Did Self Help books cause your debt and ruin your life?

I really enjoy reading self help books. They give me an emotional kick and the powerful words have helped me through some tough times. However the cynic in me has always questioned some of the claims made in them. Is it really that easy to make a million? Someone once said that the people who made the most money during the gold rush were the people who sold the digging tools. I think in a lot of ways this applies to the self help industry. I also think that the self help industry can take some of the blame for the current tsunami of debt.

Let’s cut to the chase. When you read a self help or motivational book you are generally looking to feel good. Sometimes you are looking for answers and other times you are looking for ideas. It was the ideas contained in some of these books that in part caused the debt problems of this generation. I am talking in particular about financial self help books.

As the boom in technology stocks began to fade a number of books appeared on the market. These books claimed to have the key to wealth. The premise of these books was that people who worked in jobs were fools and the only truly successful people were investors who managed to create a passive income. In one book I can think of, which shall remain nameless, the author was relentless in his recommendation of property. He went on at lengths as to how he bought condos left right and center and how his cash flow was positive. This got people thinking – if he can do it then so can I.

I genuinely believe that it was books like this and others that prompted a lot of us to go in search of our fortunes in the property market. The boom in technology stocks simply transferred to property. Combined with a low interest rate environment people now had the means and motivation to pursue their dreams and for a lot of people this has turned into nightmares.

What these books did not tell you about was the hard work and risk that was involved in property or indeed in pursuing your dreams. The books led people to believe that it was simply a case of “build it and they will come” or more like “buy it and they will rent”. In a lot of cases this didn’t happen. I know of people who bought rental property at the height of the boom and are still having difficulty renting them out. They are faced with the situation of paying two mortgages a month. They too were seduced by the talk of easy profits and the supposed fast track to wealth.

Aside from the financial self help books that were glamorizing the property market and the fortunes to be made there were other self help books that persuaded people to be easy with their credit. The key thing about self help books is that they promise you the world and when they didn’t deliver people went out and bought the world they wanted anyway…on credit.

Who is to blame? Is it the authors of the self help books who claimed that they could help you or is it the person who buys the books, tries the techniques, fails and buys their dream on credit? To be honest I think both parties get something out of this relationship. For the author the obvious reward is monetary for the reader the reward is that warm fuzzy feeling that yes some day my dreams will come true.

Unfortunately for most readers of self help books their dreams do not come true. Why? I really don’t know, maybe its lack of commitment or maybe it’s because people knew that if they really wanted a house on the hill they could have gone to their nearest friendly mortgage broker and got a nice big mortgage to buy it.

Self help books sold you the dream. They made you write down in detail all the material goods that you wanted. They made you write wish lists. And you know what? The universe delivered you the things on your wish lists. How? With a little help from your plastic friend of course but that’s not the point is it? The universe still delivered. The live for the moment brigade got what they wanted.

As I said at the start of the article I like self help books, especially the financial ones. There are some really good ones out there. At the same time if you believe all the hype contained in them you are likely to be very disappointed. While self help books can point you in the right direction it is ultimately up to you to travel that road. The thing is it is generally a road that is a lot longer than the books would have you believe. This is something you need to be aware of. There are no short cuts, no get rich quick schemes. You could buy your dream on credit I suppose but you will end up paying for it the rest of your life.