Simon Sinek
Cal Newport
Charles Duhigg
Mark Manson
Ryan Hollyday
Malcolm Gladwell
The list is endless to be honest, they are each different on their own way but they have the following common points:
- They are on this for the money, so expect them to be always pushing their books, products, next book, next tour, next program.Hustling, hustling,hustling.
- Their grandiose pronouncements with little or not serious backing.
- Their unwarranted sense of speaking from a position of authority
- The over-simplication and stupid generalization of what it is messy, complex and very much unique.
Even biology outside of a cellular level is already above 50% BS for me. It is just insanely difficult to have the necessary controls.
There is a pattern to these books
* Pick a topic
* Decide on a narrative
* Pick a collection of studies to demonstrate that narrative
* Take study conclusions (which are often dubious extrapolations of data) and summarize vaguely adding additional unsupported projections, a handful per chapter
* Publish and promote
It isn't just "self-help" but nearly everything in the nonfiction section that you hear people talking about.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074...
In that sense I find him way better than other authors listed: he actually makes good use of the tools he recommends as a professional (as opposed to making a living spouting bullshit about other people's work).