Why Self Help Isn't a Real Concept

Self-help is an oxymoron. If we have a problem in something we can't do, then to think that we are going to be the solution when we are the problem is kinda goofy. It's sorta like your car is out of gas, and you're gonna tell it to get some self-gas. That just doesn't work.

Everything we know about a closed system is that it deteriorates, and it runs out of energy, and it runs out of the ways to do things well. To use an example, leave your toddlers at home for the weekend and tell them to get some self-discipline. How do you think that's gonna work out for you?

So, what you see with high-performers, every high-performer, truly high-performer, they have people that speak into their lives and that support them and that help them through struggles, and give them wisdom, and give them feedback, and give them coaching. You take even the athletes. If you look at Michael Phelps, who won more gold medals than anybody, what do you look at? You look at his picture where he's had a coach pushing him into the pool at five in the morning for years and years and years. And when he wants to quit, talking him out of it, on and on and on.

If people are going to succeed, they've really got to open up to what I call open-system change, where they open themselves up to energy sources from the outside — support and (guidance) and strength and spiritual growth, and all of that, as well as new information from the outside. If you do that, then you can be helped.

But to think that you're gonna come up with all of that yourself is very grandiose and very, very wrong.