by Deirdre Donahue: Inhaling self-help tomes is a bit like cross-dressing. A lot of people think you’re barking mad. But devotees find it profoundly satisfying.
A confession: In terms of recreational reading, it’s my personal pursuit of happiness. Snobs may sneer, but it connects me to those All-American advocates of self-improvement from Ben Franklin to Dale Carnegie to Stephen R. Covey and his seven principles.
I’m not alone.
While Oprah Winfrey has gained fame for her literary book club, she also has served as a mighty self-help sun, spinning off new galaxies. There’s planet Dr. Phil McGraw with his Texas no-nonsense advice. Other planets include Sarah Ban Breathnach with her gratitude-filled celebration of simple abundance and fitness guru Bob Greene lacing up his sneakers.
Glowing brightly at the moment: Cheryl Richardson, 42, whose brand-new book,Stand Up for Your Life: Develop the Courage, Confidence, and Character to Fulfill Your Greatest Potential (Free Press, $24) hits the stores this week with a printing of 200,000 copies. The author of the best-selling Life Makeovers andTake Time for Your Life, Richardson shared the stage with Winfrey on her sold-out “Live your Best Life” seminar tour last summer. She has appeared regularly on Winfrey’s show.
Reached at her home outside Boston, Richardson says that while her first two books addressed the issues of external life — finances, clutter, health — her new book wrestles with the inner struggle to lead a life that has authentic personal meaning. Most of us are living scripts written by parents, schools and society: the all-sacrificing mother, the workaholic employee, the dutiful daughter. “We think we fear death but what we really fear is that we are not living the way we know we should be living,” she says. “We should be more afraid of our regrets at the end of our lives than of death.”
But to break free means “feeling selfish, feeling guilty, feeling afraid.”
On April 28, Richardson will host a five-part, hourly series on the Oxygen TV network, The Life Makeover Project With Cheryl Richardson, which will follow seven men and women as they search for ways to make their lives more fulfilling with Richardson serving as their personal coach.
Despite our plethora of material goodies and tech toys, Richardson believes strongly that “the majority of Americans are overwhelmed, overstimulated, emotionally exhausted and physically exhausted. They know there is something more. And it’s not a great vacation or a great car. We’re craving more time with our families and less to do. … To live a meaningful life, you need to able to feel, and as long as you are doing more and feeling less … you won’t be able feel the deep satisfaction of being fully engaged in your life.”
Sept. 11 has sharpened her own desire to live a life with more meaning, she notes.
A huge advocate of forming like-minded communities, Richardson says if you’re just going to read her book and not work with others, then “leave it on the shelf.” Her Web site, www.cherylrichardson.com, encourages people to form Life Makeover groups. There are groups meeting in the United States and countries including Australia, Britain, South Africa and China.
There’s nothing in Richardson’s three books that a good-hearted friend or mother wouldn’t approve of: Get your finances in order. Exercise. Don’t ignore your spiritual needs. Stop living on java and anxiety. Breathe deeply. Make your house a cozy respite, not a messy barrack that broadcasts your lack of self-esteem. Stop blocking the sound of your own personal dreams and hopes with TV’s steady bad news blare. Figure out who you are. Balance work and life. Learn to say no to things you don’t want to do. Discover the profound satisfaction of serving others.
If this is stuff your mother dishes out, why buy books about it?
“Not everyone listens to their mother,” says Daisy Maryles, executive editor ofPublishers Weekly. Instead, they read self-help books that offer positive advice for improving people’s lives, whether it is coping with difficult teens or handling grief or getting organized. Self-help is a big category for book publishers, Maryles says.
At this moment, two things are vital: Winfrey, with her ability to give books TV exposure, and baby boomers. “Boomers have always been seekers.” She believes that the subjects are getting more serious as boomers age: titles on menopause, prostate health, memory and finding meaning in life have replaced more frivolous topics. (Remember The Sensuous Woman?) Maryles expects more books on topics of interest to aging boomers, particularly on Alzheimer’s and money.
Self-help is “such a broad category that ranges from books that help people lead better lives to books that belong only on infomercials,” says publishing veteran Scott Manning, founder of the annual Books for a Better Life Awards. In its seventh year, the awards benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The point of the awards is “to separate out the books that help people really change their lives in a positive way,” Manning says.
Previous winners include Jimmy Carter, Deborah Tannen, Helen Gurley Brown, Deepak Chopra and Cheryl Richardson, who won in 2000 for Life Makeovers.
According to a study by Simba Information, 3,564 new self-help titles were published in 1999. These books generated an estimated $588 million.
Listen to Richardson read one of her books as an unabridged audiotape and you realize she is indeed the oldest of seven kids and clearly likes to gives sensible advice to overwhelmed people. Although she and her husband, fitness writer Michael Gerrish, do not have children, she does have 11 nieces and nephews. Parenting, particularly being a working mother, is “beyond 24/7,” she says. But practicing “extreme self-care” of yourself will make you a more giving parent and more effective employee, she says.
Richardson traces her own transformation to an experience she had at 30 when a close older friend died of cancer. She was struck not by the woman’s fear of death but her regrets. “It rattled me,” she says.
Apprenticed as s tax consultant to her father, Richardson decided she would rather work as a personal coach for eight years. (Personal coaches help clients formulate goals about careers, relationships, finances, then establish specific steps. They check in regularly as a sort of cheerleader/scold. They are not therapists.)
Isn’t that what friends and family do? Give advice? Urge you on? Richardson quotes the phrase “don’t go the hardware store for milk.” Often unconsciously, those closest to you will sabotage your attempts to lose weight, get married, rise within the company. Unfortunately, female friends often bond through complaining and whining, she says.
As for people who are embarrassed to admit they read self-help, she says, “Stop pretending. Come out of the closet.” It means you’re willing to admit, “I’m not living the life I want to live.”
