Like Lisick, I sometimes take something away from the experience, but nothing really life changing. At first, I didn’t like this book, but the more I got into it, I appreciated Lisick’s attitude and ultimate conclusions. A couple of quotes: From Stephen Covey discussing personality vs. character ethic in regards to his children: “We decided to relax and get out of his way and let his own personality emerge. We saw our natural role as being to affirm, joy and value him. We also conscientiously worked on our motives and cultivated internal sources of security so that our own feelings of worth were not dependent on our children’s “acceptable” behavior.” And from Beth Lisick: “ It seems like, at its best, self-help is probably supposed to remind us that we can be strong and in control, that we can do anything. The problem with this is that we are human. All we’re ever going to do is stumble around. Sometimes we hit the sweet spot, and the rest of the time we spend trying to unravel the formula for how to hit the next one.”