My wife Marina and I were invited to a party recently, by a friend of a friend, and we decided to go. When we got there, we didn’t know anybody so we plunged forward and joined the conversation. As one group was standing around, the conversation slipped to books on the bestseller list, and the fact that several of the books there are “self-help” books.

One of the gentlemen there went on to trash self-help authors. He didn’t know what I did for a living, and I listened politely as he explained his take on self-help authors. He said that they were just in it for themselves, and, “Who would be foolish enough to spend any money on that trash,” since they were only getting the authors rich. It was obvious what made people successful: they knew someone, they got lucky, or were born or married into riches. A regular guy had a tough time out there in the real world. These self-help authors weren’t anything special, so what gave them the right to tell other people how to live? They were just sucking dollars from people to share with them false hope for the future. And it went on from there for at least 15 minutes. Wow, I don’t know if maybe he spent some money with someone and didn’t get anything in return, or maybe he had a past wife that was a self-help author- I don’t know.

But as the evening wore on I found out that he had two children ages 6 and 12, that he rented his home, that he didn’t really have steady income, and that he had not finished college, having only gone for about a year. And he had not invested in himself at all that I could discover.

If you ask me, (and he didn’t) this is the person that needs self-help more than anybody.

And what is self-help and what does it do for you? It allows you to make your path in life.

I buy lots of self-help stuff, and I am going to a Lou Tice event in April for three days. Even the leader needs self-help. It helps keep me motivated to do better every day in life.

Self-help has allowed me to gain a perspective that anyone can be great if they think they can. It helps me stay away from the negative thoughts that we generate daily and that are foisted on us from other people.

Self-help keeps me away from dangerous thoughts that I could have that would keep me from my dreams.

In my new book From Ordinary to Extraordinary, I share how with the proper attitude you can change your life around. I did it, and I know you can do it too.

Most successful people have the right attitudes and values. They have goals and use the machine that they have for success. Ever hear the expression that there is always room at the top? That the person who wants to have success, can have success? Just look at the makeup of your company leaders. I bet many of them have overcome life experiences that were negative.

What do you suppose leaders do when they encounter rough times? And as Yogi Berra put it, “Half of it is 90% mental.” Success Philosophy helps keep your eye on the balls that are going to be most important to you. Your self-talk, your attitude, your education of yourself, and how you see the world around you. It develops the choices that you want to make change in your life. You can change your life, and it is possible for anyone to do it.

Do all the leaders that you have around you have PhD’s? I would believe that if you looked around some of them don’t have college degrees at all, yet how do they see the world around them? I would bet that it is not from a small perspective.

People who complain about life have a right to, but it is not good use of their time. As my sisters say when something doesn’t go right, “buck up.” There is not a lot of time to feel sorry for yourself in the Jones household.

Hey, bad things happen. It is part of life. But you can direct and change your life if you know how.

You can sit around and never move your mental model from where it is today. You can say to yourself, “Self, life is tough, I don’t get the lucky breaks, I can’t make good in the world.” Or you can say to yourself, “I can learn and I can make a change in the way I think.”

I mean after all, in the end isn’t it all about how you think?

I have become a pretty good fortuneteller. After talking to a person for a short while I can find out what kind of success they want to have, and from their success thoughts I can tell what they might be able to do in life or not.

I can’t believe people don’t invest in the most important thing in life: themselves.

People live in fear of failure or fear of success, fear of change and fear of no change. What kind of life is that?

I have hired many hundreds of people in my life. And I am always amazed that I can have hundreds of applications who will answer ads for minimal wages, yet when I put an ad in that says you can make some money, no one answers. How are you going to change your life if you don’t take some risk and reach for more than you have? Why, after being married and having children would this man not try to buy a home, or reach out and try to do something that would make him more money? You know, people don’t just become rich or happy; they have to take a step, one step at a time.

Get busy and learn about how you can take charge of your life. What do you have to lose except the thought that self-improvement isn’t for you.

Do you think the person I met at the party is going to have a successful life? Or is he doomed to wallow in self-pity, that he didn’t get the good break. Who would bet your life on? Me, the self-help author, or the person that thinks nothing can be done to change his life?

Have you decided your service level?

Now what kind of question is that? Have you decided your service level? Of course you have. Just ask your people who are performing customer service.

Marshall McLuhan said, “If you want to know about water, don’t ask a fish.”

That means that right now you may not be able to see where you are in life because you are surrounded by your life. It’s like that old adage, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.”

Try this exercise: sit down and examine where you are in life right now, and why you are there. Where do you want to be, and what do you need to do to get there?

Now this is a very broad statement, so try to narrow down three things that are important in you life, and why you can or cannot get to where you want.

Do the cans outweigh the cannots?

Let’s try an example: You want a new home. You could get a new home if you had some more money. But you can’t get any more money. Why? What if there was a solution to this problem of obtaining more money? What would it be? You see yourself stuck in this position. Why? Are you too close to the solution? There probably is a way if you want it bad enough.

Sit back and think about the problem away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. As McLuhan might suggest, get out of the water and take a look at your situation from a different perspective. It’s also a good idea to ask a close friend how they see your water. They can look at it from the perspective of a different pond.

PS: Check out the recent Weekly Challenges as an introduction or to recharge your batteries.