Its 150 years since the publication of what is now regarded as the first self help book – Samuel Smiles “Self Help“. Still on sale today – and apparently a big seller in countries such as Japan and China. 
But when first published it sold 20,000 copies in its first year, and by the time of Smiles death in 1902 had sold over 1/4 million copies. In the 19th Century it was only out sold by the Bible!
In a recent radio program it was said Smiles book was published on the same day as “On Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin. I cannot find any other proof of that fact. Either way, it could be that Smiles message “Heaven helps those who help themselves” was reassuring to a society held together by Christian beliefs.
But the underlying message from Smiles was that success came through dedication and hard work. He didn’t appear to believe in the concept of “genius”, all those he portrayed in his case studies got there by hard graft and application. Interestingly, this is a central theme of Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, Outliers.
The End of Self Help?
I write this as some have been predicting the end of self help, [Read more…]
There has been some recently published research that suggests that there is now a genetic basis to self confidence. Originally in “Psychological Science”, but picked up worldwide, this research compared pairs of twins – half identical, half non-identical – usually the benchmark for sound academic research.
"Being confident is not always the same as being good at something"? That interesting statement appeared recently on another blog, 