I'm currently reading the book SHAM (Self-Help & Actualization Movement) by Steve Salerno. Steve's view is that many so called "gurus" of the self-help movement are making "us" helpless. As I read Steve's book, I can't help being reminded of another book I read in the early 1980s, If You Meet Buddha on the Road, Kill Him (Sheldon Kopp 1973). Both authors have a similar message:
"The most important life-skills each of us must learn, no one else can teach us. Once we accept this disappointment, we will be able to stop depending on the 'guru' who turns out to be just another struggling human being."
Of course, we do need experts. As a Software Engineer, I value the wisdom of more learned Software Engineers than myself. I have just finished devouring, over the past few months, the contents of 20+ books on ASP.NET programming - the average page length of each book is 600 and the average cost of each book was $100. I have my software gurus, Michael Kay for profound insights into XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation), Dan Fox for his guidance in developing distributed applications using Visual Basic.Net and his excellent guidance on ADO.NET development. No idea what some of these terms mean? Well that probably means you are not a Software Engineer, however, my point is, if you desire to become a expert in any field, you will have to rely on the wisdom of current and past experts in the field to help you along the way.
Whereas, the point Steve is making in SHAM and the point Sheldon is making in You Meet Buddha on the Road, Kill Him is that many in our society are becoming over-reliant on self styled "gurus" such as Dr. Phil and Tony Robbins. For some inexplicable reason, we are blindly following these pseudo-gurus and not using our common sense to reject the absurd - why is this so? Would you have walked out on Robbins' seminar if you'd been there the day he said, "The energy frequency of Kentucky Fried is 3 megahertz" (cited Salerno 2005, p. 13)? Apparently he made this statement as he was stressing the importance of us being aware of the "energy frequency" of the foods we eat. Rubbish! I totally agree with Steve, there are too many self-styled "gurus" pretending to understand the latest scientific discoveries and making financial gain out of preaching how the new discovery (the implications of which they seem to have been the first to understand) will change our life:
...the customary formula calls for taking a modicum of legitimate research and "piggybacking" onto it -- that is, extending it and misapplying its conclusions in a way that's just plausible enough to [get away with it!]. (Dale Beyerstein, a Philosophy Professor who has written extensively on the destructive consequences of those who engage in pseudoscience - refer: Salerno 2005, p. 11.)
Steve Salerno gives a wakeup call to us all to use our common sense, recognise false prophets, pseudo-gurus for what they are, and take charge of our own destiny. As Birch (1999, p. 14), citing a Chinese proverb says, "People in the West are always getting ready to live", isn't it time we stopped been sheep, stopped trying yet-another-unproven recipe from a self-proclaimed guru and start, not perpetually getting ready to live, but actually living!
So how do you tell people, who are proffering real wisdom (which, as such, is obviously worth heeding), from pseudo-gurus with their life (i.e. our life)-wasting babble? I offer the following criteria:
- There is evidence that the advocated process works. "The results of a 1995 study conducted by Harvard Medical School indicated that alcoholics have a better chance of quitting drinking if they don't attend AA than if they do (Salerno 2005, p. 13)" If you were an alcoholic and no longer wanted to be one, and knew this fact about the efficacy of AA, would you go to AA or seek some other therapy? So, before blindly following some guru, look for evidence that their advocated process does actually work.
- They are appropriately credentialed. Ask to see their qualifications. Ask for evidence of their successes - If people have to keep going back for help then their advocated process is obviously not working.
- They have a real capacity to improve our situation. I love Steve Salerno's example for this criterion (In my mind, it exemplifies the importance to us of real experts):
At meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and other support groups, the leader's sole credential may consist of his being in recovery from whatever the specific addiction is. Society, again, seems to think this makes good sense. I would ask two questions: isn't it possible that fellow sufferers are a bit too close to the problem to lead effectively and impartially? And if your problem was, say, that the electrical fixtures in your house were acting funky, would you really want a workshop taught by some other homeowner who couldn't get his lights to work right (and who, by his own admission, still had the problem)? Or would you want a trained electrician? (Salerno 2005, p. 15)
Do they really have the skills and knowledge themselves to help, or are they still looking for solutions to the same problems as we are?
- They encourage us to figure out where we want to go, and they encourage us to expend effort to get there. As every gym attendee knows, "no pain no gain" - a maxim which, as it turns out, if we do not wish to stagnate or regress, applies in all-of-life's journeys. Simply attending a seminar (even if it costs a small fortune), reading a book (without practising over and over its advocated proven techniques) or listening to a "guru's" tapes (sorry CDs) as we drive to work, will get us nowhere - except perhaps a bit less financially endowed each time we invest in a new recipe to which we merely listen.
- They encourage us to understand principles and choose our actions accordingly. The pseudo-guru will have a "one-recipe-fits-all" approach to life. True gurus among us do not offer one-recipe-fits-all type approaches to living, rather they help us figure out who we are as individuals, and encourage us to gain the wisdom to take responsibility for our own destiny. The operative words are they help and encourage us rather than tell us and dictate to us - thus, if you hear the pied piper on the road - ignore him/her and go your own way! True gurus make suggestions and ask us questions. They do not pretend to have the truth, but share with us their current 'best shot" at explaining the "way-things-work/are", encouraging us to contribute to the ongoing process of unfolding a collective understanding of the "nature-of-things".
What do you think? I'd like to hear you comments after you've read Steve Salerno's book, SHAM.
References
Birch, C. 1999, Biology and the Riddle of Life, University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Kopp, S. 1972, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him: The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients, Bantam Books, Toronto.
Salerno, Steve 2005, SHAM (Self-Help & Actualization Movement): How the gurus of the self-help movement make us helpless, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London.
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Rona Fitzpatrick, B.FA., University of Manitoba, 1974, CERT. ED., University of Manitoba, 1975, has successfully completed her Master of Arts in Conflict Analysis and Management at Royal Roads University, Canada. Her Masters Thesis title was Exploring Values Alignment as a Strategy for Enhancing Collaboration in a Government Agency. Rona used the AVI in an action research project in order to develop and write her thesis. Rona will be awarded her Masters Degree this month.
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