Self-Help

Believe it or not, there was actually a time when customer service counted for something and employees were trained to do their job well. My, how times have changed. I was commiserating awhile back with a fellow writer about how business’ have changed so much over the years.

Back in the eighties, my friend was a managing editor at Training Magazine in downtown Minneapolis and I was working fulltime in public television. I also had a side hustle with my own business of producing and distributing personal development video tape programs. This was long before many companies moved their call centers to India (now Vietnam) and you could expect long waits ‘on hold’ as a normal part of doing business with them.

Self-help and personal development topics were all the rage back then and a community of gurus was ready with the answers. Books, tapes, lectures, seminars, and ‘live’ courses all rushed in to fill the vacuum of need. Councilors included a Jesuit priest and a Mexican Shaman.

ChatGPT summarized it best: ‘In the 1980s, the self-help movement exploded in popularity, blending psychology, motivational speaking, business coaching, and spirituality. Many of these figures rose to prominence during that decade and became household names.

Tony Robbins – Emerged in the mid-to-late 1980s with Unlimited Power (1986) and his firewalking seminars; became one of the most recognizable motivational coaches.

Zig Ziglar – A dynamic speaker and author of See You at the Top (revived in the 1980s), famous for sales training and positive thinking.

Jim Rohn – Mentor to Tony Robbins, popular in the 1980s for his seminars on success, personal responsibility, and mindset.

Brian Tracy – Began gaining attention in the 1980s with talks and books about goal setting, productivity, and achievement (The Psychology of Achievement).

Wayne Dyer – Already known from the 1970s (Your Erroneous Zones), but remained hugely popular in the 1980s with his blend of psychology and spirituality.

On the business front, several authors wrote fascinating sagas about business success stories and innovative entrepreneurs. Thomas J. Peters is credited with co-authoring the 1982 best-selling book In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies with Robert Waterman. The book sold over 5 million copies and helped change people’s attitudes about business in general. Two other authors, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, wrote a series of best sellers like ‘Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies’ as part of their ‘Good to Great’ Series of books.’

During that same time period, my own business, Sharden Productions, Inc., was heavy into producing and distributing personal development and self-help material in a variety of formats. I marketed my products to other public television stations, cable outlets, colleges, and universities and sub-contracted with distributors for a broader reach.

Two of my perennial top-selling courses were on speed reading and time management. But as the business grew, I expanded out to other markets like sports (Golf Memories), music (a jazz concert series called ‘Some Call It Jazz’) and even engineering courses. It was an eclectic series of products but it served various audiences and made money.

As those markets changed and evolved, I gradually shifted to producing more video series for my own home town. At one point, I had three series going simultaneously: ‘Hook and Ladder’ (Apple Valley Fire Department), ‘Police Beat’ (Apple Valley Police) and ‘Apple Valley Today’ (a magazine format video series on events and happenings in and around the city of Apple Valley). When those had run their course and I wasn’t ready for retirement, I switched to fulltime writing and never looked back.

Following that 80’s period of self-help literature, another more egregious form of salesmanship came on the scene in the early 90s. This was the whole ‘something for nothing’ or ‘little down and less in return’ sales pitch. Easy pickings in real estate were the main target for the naïve shopper but it also included just about any product or goal that required little effort on the buyer’s part, little knowledge of the product and easy sailing almost guaranteed.

The pinnacle of that foolishness was probably best exemplified by a Fortune Magazine front page shoutout in 2008. Just before the real estate crash of 2008, Fortune Magazine was touting the riches to be made in ‘get rich quick’ real estate schemes. Nothing really changes.

So, if it’s true that nothing really changes, I guess the only answer is that one remains vigilant, don’t believe it just because it’s in print or on social media and be ‘thrifty smart’ and not ‘stupid cheap.’

If it’s too good to be true, well, stupid, it probably is. I’ve seen a lot of people try to ride that pony and they usually fall off. We only have one road trip in this lifetime. So, learn to relax a little and enjoy the ride for what it is. The ride of a lifetime.