It usually goes like this: You struggle, you fail, you struggle a lot, you want to get better, get rich, improve.

At this point you’re quite frustrated, you don’t know what to do, you feel powerless.
Then the self-help world opens up its doors with words like success, happiness, money, managing and controlling people.

Is it too good to be true?
Before answer this let me share one thing: I did struggle. I did fail. I did search for a solution.
At that time those solutions seemed like the perfect one. I studied marketing, influence, how to make money. They all seemed to show one hidden side of this world that wasn’t shared mainstream.

Many of those self-help books/video revolve around visualization. I did also write an entire 100 pages book on the subject of self improvement, using some of the things that worked of me. Special types of visualization also used in a specific branch of psychology here in Italy.

Oh, those visualization. One common one is “Fake it till you make it”.
It’s based around the fact that if you mimic being happy, you’ll someone force your mind/body to act like that and it will partially work.

Or visualizing success, things like this.
They do work, but they’re also missing the point.

Because what’s missing in this equation is the human nature. The “Fake it till you make it” can work days, weeks, months but it won’t get you further than that. To go beyond you have to embrace it. To be honest and force yourself to change.

Faking it won’t work in the long term. It’s a short term strategy to relieve you from some problems. To reduce pain, because it’s hard to fight when you have less power. So that’s it. But it’s not a cure.
It’s like an aspirin. Can work for a cold, not for a serious problem.

And we _do_ have serious problems.
So back to the question: Is it too good to be true?

Yes.

Some books might help you and I do think that many of them have some nice insights, things to keep in mind and learn.

But what they don’t teach you, what the major part of the self-help, success, moneymaking world, doesn’t always communicate is failure.

You know where were you in the beginning? Struggling. Failing. Trying and failing.

What they don’t teach you is that _it’s perfectly fine to fail_ as long as you try again, as you continue learning and trying, as you become more resilient to failure.

That’s the key. Success doesn’t commonly happen overnight.
Success happens after many failures.

So beware. Beware of all the shortcut to success, being it in communication, marketing or self help.
They do all come with a price, and the price of the shortcut is usually that it doesn’t belong to you.

Think of the many topics as boxes you can count on. They become information you can use to protect and to communicate with others. See them as a toolkit to use with judgement, honesty and good intention and find _your_ way to do the work.

Don’t be a follower.