However, I am many coaches’ and teachers' worst nightmare as I question and adapt and remodel all the advice I get – cherry picking what I think works for my business and more importantly for my personality. 

The majority of self-help books seem to follow the idea that if you stick to their formula to the letter you will succeed but if you deviate from the method in any way, you are doomed to failure and therefore don’t care about your self-development enough or believe in your business enough. 

I don’t buy into this at all. 

Many of these programmes, whilst telling you to embrace your uniqueness are in fact trying to mould you into replicas of them. "This worked for me so it will work for you too. "

Humans are wonderfully diverse, with interesting histories and experiences which have led to a unique collection of contradictions. 

Therefore, it is very very difficult to insist following a formula exactly will work the same for anyone.  We are all starting at different points on the journey and therefore it has to be adapted to work with individuals. 

Another common feature of many development programmes seems to be  looking for the problems (in you and your business) and 'fixing them' rather than helping the reader to identify their strengths and amplify them. 

One of the worst books for this, in my opinion, was The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. He actually states that before you can grow you must start by admitting you are mediocre! Then through his programme you can become a 'Level 10' person. These people are pretty much defined by their success in business, money and lifestyle. 

I can’t work out how admitting you're mediocre is good for you. No one is mediocre, we all have strengths and we all have things we could improve on. I am not mediocre because I have no idea how to change the oil in my car or because I don't speak Japanese in the same way someone else is not mediocre because they work for minimum wage, don't find writing easy and could get lost walking in a straight line (that’s me too actually).

Wanting to learn new skills or improve skills does not mean you are starting from a place of failure or mediocrity. We all need to identify our strengths and then use those to help improve the things we are less successful at.

I have also noticed that although many self-help books are advocating leading a contented life, there is little room in their formulae for actually reaching this. 

For example, advocates of the Law of Attraction leave little room for people to be content and not actually want £1million or a new car. It seems to me that if you don’t actually want anything other than maintained contentment their whole ethos collapses. This seems to be followed by statements like if you don’t want anything you must be scared of change and that means you need to work on fixing that .

But this directly contradicts the Law of Attraction love of affirmations like "You are enough" - you can't both be enough as you are and constantly strive for something other. 

As Caroline Pattendon says, "You are enough, you always have been. It's time to start a revolution and say no to change for the sake of it, no to pressure to look a certain way and no to competing for job positions because it feels like it's something you ought to do." (Breathe Magazine, Issue 331, July 2020). 

Change and growth are wonderful things, but no one should be made to feel a failure if they don't reach someone else's idea of success or contentment. 

 

Despite these quite baffling contradictions I quite like self-help books and business books as they can be a source of great ideas. But it can be hard to ignore all the negative messaging designed to make you feel bad and then fail because the steps to follow are not feasible for your lifestyle.

The cynic in me sees that these formulae are designed to end in failure (or at best semi-success) so you can buy the second book, enrol on the course, or one to one training. As Stephanie Lam states, "Welcome to a board game called You Could Do Better! It's designed so that however many sixes you roll, you'll always be last. In fact, it's a game you'll never win." (Breathe Magazine, Issue 331, July 2020).

I approach these books with an an open mind and I approach these books as an expert. 

An expert in me, my ethos, my abilities and more importantly my boundaries. 

I am happy to try new things and want to do this – but they have to be right for me.

 

I have rarely followed a formula 100% which if I believed the negative messaging is why I am not a captain of industry and ruling my own part of a capitalist empire. 

Just because a formula worked for the author doesn’t mean it will work the same for every person who reads the book (or attends the workshop) because we are all coming from different places and are all going to different places. 

I try to take something away from every book I read or course I attend, but only follow the steps which fits with me and my ethos and sparks interest. 

This doesn’t mean I don’t care about myself or my business. In fact, it means the opposite. 

I care so much about my business and my own development that I’m not prepared to compromise my principles because a business book author, coach or online guru states it’s the only way to success.  

The only way for me is my way. This means my clients know they will always get the authentic me, even when I am trying out new things which are out of my comfort zone. They will still be quintessentially Charlotte.