How to change your life in & steps. John Bird.

The next few posts are directly written up from scrawled notes I took on Busses and trains.

John Bird, founder of the big issue started his life on the streets selling magazines gotten from a basement from a young man pretending to create student magazines and peddling them throughout the city- that young man was Richard Branson.
Whilst Bird's writing style seems a lot more personal and believable than the slightly patronising support of Harrold, I found quickly that he uses many of the same techniques she uses in her writing.
Self help authors often tell people's stories, their own and people they've known, often in Fiona Harrod's case she seems to do so in an attempt to prove that she can help people.
The stories are supposed to be there for us to relate to, and Bird tells us often that almost everyone has had depression or hard times, or problems like our own (readers). We're all the same. We're all human.
Likewise Bird talks of victimism, that those victims in the world are those that see themselves as such, that blame the world and others for thier problems.
Does this really help us though? Deep down, I'm sure even these victims know that they're not the only ones having problems know that they're not the only ones having problems in the world and the difference actually is, as Bird seems to fail to note, is that really the problems we have, seem worse than the problems, simply because they are actually happening to us. Both authors also seem to fail to see the personality within personal problems.
Self help books seem so far, to be cheap psychology that finds the root of all problems to be fundamentally the same, and can all be changed with self motivation and positive thinking.
None of the advice is personal, rather it is all wide angled and designed to 'work' on any reader of any kind.
To me, this lie of thinking is akin to that of something such as cold reading. It offers the client with the illusion of deeply personal counselling and insight, which can change their lives, when really, it offers a series of notes and steps found within the human condition, in almost every person alive.

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I later made these short notations

"Give yourself a new label"
I noted this I think because Ive never agreed with people giving themself labels. Bird suggests you label yourself, not the "out of work lowlife" and rethink your life with a goal, for example label yourself "the caring father" if you think as yourself as such, you can easily become such.
This seems a good idea, but a little simple, I could easily label myself a hocky player, but unless I actually learn to play the sport the label will just be a personal lie, which goes against the writers third step about not lying to yourself or others.

"Refuse to hang around with victims"
The victims he refers to are those having problems in life and not allowing them to see their own way out. However, I feel this is a cruel idea, and allows the oppertunity for people to cut all ties with a reader, until he puts the ideas of the book into practice. I think people who are victims often need more than a book, they need friends and family to help them through hard times.