Self help is a huge industry. About half of all the top 200 books on amazon are self help. Its because being lost is a normal part of life, and people hate feeling lost. Like a sailor floating in the ocean they jump on the first boat that comes past. When really, they just need to float.( we all float down here) Humans will always feel lost and anxious and a mess either at times in their life, or always. People just need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable, and learn to be content with being lost. You are not lost if you are simply okay with not knowing where you are in life. Many of us never do.
I like your point that feeling lost and confused at times is part of life, but that the self-help culture makes a huge problem out of it and in turn - a huge product out of that.
@@Rokasleo i think we, as humans, hate to feel lost, hate to feel confused. Our minds hate it, or simply cannot deal with it. But also that that is a part of us. The self help industry gives us lifeboats to jump on. Ones that sink. Imo the true way forward is to accept the confusion. And...as they state in survival guides... if you are lost in the wilderness, do not allow yourself to panic. You are not lost, you know exactly where you are. You just dont know where the place you want to be is.
I agree being lost is normal nowdays most people are replaceable there are too many people applying for a job then there are posts for and most of them have same skill. We are so connected now that people get too many choices for friends and lovers they get to specific about who they want to be friends with or date. Before internet people have to make friends with whoever was in neighbourhood and the girl next door was the perfect one . There were less people for a job than posts .So everyone was special in a sense . But now you feel miserable you open instagram and you see the delinquent bully who made you do his homework buying a bughati .Of course you will feel lost but that is just normal .Nothing had changed about an individual's value in last few decades but the number of people you can has increased .One thing I realised as I grew up nobody is free of this misery ,I might feel miserable because I don't have much money ,that bully might be miserable because he somehow got rich but didn't have a passion for anything in life, the highschool crush that rejected me might be miserable because she never had a healthy relationship. If these actually are a big problem for you then there is no shame to improve yourself but you should always stay aware of the methods you use and the investment you make for the improvement because if you aren't aware then your investment might give you another problem to be miserable about.
Well said. I am guilty of this. I've been what you call a self help addict for a decade. Looking back, I would have just ditched the books and seminars and just "float in the ocean", looked for the answers within. Self help did help me in the beginning with the basic advice, but later it became a form of escape.
Escapism by helping others because you can't help yourself, that's a vice I often do. This is why we should all be critical thinkers to avoid that. Good thing I never gotten into self help.
Best advice I was given on self-help people: If you walk away from it (after watching a video of them or in-person promotional seminar) feeling angry and/or defeated...That's your intuition telling you something is off!
I love the direction you’re taking this channel. I honestly think you should find some of these “self-help” guru’s here on YT and critique their videos.
Hi Daniel! Thank you for your support and for the great idea. I actually already started making small steps towards the direction of analyzing self help gurus directly. I've made my response to the "Magic Bracelet" (ua-cam.com/video/elEBjBF1Lqg/v-deo.html) and that video inspired me to make more like them. It's still just a general 'stab' at the whole 'spiritual', self-help culture, but indeed, I think I will start aiming to some of the self-help gurus and teachers directly with time :) 🙏
This is first video have seen from an ex self help guru that has come clean and given an inside look. I commend you for making this video. Its brave and i can only respect you for being so honest and having had to face yourself as you have. You should do a livestream collab with that youtubr guy who made the OG video about self help not being good for him.
@@Rokasleo its a very good video. It got a lot of views because it was authentic and honest and spoke to many peoples experience they maybe had not expressed. I think a collab with him would be great for the whole debate surrounding this topic. I like that in this video you gave the side of the guru. And that it was not the position of an exploiting person taking advantage consciously of ' the lost'. And that you were in your own mind helping. I think this is an important perspective worth sharing
The truth is that for many things we already know what to do. It's almost always the same few pieces of advice we get. Eat well, sleep enough, exercise, have social contacts, take rest when necessary, make a to-do list and plan things out realistically, form habits that help you, be conscious (mindful) about your thoughts feelings and physical sensations, write down problematic thoughts (with connected emotions) and counteract them with reason. It's just that they take a lot of work (energy) and time to actually change things around, since you can't just do them all at once. It's a build up over the years in which we try things out and get to know our self. Some things we need to train our self in to get more skilled. But people want it all fixed fast. That's why the self help world is so big. The emotional manipulation and hysteria it causes makes people feel good for a bit. So it 'works'. Just like when you buy something new, you feel good for a bit. And then of course you need to buy something new again. That's the advice of self help gurus.
I saw a comment from a psychotherapist once where he said he'd often have clients come in that had tried for months to treat themselves with self-help books before finally seeking professional help.
I think that's a really great point. Unfortunately many people don't seek out real professionals to solve real problems and go to simple, appealing pseudo-solutions first, which the self help world is full of. I am glad to hear some people make it to the professionals eventually, but I'm also concerned that many don't.
You have to have experienced many perspectives throughout life to be able to have a high sense of empathy, only than can you truly be able to give helpful advice, having been able to experience many different angles of life's hardships will give you a better understanding of what could be helpful in a broad range of situations. - Kenshi Toraokami -
I got from your martial arts channel to this channel. I love MMA and Martial arts and love critical thinking 💭. Now you have become my favorite youtuber. 💪🏻👍⚡️
Once again it shows big balls from you to admit or shows that you were mistaken for so many years. Not a lot of people would do that. Btw sometime I also give advises but just because I think that maybe other people will apply them and be better thatn for me. Heheh. Good job Rokas!
Thank you! Oh my goodness thank you so much for your videos. I have been watching a Tony Robbins five day seminar and it’s free and it’s on UA-cam pretty much but today on day three I could hear the pitch coming to get into his upcoming seminar unleash the power within and it just made me cringe. I’ve always gotten the cringey feeling from Tony Robbins and kind of feel like I have to take a shower after I watch his videos. I watched your other video on him and he is a very physically big guy and I’m sure he’s very intimidating. He’s like a big goofball. And he always name drops. Anyways, thank you so much for this because it makes me realize that no, I am not going crazy.
He is a good example .Good intentions don't always make what you do right (I used the word right to give more impact more accurate phrase would be 'is effective' because these are often used in exchange to each other).This is common in many people who spread pseudoscience their intentions are mostly not to scam anyone but help them but they lack critical thinking and jump to conclusions. In Indian we have too many people like this but it is even hard to criticise them because they use culture and religion as a defence and so if you try to criticise them you might actually be declared to oppose a whole culture and then nobody even listens to you in worst case you might get subjected to physical violence just for constructive criticism .But things are also changing here there is a rise in rational thinkers but still most people believe in all kind of pseudoscience and won't even think once that they might be wrong.
I wrote a huge comment but I navigated away and it got erased :( Was a good video and I have a lot to say on it. I think the argument about if SGs books worked why are there so many of them is weak argumentation of the form similar to If diet books worked why is there so many of them around ? There's so many of them around because some people get workable weight loss solutions from them and because it's a lucrative market that works with cognitive biases of people intentionally or unintentionally My long comment was to basically say we can use our cognitive biases to help us rather than have them used against us but trying to be fallacy free is very difficult and only (and I'm saying this rhetorically ) the mainstay of cognitive neuroscientists, engineers and poker players. I think (and it's a view not a verifiable fact) that most people cannot change that much and that nature rules over nurture That regardless of the reasons for self help existing it's not an evil in and of itself but merely a response to a need to fill a cognitive black hole. We aren't robotic perfectly rational individuals that just use data or are emotion free so that we can avoid sunk cost fallacy thinking or that our performance is completely unaffected by our motivation. If we were we could easily task switch, evaluate what were naturally better at or worse at or find people that can measure us, we'd be be able to drop something when it's not working and look for the best available to us information or teacher to help us in whatever specific discipline we want to get good at. By doing that enough times we would then get a feel for our strengths and weaknesses using a incomplete and cognitive bias heavy dataset to extrapolate what else we can do. I prefer working with and using cognitive biases to help me rather than trying to fight and erase the natural lack of logic people have I don't care about methods I care about the result. In terms of reachability yes you should care about reproduceability of method. But we are operating from multivariate problems in which assumptions have to be made to have any chance of tackling them. Two examples. I was a nuclear physicist and it's an argument from authority to really say that has any weight or meaning outside that discipline. Except that I got reaonsably good at reading scientific journal reports. What you learn is that absent of cognitive neuroscience field which is quite strong, psychology is very wishy washy That's what the reproduceability crisis was about. Lots of foundational principles that had reproduceability problems with the experiments that led to those principles being formed. Anyway the point is I think personally it's easier to work with cognitive biases than against them. Ofcourse we should recognise in others when they're used against us But we should also use our own cognitive biases to get what we want. Example : You are great in basketball , good in swimming and good in rugby. You define great as that for the same level of effort in basketball you get better results than in swimming or rugby. Your starting point is higher. An example of using cognitive biasing effectively would be the following. "I'm great at basketball but I am meh on it. I really want to go into making UA-cam videos about interesting content to help people but I lack the credibility to stand out. By maximising my credibility in basketball the cognitive fallacy of argument from authority gives me the credibility I need to start a UA-cam thing and be a success in it. " It's the same way why celebrity sponsorships of products are sought after. Because some major set of people somehow falsely think wearing an endorsed celebrity athletes shoes somehow embues something akin to the success of the athlete onto them. I just think (and it's a view as I said, no source ) that working with cognitive biases helps us get what we need to get done faster But obviously we should recognise when it's being done to harm us by others. For example some poker players though understanding everything is about probabilities in their game still often have oddball superstitions. These superstitions though baseless often don't harm them enough from their key game that they continue to succeed as well as they do. That's why I think what's effective is what matters more than hoping everyone will become bias free I think that most people are not able to change or improve. And at the same time I think I can use and work around my own biases to help me get things done. Clearly there's an impasse in thinking there. How can both be true? Well I think it's what is effective is what works. It's effective for me to look at things that way then other ways A weakness I work with is lack of consistency due to emotional variability. I could spend time on cognitive behaviour therapy, or NLP or hypnotherapy which all do the same thing and trick myself from the reality of what I'm experiencing and it's possible. Or I could work around it. Arrange high energy work when I feel high energy. Bare minimum work for when I'm low energy. And reverse engineering through journalling and observing trends in incomplete data sets things I can implement to make the times I feel higher energy more numerous And then thing that to performance as well. These all work with cognitive fallacies in mind. I just think that if SG was not there the same people would just end up falling into s similar trap but maybe at a psychologists office instead. I think the gaslighting by SGs into thinking you're wrong and the method isn't wrong is messed up though . So there is value in cognitive fallacy learning and critical thinking but only in terms of evaluating outcome and to prevent harm from other people In terms of self motivation to take action using cognitive fallacies is tremendously helpful Arguments to emotion though fallacious are effective. I do agree it's messed up to teach a method as being the end all and be all but they are competing for a limited resoirce. Which is the people likely to seek out self help are very unlikely to walk away from it because it fulfills a cognitive desire which is of blind hope. Anyway, was a good video. Lots of thoughts sprouted up Rokas. Thankyou
If you ever achieve success in life (whatever that means to you personally) it will always be on your own terms and conditions taking into consideration your very own unique living situation, personality, talent, priorities, mental and physical health, options you have around you, present and future demand on a market, political and social situation in you country, as well as a bunch of random events and encounters that may or may not happen in your life (that are out of your control). It´s not like you can copy paste someone else´s success story. You can at the most get inspired, but based on my experience, it is what he says in the video - there are so many books that are basically the same in different variations. Most of the stuff is common sense or something you have heard or read before milion of times. And quitting is not a sign of being a looser. Not always anyway, because quitting one thing can open up the opportunity for something else, possibly even better and more meaningful to you.
Would you mind if I used your video in my lessons at school about critical thinking and how to spot scams? I’m trying to update the lessons we teach our school leavers (16 year olds)
That's a great question and one I thought about myself too. Short answer: I'd recommend relying on books written by credible people who are usually scientists and experts of a particular field that they wrote a single book or two about, or journalists who do extensive research for a single book on a single subject. For example Carol Dweck's "Growth Mindset" is an amazing book all based on her life long studies and accumulated information from countless tests. I like Malcolm Gladwell too who does great journalism and provides specific information from credible sources and various stories to illustrate his point, but he never promotes himself as an expert nor claims that what he says is life changing or true. Instead he provides a perspective and information to enrich your own viewpoint. I also liked James Clear's "Atomic Habits". He's exploring this subject for years now together with his online community and it's evident that what he writes about in his book is part based on science and part on many many trials and errors of him and his community, where he eventually suggests methods that had been proven to work for him countless of times as much as for his community. Anders Ericsson is a great example too. Lifelong research and tests presented in a form of a books. While there are a handful of books under his name, most of them are co-authored with another expert of their field where they enrich each other's perspectives and science based conclusions.
I get what you are saying, but to put ALL self-help techniques and teachers in the same boat can dissuade people from getting genuine help from self-help teachers that have VERY effective techniques.
Haha. Actually not that many compared to the true Batman geeks. I've read most of the best ones, which probably is about 20 books. But there are hundreds of regularly released Batman books every year :)
Very interesting take! For a future video, have you ever thought of talking about free will? Do you believe it exists? What consequences does it have on your everyday life? Cheers!
Thanks! As a (self proclaimed) critical thinker I do my best to talk as little as possible about things I don't know much about :) And unfortunately the question of free will falls into that category 😁
I think you could boost this kind of video with a more baity title and thumb. Not a lot of gurus change their mind on UA-cam - - and that's something a lot of people really look forward to see - - so perhaps you can mark-robber your way into more views. Now, respecting the critical thinking philosophy, absolutely nothing I said here has any gram of science to it. I'm just GUESSING.
Thanks for the feedback Caio! I agree that the thumbnails and titles could use some improvement and I am working on it :) I'm trying out different things with each video and observing what picks up. Some more clikcbaity titles and thumbnails could be useful and I may try out more of them in the future
I do know that some SGs have degrees, but from what I investigated they usually get them at shady places or a long time ago and don't continue their learning process anymore, instead just using the credentials. Of course I am talking about the real SGs and not certain scientists who wrote a great book or two about their particular field
That's a good question. I'm just trying to put a finger on what you mean specifically by 'training methods'. Do you mean how he trained me and how I trained other people? If so, I'll do my best to give some examples. Most of the methods that my SG used to teach me were his own ideas or some spiritual pseudo-science that he picked up somewhere down the road of his own time spent with SGs. Once we did an 'intensive week' where each one of us would have some challenge such as having your eyes blind folded for a day, having a hand tied behind your back, not speaking. It was an interesting experience, but it was all guessing based by him, of what could somehow work, instead of relying on proven methods. That same week we also were committed to create a shrine in our room and to try out "bhakti yoga" which was essentially a form of worshipping. In another intensive weekend there was an exercise where each person in a circle had to speak gibberish trying to describe his own spiritual experience. We would also use kotodama (Japanese based) chanting of sounds in meditation having pointers on which chakra is affected based on which sound. During weekly meetings he challenged each one of us psychologically where it was not uncommon to start crying during his sessions. He put a lot of psychological pressure on many of us and after the meeting many of us would come back feeling mentally/emotionally broken and having to piece ourselves back together. He did it with good intentions, believing that he is challenging us in the right way to grow, but honestly he was talking to us by whatever ways he came up with. He didn't have any therapy training or use tested methods and could have easily had a negative effect by how he challenged us. Something that frustrates me today still is that he used to give relationship advice to us too. The frustrating is that he is two times divorced (both times he was left by his wives) and there he was giving advice and presenting that its true (probably not even worth saying again - with no training or expertise). I could go on but I want to make sure I am answering the right question. Feel free to let me know more details on what you are interested in and if I got your question right :)
@@Rokasleo Hello Rokas, You mentioned that there was something not quitte right, pretentious or even in a way deceptive in the way you were trained and that you continued to train your pupils in the same manner. So you sparkled my curiosity as to what these training methods might be and how and in what manner they would derail from the straight and narrow or the right way which I think is that of the seeker. From what you describe here I get the impression your SG wanted to try every trick in and outside the book while lacking sound knowledge and good understanding of what he was meddling with. A sort of spiritual Trump in a porcelain cabinet. Some people will try or do anything for glory and will play the emperor but .... alas. Reflecting on these things you seem to try and convey, I would think that talking about and training in internal arts and spirituality will often look like balancing on a slippery slope as it is hard to talk about in concrete, logical or easily verifiable terms. I am myself a beginner on the path if there is one. I do some training in aikido and qigong, try to meditate some and get acqainted with Eastern philosophy. I like the explanations of teachers like Krisnamurti and Alan Watts to guide me.
Knowledge + experience = wisdom. By your analysis, this is the missing formula in most self-help scenarios. If you want true wisdom look for the “been there, done that, got the t-shirt” types.
@@Rokasleo Rokas, do you realize that you are being wise and are imparting that wisdom to others in these videos? You’ve surpassed the “self-help guru” into a higher level of self-awareness? People who’ve lived an experience and have things to say about it are the ones worth listening to. That’s the critical difference between someone who has fanciful ideas that live in a fever dream of self-delusion and a person born of fire.
Hey Rokas, just found this channel of yours. Long time viewer of the other channel. Thanks to you, I learned of Peter Consterdine and then subsequently Geoff Thompson. If I can attempt to extend the same sharing back, I'd highly recommend Geoff Thompson's work. He's got plenty of videos on youtube, but here's just one to start ua-cam.com/video/Y-bsKE_wD9U/v-deo.html I think you'd really like both his martial arts journey and his life story. He he also started in Aikido at an early age and even had a very traumatic experience with the instructor. It took him many years, lots of searching, and lots of work/experience before he began to feel confident in his person
Self help is a huge industry. About half of all the top 200 books on amazon are self help.
Its because being lost is a normal part of life, and people hate feeling lost. Like a sailor floating in the ocean they jump on the first boat that comes past.
When really, they just need to float.( we all float down here)
Humans will always feel lost and anxious and a mess either at times in their life, or always.
People just need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable, and learn to be content with being lost. You are not lost if you are simply okay with not knowing where you are in life. Many of us never do.
I like your point that feeling lost and confused at times is part of life, but that the self-help culture makes a huge problem out of it and in turn - a huge product out of that.
@@Rokasleo i think we, as humans, hate to feel lost, hate to feel confused. Our minds hate it, or simply cannot deal with it. But also that that is a part of us. The self help industry gives us lifeboats to jump on. Ones that sink. Imo the true way forward is to accept the confusion. And...as they state in survival guides... if you are lost in the wilderness, do not allow yourself to panic. You are not lost, you know exactly where you are. You just dont know where the place you want to be is.
I agree being lost is normal nowdays most people are replaceable there are too many people applying for a job then there are posts for and most of them have same skill. We are so connected now that people get too many choices for friends and lovers they get to specific about who they want to be friends with or date. Before internet people have to make friends with whoever was in neighbourhood and the girl next door was the perfect one . There were less people for a job than posts .So everyone was special in a sense . But now you feel miserable you open instagram and you see the delinquent bully who made you do his homework buying a bughati .Of course you will feel lost but that is just normal .Nothing had changed about an individual's value in last few decades but the number of people you can has increased .One thing I realised as I grew up nobody is free of this misery ,I might feel miserable because I don't have much money ,that bully might be miserable because he somehow got rich but didn't have a passion for anything in life, the highschool crush that rejected me might be miserable because she never had a healthy relationship. If these actually are a big problem for you then there is no shame to improve yourself but you should always stay aware of the methods you use and the investment you make for the improvement because if you aren't aware then your investment might give you another problem to be miserable about.
Well said. I am guilty of this. I've been what you call a self help addict for a decade. Looking back, I would have just ditched the books and seminars and just "float in the ocean", looked for the answers within. Self help did help me in the beginning with the basic advice, but later it became a form of escape.
"Not all the dreams are worth pursuing them". Great analysis.
🙏
"I was a lean, mean, lack of critical thinking machine" 😄😄
😄
Escapism by helping others because you can't help yourself, that's a vice I often do. This is why we should all be critical thinkers to avoid that. Good thing I never gotten into self help.
Very well described phenomenon.
Indeed, self help would probably make things even worse!
Best advice I was given on self-help people: If you walk away from it (after watching a video of them or in-person promotional seminar) feeling angry and/or defeated...That's your intuition telling you something is off!
Respect to you for having the guts to admit all of this. I'm sure it will benefit a lot of people. I kind of wish I saw your channel 10 years ago!!
I realized that the self-help genre was bullshit years ago and you put it into words so articulately. Thanks again for the video!
I love the direction you’re taking this channel. I honestly think you should find some of these “self-help” guru’s here on YT and critique their videos.
Hi Daniel! Thank you for your support and for the great idea. I actually already started making small steps towards the direction of analyzing self help gurus directly. I've made my response to the "Magic Bracelet" (ua-cam.com/video/elEBjBF1Lqg/v-deo.html) and that video inspired me to make more like them. It's still just a general 'stab' at the whole 'spiritual', self-help culture, but indeed, I think I will start aiming to some of the self-help gurus and teachers directly with time :) 🙏
This is first video have seen from an ex self help guru that has come clean and given an inside look. I commend you for making this video. Its brave and i can only respect you for being so honest and having had to face yourself as you have. You should do a livestream collab with that youtubr guy who made the OG video about self help not being good for him.
His channel is james jani or something like that
Thank you. I'd love to see that video. I'll look for it
@@Rokasleo its a very good video. It got a lot of views because it was authentic and honest and spoke to many peoples experience they maybe had not expressed. I think a collab with him would be great for the whole debate surrounding this topic.
I like that in this video you gave the side of the guru. And that it was not the position of an exploiting person taking advantage consciously of ' the lost'. And that you were in your own mind helping. I think this is an important perspective worth sharing
The truth is that for many things we already know what to do. It's almost always the same few pieces of advice we get. Eat well, sleep enough, exercise, have social contacts, take rest when necessary, make a to-do list and plan things out realistically, form habits that help you, be conscious (mindful) about your thoughts feelings and physical sensations, write down problematic thoughts (with connected emotions) and counteract them with reason.
It's just that they take a lot of work (energy) and time to actually change things around, since you can't just do them all at once. It's a build up over the years in which we try things out and get to know our self. Some things we need to train our self in to get more skilled.
But people want it all fixed fast. That's why the self help world is so big. The emotional manipulation and hysteria it causes makes people feel good for a bit. So it 'works'. Just like when you buy something new, you feel good for a bit. And then of course you need to buy something new again. That's the advice of self help gurus.
Explained really well
Drinking game proposition: every time Rokas says "critical thinking" drink your beverage of choice
Nice video man, keep them coming
Haha, love the drinking game! 🤣
Thanks!
Pl
that's a crazy batman background
Thanks Badass Productions! I kept waiting for someone to comment on the Batman background and you are finally the first one! 😁🙏
@@Rokasleo XD
I saw a comment from a psychotherapist once where he said he'd often have clients come in that had tried for months to treat themselves with self-help books before finally seeking professional help.
I think that's a really great point. Unfortunately many people don't seek out real professionals to solve real problems and go to simple, appealing pseudo-solutions first, which the self help world is full of. I am glad to hear some people make it to the professionals eventually, but I'm also concerned that many don't.
You have to have experienced many perspectives throughout life to be able to have a high sense of empathy, only than can you truly be able to give helpful advice, having been able to experience many different angles of life's hardships will give you a better understanding of what could be helpful in a broad range of situations. - Kenshi Toraokami -
Great quote
@@Rokasleo experience and training is more efficient than books and hypothesis. 🤔
I got from your martial arts channel to this channel. I love MMA and Martial arts and love critical thinking 💭. Now you have become my favorite youtuber. 💪🏻👍⚡️
Once again it shows big balls from you to admit or shows that you were mistaken for so many years. Not a lot of people would do that. Btw sometime I also give advises but just because I think that maybe other people will apply them and be better thatn for me. Heheh. Good job Rokas!
🙏🙏
Thank you! Oh my goodness thank you so much for your videos. I have been watching a Tony Robbins five day seminar and it’s free and it’s on UA-cam pretty much but today on day three I could hear the pitch coming to get into his upcoming seminar unleash the power within and it just made me cringe. I’ve always gotten the cringey feeling from Tony Robbins and kind of feel like I have to take a shower after I watch his videos. I watched your other video on him and he is a very physically big guy and I’m sure he’s very intimidating. He’s like a big goofball. And he always name drops. Anyways, thank you so much for this because it makes me realize that no, I am not going crazy.
This video is a gift. Thank you. What do you do now?
Wow, this video is strangely inspiring, love it!
Thank you!
He is a good example .Good intentions don't always make what you do right (I used the word right to give more impact more accurate phrase would be 'is effective' because these are often used in exchange to each other).This is common in many people who spread pseudoscience their intentions are mostly not to scam anyone but help them but they lack critical thinking and jump to conclusions. In Indian we have too many people like this but it is even hard to criticise them because they use culture and religion as a defence and so if you try to criticise them you might actually be declared to oppose a whole culture and then nobody even listens to you in worst case you might get subjected to physical violence just for constructive criticism .But things are also changing here there is a rise in rational thinkers but still most people believe in all kind of pseudoscience and won't even think once that they might be wrong.
thanks for sharing, I could relate to what you share here.
I wrote a huge comment but I navigated away and it got erased :(
Was a good video and I have a lot to say on it.
I think the argument about if SGs books worked why are there so many of them is weak argumentation of the form similar to
If diet books worked why is there so many of them around ?
There's so many of them around because some people get workable weight loss solutions from them and because it's a lucrative market that works with cognitive biases of people intentionally or unintentionally
My long comment was to basically say we can use our cognitive biases to help us rather than have them used against us but trying to be fallacy free is very difficult and only (and I'm saying this rhetorically ) the mainstay of cognitive neuroscientists, engineers and poker players.
I think (and it's a view not a verifiable fact) that most people cannot change that much and that nature rules over nurture
That regardless of the reasons for self help existing it's not an evil in and of itself but merely a response to a need to fill a cognitive black hole.
We aren't robotic perfectly rational individuals that just use data or are emotion free so that we can avoid sunk cost fallacy thinking or that our performance is completely unaffected by our motivation.
If we were we could easily task switch, evaluate what were naturally better at or worse at or find people that can measure us, we'd be be able to drop something when it's not working and look for the best available to us information or teacher to help us in whatever specific discipline we want to get good at.
By doing that enough times we would then get a feel for our strengths and weaknesses using a incomplete and cognitive bias heavy dataset to extrapolate what else we can do.
I prefer working with and using cognitive biases to help me rather than trying to fight and erase the natural lack of logic people have
I don't care about methods I care about the result.
In terms of reachability yes you should care about reproduceability of method.
But we are operating from multivariate problems in which assumptions have to be made to have any chance of tackling them.
Two examples.
I was a nuclear physicist and it's an argument from authority to really say that has any weight or meaning outside that discipline. Except that I got reaonsably good at reading scientific journal reports.
What you learn is that absent of cognitive neuroscience field which is quite strong, psychology is very wishy washy
That's what the reproduceability crisis was about. Lots of foundational principles that had reproduceability problems with the experiments that led to those principles being formed.
Anyway the point is I think personally it's easier to work with cognitive biases than against them.
Ofcourse we should recognise in others when they're used against us
But we should also use our own cognitive biases to get what we want.
Example :
You are great in basketball , good in swimming and good in rugby.
You define great as that for the same level of effort in basketball you get better results than in swimming or rugby.
Your starting point is higher.
An example of using cognitive biasing effectively would be the following.
"I'm great at basketball but I am meh on it. I really want to go into making UA-cam videos about interesting content to help people but I lack the credibility to stand out. By maximising my credibility in basketball the cognitive fallacy of argument from authority gives me the credibility I need to start a UA-cam thing and be a success in it. "
It's the same way why celebrity sponsorships of products are sought after. Because some major set of people somehow falsely think wearing an endorsed celebrity athletes shoes somehow embues something akin to the success of the athlete onto them.
I just think (and it's a view as I said, no source ) that working with cognitive biases helps us get what we need to get done faster
But obviously we should recognise when it's being done to harm us by others.
For example some poker players though understanding everything is about probabilities in their game still often have oddball superstitions.
These superstitions though baseless often don't harm them enough from their key game that they continue to succeed as well as they do.
That's why I think what's effective is what matters more than hoping everyone will become bias free
I think that most people are not able to change or improve. And at the same time I think I can use and work around my own biases to help me get things done.
Clearly there's an impasse in thinking there. How can both be true?
Well I think it's what is effective is what works. It's effective for me to look at things that way then other ways
A weakness I work with is lack of consistency due to emotional variability. I could spend time on cognitive behaviour therapy, or NLP or hypnotherapy which all do the same thing and trick myself from the reality of what I'm experiencing and it's possible.
Or I could work around it. Arrange high energy work when I feel high energy. Bare minimum work for when I'm low energy. And reverse engineering through journalling and observing trends in incomplete data sets things I can implement to make the times I feel higher energy more numerous
And then thing that to performance as well.
These all work with cognitive fallacies in mind.
I just think that if SG was not there the same people would just end up falling into s similar trap but maybe at a psychologists office instead.
I think the gaslighting by SGs into thinking you're wrong and the method isn't wrong is messed up though . So there is value in cognitive fallacy learning and critical thinking but only in terms of evaluating outcome and to prevent harm from other people
In terms of self motivation to take action using cognitive fallacies is tremendously helpful
Arguments to emotion though fallacious are effective.
I do agree it's messed up to teach a method as being the end all and be all but they are competing for a limited resoirce. Which is the people likely to seek out self help are very unlikely to walk away from it because it fulfills a cognitive desire which is of blind hope.
Anyway, was a good video. Lots of thoughts sprouted up Rokas. Thankyou
If you ever achieve success in life (whatever that means to you personally) it will always be on your own terms and conditions taking into consideration your very own unique living situation, personality, talent, priorities, mental and physical health, options you have around you, present and future demand on a market, political and social situation in you country, as well as a bunch of random events and encounters that may or may not happen in your life (that are out of your control). It´s not like you can copy paste someone else´s success story. You can at the most get inspired, but based on my experience, it is what he says in the video - there are so many books that are basically the same in different variations. Most of the stuff is common sense or something you have heard or read before milion of times. And quitting is not a sign of being a looser. Not always anyway, because quitting one thing can open up the opportunity for something else, possibly even better and more meaningful to you.
Would you mind if I used your video in my lessons at school about critical thinking and how to spot scams? I’m trying to update the lessons we teach our school leavers (16 year olds)
That would be awesome Pippa! Let me know how it goes :)
Watching this I’m left wondering what do you consider good life style, or self-help, advice. Are there any specific books you recommend?
That's a great question and one I thought about myself too. Short answer: I'd recommend relying on books written by credible people who are usually scientists and experts of a particular field that they wrote a single book or two about, or journalists who do extensive research for a single book on a single subject.
For example Carol Dweck's "Growth Mindset" is an amazing book all based on her life long studies and accumulated information from countless tests. I like Malcolm Gladwell too who does great journalism and provides specific information from credible sources and various stories to illustrate his point, but he never promotes himself as an expert nor claims that what he says is life changing or true. Instead he provides a perspective and information to enrich your own viewpoint.
I also liked James Clear's "Atomic Habits". He's exploring this subject for years now together with his online community and it's evident that what he writes about in his book is part based on science and part on many many trials and errors of him and his community, where he eventually suggests methods that had been proven to work for him countless of times as much as for his community.
Anders Ericsson is a great example too. Lifelong research and tests presented in a form of a books. While there are a handful of books under his name, most of them are co-authored with another expert of their field where they enrich each other's perspectives and science based conclusions.
You are my journey
I get what you are saying, but to put ALL self-help techniques and teachers in the same boat can dissuade people from getting genuine help from self-help teachers that have VERY effective techniques.
I wonder how many Batman books Rokas has read. That would be a good topic.
Haha. Actually not that many compared to the true Batman geeks. I've read most of the best ones, which probably is about 20 books. But there are hundreds of regularly released Batman books every year :)
@@Rokasleo Great. I’m a Batman geek myself. Heavy reader. I’d like it if you’d make a video on Batman.
@@crisduta6229 I actually have a video about it already! Have you seen this one? ua-cam.com/video/ILhsZQuzMkE/v-deo.html
Very interesting take!
For a future video, have you ever thought of talking about free will? Do you believe it exists? What consequences does it have on your everyday life?
Cheers!
Thanks!
As a (self proclaimed) critical thinker I do my best to talk as little as possible about things I don't know much about :) And unfortunately the question of free will falls into that category 😁
@@Rokasleo just a future idea to explore then! Thanks for your answer!
I think you could boost this kind of video with a more baity title and thumb. Not a lot of gurus change their mind on UA-cam - - and that's something a lot of people really look forward to see - - so perhaps you can mark-robber your way into more views. Now, respecting the critical thinking philosophy, absolutely nothing I said here has any gram of science to it. I'm just GUESSING.
Thanks for the feedback Caio! I agree that the thumbnails and titles could use some improvement and I am working on it :) I'm trying out different things with each video and observing what picks up. Some more clikcbaity titles and thumbnails could be useful and I may try out more of them in the future
Yessss...
Yet there are some authors who do have a background. A career in psychological studies or in critical process improvement methods.
I do know that some SGs have degrees, but from what I investigated they usually get them at shady places or a long time ago and don't continue their learning process anymore, instead just using the credentials. Of course I am talking about the real SGs and not certain scientists who wrote a great book or two about their particular field
👍🏼
I was into self help for a while. But it doesn't go deep enough. For me my belief in God is the core and that wisdom is thousands of years old.
I really like your videos, but you are speaking so fast it makes it hard to process everything.
Could you eloborate on the unsound 'training methods' you and your SG would use?
That's a good question. I'm just trying to put a finger on what you mean specifically by 'training methods'. Do you mean how he trained me and how I trained other people? If so, I'll do my best to give some examples.
Most of the methods that my SG used to teach me were his own ideas or some spiritual pseudo-science that he picked up somewhere down the road of his own time spent with SGs. Once we did an 'intensive week' where each one of us would have some challenge such as having your eyes blind folded for a day, having a hand tied behind your back, not speaking. It was an interesting experience, but it was all guessing based by him, of what could somehow work, instead of relying on proven methods. That same week we also were committed to create a shrine in our room and to try out "bhakti yoga" which was essentially a form of worshipping. In another intensive weekend there was an exercise where each person in a circle had to speak gibberish trying to describe his own spiritual experience. We would also use kotodama (Japanese based) chanting of sounds in meditation having pointers on which chakra is affected based on which sound.
During weekly meetings he challenged each one of us psychologically where it was not uncommon to start crying during his sessions. He put a lot of psychological pressure on many of us and after the meeting many of us would come back feeling mentally/emotionally broken and having to piece ourselves back together. He did it with good intentions, believing that he is challenging us in the right way to grow, but honestly he was talking to us by whatever ways he came up with. He didn't have any therapy training or use tested methods and could have easily had a negative effect by how he challenged us.
Something that frustrates me today still is that he used to give relationship advice to us too. The frustrating is that he is two times divorced (both times he was left by his wives) and there he was giving advice and presenting that its true (probably not even worth saying again - with no training or expertise).
I could go on but I want to make sure I am answering the right question. Feel free to let me know more details on what you are interested in and if I got your question right :)
@@Rokasleo Hello Rokas, You mentioned that there was something not quitte right, pretentious or even in a way deceptive in the way you were trained and that you continued to train your pupils in the same manner. So you sparkled my curiosity as to what these training methods might be and how and in what manner they would derail from the straight and narrow or the right way which I think is that of the seeker. From what you describe here I get the impression your SG wanted to try every trick in and outside the book while lacking sound knowledge and good understanding of what he was meddling with. A sort of spiritual Trump in a porcelain cabinet. Some people will try or do anything for glory and will play the emperor but .... alas. Reflecting on these things you seem to try and convey, I would think that talking about and training in internal arts and spirituality will often look like balancing on a slippery slope as it is hard to talk about in concrete, logical or easily verifiable terms. I am myself a beginner on the path if there is one. I do some training in aikido and qigong, try to meditate some and get acqainted with Eastern philosophy. I like the explanations of teachers like Krisnamurti and Alan Watts to guide me.
@@Rokasleo thanks for giving me idea of such kind of "training" i never been able to imagining of
People take self help advice as an instruction manual, when its actually a subjective opinion.
Book Book, eating paper and ink.
Knowledge + experience = wisdom. By your analysis, this is the missing formula in most self-help scenarios. If you want true wisdom look for the “been there, done that, got the t-shirt” types.
Good point
@@Rokasleo Rokas, do you realize that you are being wise and are imparting that wisdom to others in these videos? You’ve surpassed the “self-help guru” into a higher level of self-awareness? People who’ve lived an experience and have things to say about it are the ones worth listening to. That’s the critical difference between someone who has fanciful ideas that live in a fever dream of self-delusion and a person born of fire.
Hey Rokas, just found this channel of yours. Long time viewer of the other channel. Thanks to you, I learned of Peter Consterdine and then subsequently Geoff Thompson. If I can attempt to extend the same sharing back, I'd highly recommend Geoff Thompson's work. He's got plenty of videos on youtube, but here's just one to start ua-cam.com/video/Y-bsKE_wD9U/v-deo.html
I think you'd really like both his martial arts journey and his life story. He he also started in Aikido at an early age and even had a very traumatic experience with the instructor. It took him many years, lots of searching, and lots of work/experience before he began to feel confident in his person