I'm always fascinated as to why people on this board fervently defend scammy self-help books. Tim Ferris' completely phony 4-hour series provoked a similar reaction.
Without self-help materials I would still have been a somewhat gifted kid but also a total mess of a human being. Thanks to self help I am becoming more and more self-realized every day.
I am not going to downvote you, because I am genuinely curious what you have against Ferriss. Care to tell me more?
I also like Personal development for smart people by Steve Pavlina.
Tom Butler-Bowdon has a series of books that summarize all the major works in psychology/self help/prosperity/success/etc. Those are a good way to get up to speed and learn what's out there in the genre.
Finally, if you find it useless, why do you assume that everybody else does so as well?
Oh but they do: for the authors.
The problem with them is that there is little of substance and lots of feel-good hand waving. The good bits could usually be summed up on a page. Compare and contrast, with, say "Founders at Work" where each story is different, unique and interesting in its own way.
Unfortunately, the secret to his success IS the act of giving him twenty more dollars.
I have no use for anyone or anything that comes from a MLM background.
However, I probably would never have read Founders at Work if I hadn't been inspired to get into entrepreneurship by Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
There's not a whole lot of value there beyond confirmation of common-sense ideas, but I don't think that's a scam.
He advocates a slow-carb diet, which has been shown to effectively help people reach a healthy and sustainable weight. He also advocates that people do complex exercises rather than over-focusing on specific muscle groups. That makes up the majority of his health advice, and is not especially controversial and is all fairly common sense. He's basically saying to eat healthy food and to workout regularly if you want to be healthy.
He does throw some stuff in the "love" section that's just meant to sell books, and it's pretty much filler material, but I still wouldn't consider it scammy or bad advice. He's not advocating that people go to extremes like he did.
But, just because something isn't perfect, means it's no good. This mindset too, is troubling.
I think it's troubling to over-trivialize or generalize what any book can offer.
At the end of the day, it's up to us as individuals to take the good in everything. I found some things helpful in this book.
It's not at the core of my dominant world viewpoint, but helped me understand how to better (not perfectly, or completely) frame what I wanted in my future. It certainly didn't teach me how to get there.
I loved it. It's a motivational book, but as a disclaimer, I had my "muse" (business with passive income) already running before I read that book. I also had a day job, which I have quit now (actually, by the end of next week). The 4HWW gave me a strong impulse to do the step and quit my job.
And someone else mentioned here already: 4HWW is to give you a mindset. It worked pretty well for me.
But on the other hand I think this is the most important part about them, they give people the feeling that they can succeed which is a necessary ingredient to taking risks to making yourself successful.
Like a rough economic cycle, picking up a new skill, or learning to program, sometimes I have to slog through something difficult that does not seem to be getting me anywhere before the light bulb goes on and I realize "oh, THAT'S why this whatever is done that way."
What's that other adage? Fake it till you make it?