Why it's so hard to change yourself

Oprah and Dr. Phil are innately self-confident and charismatic celebrities, who became rich by trafficking their brand of self-help advice to people who (like most of us) are innately insecure.  Their highly addictive product (presented on TV shows, expensive self-help books and magazines) is ingested like a drug by gullible people who desperately want to fix their own personality.

Oprah and Dr. Phil tell their followers that by changing their habits they can change themselves.  Sounds easy.  Of course, the advice has no lasting effect.  People are temporarily happy, of course, to do what their leaders tell them, but are unwilling to change their habits for more than a few days or weeks on their own, without additional moral support from their leaders.  Time to buy a new self-help book, or watch a new commercial-filled episode of Oprah.

Unfortunately, most people are unwilling to believe that their motivations are innate.  They believe that following the right leader will make them change (does anyone see the irony of requiring a leader to tell you how to be more of a leader?), and therefore leaders can endlessly exploit this mistake, and make themselves rich at the folly of others.

What would it take for people to finally understand that motivations and personality are innate?  Paradoxically, it would a charismatic figure, whom people could trust and follow, to preach this new gospel, to make people believe.  But why would a leader do something so self-defeating?  Why would a person with leadership genes want to destroy the myth, and lose their grand position in society?  It's not going to happen.

Comments

[Steve Harold - Hypnosis mp3]

There is no doubt that people do change and in the direction of success and happier life styles. The point is that there isn't one thing, trick or process that works for everyone all the time.