Help Me!

So I was waking up a lot in the night with just this sort of pounding heart, and friends around me were beginning to move on and start families and buy houses, and I was terrible with money. So this particular hangover, I was doing what I always do when I feel bad, [which] is read a self-help book and fantasize about how great life would be if I got up at 5 a.m. to meditate and if I drank green juices and was positive.

And then it just occurred to me that the reason that these books never changed my life was because I didn't do anything they told me to do. So for me it was kind of a form of escapism and comfort, actually. You know, I would read them, have a daydream about changing my life but then never doing it. So then this idea came that I'd spend a year not just reading self-help but really, really doing it. And yes, that was the beginning.

Rachel Salaman: Once you'd decided to do that, how did you choose the books that you were going to follow?

Marianne Power: I wanted to start with "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway," because that was the first self-help book I'd ever read when I was 24, and it was actually the exception to the other rule about me just reading and not doing anything.

When I first read "Feel the Fear" I was working for a PR agency and… Just a job I didn't like, and I read that book and somehow I got enough gumption to quit that job, even though I didn't know what I was going to do. I had a friend of a friend who was working in journalism and I kept calling her, and I went in and got work experience, and that was the beginning of my journalism.

So that was this one instance of my first self-help book and me really doing something differently. But after that I was addicted to the books but never took the action anymore.

So I wanted to start with "Feel the Fear" again because it had been my first one, because it had had an impact the first time, and also because its rules are quite clear: it wasn't going to be a book that was going to allow me to do lots of navel-gazing – which is what my sisters were worried about, you know, it was a book that would… You know, "Right, if I'm doing this I'm doing this."

The advice in that book is that you do one scary thing a day, and that can be small to big. So, "small" in my case, opening bank statements was quite terrifying, and parallel parking. And then "big," I did some really big things: I wrote a list at the start of the month and the most terrifying thing I could think of doing was stand-up comedy, which I did, and I did public speaking and I jumped out of a plane and I chatted up men on the Northern Line. So that was my start.

And then, after that, it was pretty much "make it up as I go along," so there were different areas that needed addressing. So for me, money, which is why "Money: A Love Story" was the next book I did, and then that was all a bit too real and a bit too close to home.

So then I did a bit of escapism with "The Secret" – because by that point I was beginning to tell people what I was doing and I was blogging about it as well. And people would usually have one of two reactions: they'd either look at me like I was a bit nuts and didn't understand what I was doing or talking about, or they would say, "Have you read 'The Secret'?" And then proceed to tell me how they found their husband, their flat, their whatever from "The Secret."

Rachel Salaman: And what is the secret in "The Secret"?

Marianne Power: So the secret is, you can have anything you want in life if you just believe. And according to the author, Rhonda Byrne, this is something called "the law of attraction" and she's not the only one who writes about the law of attraction.

By this law thoughts become things. So if you keep thinking about bills and debts and the fact that you're single, that is what you're going to bring more of that into your life. The book says that if you think about… You know, one of the things it does is that you download a pretend check from The Secret website and you fill it out for the amount of money that you want and the universe is meant to deliver it to you, you know.

So if you imagine checks and promotions and men or women lining up for you, you know, that is what you're going to get more of. And as a sort of vaguely rational person, this just didn't sit right at all, and yet so many people swear by it.

Rachel Salaman: So what's that all about then?

Marianne Power: I don't know. I think what is really good about the book is that it gives people permission to dream big. So what would you want if you could have anything at all? You know, and a lot of us… When we're kids we'll happily say, "I want to be an astronaut, I want to be a ballerina" and then somewhere along the line –

Rachel Salaman: It gets smashed out of you.

Marianne Power: – it gets smashed out of us, exactly, and then we don't even dare think about what we might like because, "Who do you think you are? That's never going to happen!"

The book takes that away, because it says, "You don't have to worry about how it's going to happen, the universe is going to take care of that, but what would you want?" Actually, it's quite scary to allow yourself to really dream big, because it does bring up all these thoughts of (for me certainly), "Who do you think you are? That's never going to happen!" This idea of being too big for your boots, you know?

But, I think the actual identifying of what the dream is is really helpful and I think that we can actually all do way, way, way more than we think we can. I personally don't believe it's magically delivered by the universe. I think, in my experience, it takes a lot of work and determination and –

Rachel Salaman: Planning, sometimes?

Marianne Power: Sometimes, yes. Because in The Secret there's, I think, one or two lines that refer to, "You might have to take some action in order to realize your dream, but it won't feel like work, it will feel joyous."

And what I mention in the book is that I'd seen a documentary about Usain Bolt who… You know, when you see him running he makes it look so easy, but in this documentary it followed him training so hard that he was vomiting at the end of his sessions. Now that's not joyous, that is grit and work.

So part of "The Secret" I find helpful, to really just allow us [to think], "What would I do? What could I do?" And then, I think by even allowing that as a possibility we do find ways and opportunities for things to happen.

But the bit that the world is going to magically give it to you, I think is a sort of a dangerous message. And there's also the implication that anything bad that happens to you, you've brought it on in some way by your negative thinking, and that also feels like a very unfair conclusion to make; you know, some people have more advantages than others.

So yes, a book that's so controversial but still massively read as well, still really popular. So then that was book number three, and it was just a mixture of different areas I wanted to address, books that would be mentioned to me by people.

Rachel Salaman: And some of them were quite extreme, weren't they? There was one about angels…

Marianne Power: Yes. So, angels came about because I was asked to write an article about angels and I had gone to an event… There's actually a lot of people writing about this and I'd gone to this event with a woman called Doreen Virtue, and there was at least a thousand, two thousand people in the room, all hanging on her every word.

And I had grown up Catholic, so as a kid I actually prayed to my guardian angel every day, but then as soon as I left home and left school my faith fell away. And a bit of me was kind of wanting to find out, "OK, well maybe there is comfort in this and maybe I could get my faith back," but I didn't.

I kind of had an allergic reaction to those books; they didn't sit right with me, and no judgment to anyone that it does help because I just think different things resonate with different people – and in many ways the angel books have similar messages to "The Secret" (in terms of having faith) and in "The Secret" it's "the universe will deliver" and in angels it's more like "your angels will deliver."

Rachel Salaman: And then, at the other end of the spectrum, were things like Stephen Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People."

Marianne Power: Yes.

Rachel Salaman: So how did you get on with that one?

Marianne Power: Well, not well. I gave up on "habit two," too, which kind of says it all.

At this point, I think this was maybe my tenth, no… Ninth or tenth book. I was quite far into the experiment and this book was just a step too far for me, not because there's anything wrong in the book but I think I was months and months down the line of constant self-examination and I was coming unstuck.

And one of the exercises in "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" is that you plan your own funeral. And the idea behind that I think is probably a solid one – he says that many of us spend our lives climbing up ladders that are leaning against the wrong building.

So, again, a bit like "The Secret" in that you just don't think about, "What do I want? What's important to me?" We just run around doing whatever is the immediate. And he says that planning your funeral is a way of getting clear on what you want people to say about you when you die, so that's then your life purpose.

So in the book he tells you to imagine walking into the church and the organ is playing, and there's a coffin at the bottom and then you walk up to it and you're in there. You know, literally you are lying there, dead, in the coffin, and then you imagine each of your friends and family and colleagues coming up and talking about you. What would you want them to say about you?

What kind of person were you: were you an artist, were you a family person, did you start a business that gave loads of employment, did you travel? Like, what would be what matters to you when you die? For me it was too much. I didn't know what I wanted for lunch most days, let alone what my life purpose was. And I'm not sure how many people do know, maybe some people do. I didn't and I felt like a real failure that I didn't.

And this was also what happened the more I got into the self-help, actually. The bar was being set so high, so at this point I felt like a failure because I wasn't walking around like Buddha and Beyoncé every day. You know, this kind of fantastically successful Zen person.

Yes, two criticisms that are leveled against self-help: one is that it does create quite high standards that a lot of us end up falling short [of], and that can make us feel worse rather than better, and that it can lead to self-obsession. Which, you know, I was doing a very extreme version – most people are not doing self-help the way I was, but I had become totally self-obsessed.

I thought that the more I thought about myself and examined myself, and my so-called problems, I would get to the bottom of them. But it actually wasn't working that way, it seemed to be the more I looked at my problems the more I had, the more I was losing touch with the kind of solid ground of my old life.

So yes, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," I'm absolutely not anti that book at all, but for me it was "the straw that broke the camel's back" for a while, yes.

Rachel Salaman: It sounds like a lot of these books have the same underlying messages, they're just reframed completely differently.

Marianne Power: Some do. Some don't though, because, say for example, "Money: A Love Story," my money book, was very much about getting real and going through your bank statements and finding out what you were doing with your money and examining your past to see where you got your relationship to money.

Because she says that we all think that the answer to our money problems is to have more money. But that's actually not true, because you only have to look at lottery winners who are broke within four years to just know we all behave very emotionally with money. So that was a reality check. And then, of course, "The Secret" was the total opposite: "The Secret" was, "Don't get real with your bank statements," it actually says, "Doctor them and add zeros."

So there were some contrasts. And then, yes, there was some [that were] profoundly similar. So, "The Power of Now," which I loved, is also quite similar to a book called "F**k It." (I don't know if I can swear on your podcast!) Tony Robbins had similarities to "The Power of Now," too, and they both said that we're addicted to our problems.

So yes, there is crossover and they're just delivered in different ways that will appeal to different people. So the "F**k It" book is a very sweary, fun version of actually quite a deep message – which is a very spiritual message – but it will appeal to people who wouldn't read spiritual literature or wouldn't even necessarily read self-help that much.

And then there are people who really want the spiritual stuff and for them "The Power of Now," or the Buddhist books, will be what works.

I suppose there are some fundamental truths of life and they will pop up time and time again. I think there's nothing new under the sun.

Rachel Salaman: Most self-help advice is about changing your behavior for life, as we've touched on. But you switched approach every month –

Marianne Power: I know!

Rachel Salaman: – no matter how many similarities there were underneath them. How difficult was it to ditch one approach and start the next, or did they build on each other?

Marianne Power: It got really confusing – my friend said it's like swapping a diet every month, so I was being vegan one month and then going on the Atkins and eating steak the next month. It got confusing.

Say, for example, the money book, I would have done well to do that book for six months. Habits do take a long time to change. There's different research on this, on how long it does take, but I would have probably benefited with some of them for just sitting with it longer.

But, annoyingly, I am a kind of dramatic all or nothing person, and so in another way it quite suited me to just go into it for a short period of time and then do the next thing. Actually, I think it's probably harder work to just keep plodding away at one approach and sustaining that.

Rachel Salaman: You're hinting there that perhaps to plod away at one approach and sustaining it might give you better results?

Marianne Power: I think so, I think so. Yes, I do think so. I think self-help is an industry – and it's a really successful one, I think $11 billion is the latest figure – and that industry is based on the fact that you don't just buy one book or one course, you buy the next one, the next one, the next one, the next one. And it's very appealing (certainly for people like me who like shopping!) to think that the act of buying and reading half a book is going to change your life – it's not.

In reality, change is turning up every day and meditating every day, you know, for me that actually is helpful, but I go hot and cold on things. It's the discipline of doing the things that we know are good for us every day, even when we don't want to. Which isn't as sexy as the excitement of reading a new book and going, "Yes, yes, this is the truth, this is it!"

Yes, so I think if you can find one approach that resonates with you and works with you, less is more, read it, re-read it, try and implement it, you know, gently – you don't have to just change your life overnight, but if there's wisdom there keep at it, keep at it, yes.

Rachel Salaman: Some of the approaches that you tried involved real-time interaction with other people doing the same thing in workshops and seminars. Did this lead you to any specific insights into why people seek self-improvement or the kinds of people who do?

Marianne Power: They were the most helpful moments to me, when I was in group scenarios, either on the "F**k It" retreat in Italy or Tony Robbins or the Hoffman Process, which was a really intense therapy week I did.

They were so helpful to me because they made me realize that actually many of us struggle with the same insecurities. It doesn't matter how together we look or how big the job, everybody has these struggles with self-doubt, feeling like they're not doing enough. Yes, that was just hugely comforting.

So Alain de Botton (who's got the School of Life organization) argues that we've always needed guidance on how to live a life. You know, that's why philosophy existed, it's a big part of what religion offers people, or it could be that you got that advice from a village elder or a grandparent. But the way we're living life now (quite often in cities, away from an extended family) not that many of us are using religion as much as we used to, so now self-help is filling that void, and actually it's a very human, and not new thing, to try and need answers. What should I be doing? What's important? What's a good life?

At the Tony Robbins event, I also could really feel that we're in a particularly chaotic and insecure time in the world. So at Tony Robbins events – this is a huge event – 7,000 people come and he gets you into what he calls a "peak state" that you feel like you can do anything – including running across a lane of burning coals, which we all did.

But I was amazed at how young some of the people were there. And these were people that were sometimes university educated, sometimes not. If they were leaving education, they had a big bill, they had a huge debt, they were going into a really insecure job market – you know, they were part of the gig economy where they were trying to keep several plates spinning.

And there's a lot of pressure on these people to get their act together. Like, they really have to be on it and manage themselves, you know. Whereas I'm 41 now, but I went into a job world where there was a job world and I would get a job and I got paid. And I tried really hard every day, but there was a structure and security to it, which I think is lacking now.

So, partly, self-help was just filling a hole that has always been there, and in another way I think we're living in really uncertain times and anxiety is on the rise and people are quite lost and freaked out, and that's part of what's driving it.

Rachel Salaman: So I suppose the big question for everybody is, how much can it help? Which self-help approaches did you find the most useful?

Marianne Power: Yes, I think it really can help. So, for me, a lot of the comfort from self-help was, yes, the fantasy, but also the comfort of reading something that describes how you feel.

You know, whether it's worrying, or about being single, and just how hard that is, and to have it written down and you go, "OK, that's not just me." So, that I find a really useful, useful thing, and some of the advice in the books is really helpful too.

But it has limitations that Brené Brown, who's an author that I really like, she says that she doesn't like the term "self-help" because she doesn't think we're meant to do it on our own, we're meant to help each other, and I think that is true, too. You know, I'm someone who goes away into a room and reads a book and just tries to fix myself, and it doesn't work like that. We need each other.

That's why, for me, the group therapy or the group weekends were so powerful. Because blurting out to someone else, you know, the things that you think about yourself, the critical thoughts, and hearing other people's internal monologs is just so comforting, because you kind of think, "Oh, OK, this is normal, actually we're all doing this." And that in itself is a big relief.

So yes, I think self-help books are a wonderful start, and I also think we need to talk to each other, whether that's your friends or your family or in a group situation like this. And also, you know, to have a professional therapist, if you can afford that it's invaluable because they can see things in you that you can't see in yourself.

So I did eventually start seeing a therapist and she said that the problem with self-help books is that you're reading it with the same mind that has created some of your problems, you're almost… Like with my self-help project, actually what I was weirdly doing was a version of what I'd done all my life, which is trying harder and harder and harder to be good enough. And I had done that professionally and I'd gone to the gym to do it (you know, because if I'm slim enough, I'll be OK), and then I had done it with self-help.

Sometimes, actually, the answer isn't to change yourself, it's to accept yourself how you are. And to me that acceptance often came from conversations with other people and realizing I wasn't unique in my insecurities.

Rachel Salaman: But, nevertheless, have there been some tools or tricks that you've learned that have had a lasting impact on you?

Marianne Power: Yes. So I love, love, love, love, love "The Power of Now." Eckhart Tolle, the author, says that when we walk down the street and we see people talking to themselves, you know, we think they're a bit mad, but we're all talking to ourselves all the time, we've all got this inner voice that's narrating everything we're doing.

And it's usually a really critical, judgmental, harsh one. And it's either living in the past, "Why did you say that, why did you do that?" or it's in the future, worrying about what might happen. Or thinking, "Oh, it'll be better when…" you know, kind of wishing your life away.

He says that we treat each day like it's an obstacle to overcome. And he says that when we're doing this, when we're so lost in our thoughts, we're missing out on the only thing that's ever real and is going to give us any sense of peace, which is to be here, right now, you know, really, really be in every moment.

Rachel Salaman: And is that a simple case of just telling yourself?

Marianne Power: No it's not, so it's not, but the awareness… I had moments in that month, when I was doing that book, where I really felt it and the world took on like a hyper-beauty. You know, then in normal life I lose it. But I have an awareness that that is actually the truth.

So now, when I'm going off on my thoughts, worrying about my various things, there is a bit of me that goes, "Marianne, you're just doing what you're doing here now, this isn't even true what you're saying to yourself." I still do it, but there is a little bit of awareness around it.

And he's… Simple things, like breathing, being in the body (so if you're washing up, instead of thinking about all the things you have to do tomorrow, really try and feel the water, feel the suds), so little things like that, even if you can do it for a minute or two, somehow breaks the tyranny of this thinking and worrying.

Then also "F**k It" I love, because he says that "f**k it" is the Western expression of the Eastern philosophy of accepting and letting go. And as soon as you just start to care a bit less about what's going to happen with this book, what's going to happen in the summer, what's going to happen with my money, what's going to happen with my love life? As soon as you stop the worrying you relax, and then things tend to go better.

Again, this does not come naturally to me, but I dip into that book quite a lot and as soon as I read it a bit of me just like sighs [with] relief.

Rachel Salaman: Now you've mentioned you're a freelance writer. How did this experiment help your professional life?

Marianne Power: So I suppose professionally, before, I only ever had written for a way that would suit the publication I was writing for. Whereas the blog helped me find my own voice, and then that has ended up in a book that I'm super proud of.

Rachel Salaman: And how much do you think the place you're in now owes a debt to the books you read?

They do, it does, it really does. "Feel the Fear," I think I'd recommend that book to anyone as well; every time I'm asked to go on television or radio or do public speaking I am terrified, and I do it anyway.

As a freelance journalist I was quite often (not often but, you know, occasionally) asked to go on radio to talk about something. I always said no. Just, no way! The fear of embarrassment, of failing, of not saying the right things, it was too much. Now I seem to be able to live with that.

So I do owe it to that, and then also the experience of being in group therapy situations where people are being honest about themselves made me much braver about being honest about myself in this book. Because I did realize I am not unique, there is nothing here I'm admitting to that is shameful, but actually, you know, before I always would have felt shame. I thought everyone else had it together and I just had to pretend to have it together as well.

Rachel Salaman: Now of course there is a dark side. And during the self-help year you had a kind of breakdown, which you imply in the book was the result of too much self-analysis – I think a taxi driver used the image of an onion, peeling back the layers of an onion.

Marianne Power: Yes.

Rachel Salaman: Is that how you interpret that crisis now, looking back on it?

Marianne Power: I wonder if all people who go on some sort of journey (which is my mom's least favorite word, "journey") of self-discovery, will have a moment like that, where you were just fallen apart.

I think the "dark night of the soul" is one of those very well-known phenomena; I think that's what I was having. Because I had put myself through so many uncomfortable new experiences and I was questioning everything about myself, having been someone who hadn't done that before, and I was doing it on my own. I don't blame the self-help for that, because the way I was doing things was so extreme, you know, most people who read self-help books are not doing it in the way that I was doing it.

It was horrible to be in that period for about six weeks, possibly longer, actually. I was having nightmares, I was really not functioning in the normal world, and I had let go of all the structure that was in my normal life. You know, I'd always been a bit of a workaholic, neurotic about work, and I suddenly just didn't care about work. I'd always been a very nice people pleaser and suddenly I was falling out with my friends, you know, I was letting go of all of my old behaviors and didn't know who I was then.

You know, if I let go of that… And that's what the taxi driver, this guru taxi driver I had, he said that in the 60s people would say, "Oh let go, man, let it go." And he said if they had actually ever let anything go, they would know how terrifying it is. So that's what I was, I think I was letting go of the old me and I just didn't know what was going to be next.

And, I think also this is part of perhaps the paradox of self-help, is that we think we want to change, but real change when it's happening is actually very scary, it's terrifying. So I think a lot of us will back away from that moment, whereas I was just sort of right into the bottom of it without me even realizing. But I don't regret that now because I learnt a lot from it.

Rachel Salaman: Do you think publishers take enough responsibility for the potentially serious impact of these books?

Marianne Power: Again, I'm just aware that the way I was doing it is not how most people are reading self-help books. They are not reading a self-help book and then jumping out of a plane, doing stand-up comedy, and getting naked within two weeks, that's not what most people are doing.

I spoke to publishers of self-help, actually recently for an article, and they were saying that the way self-help is going now is to a much more humble and honest and realistic approach.

So instead of perhaps having these messages of "do these 10 things and you'll be smiling every day and life will be perfect and you'll be a success," the current appetite is for more memoir led (like personal led) books on "this is my anxiety, this is my depression, these are my issues, this is how I learnt to live with it or helped me a bit."

But there isn't this message of "now I'm cured!" Because I think, for most of us, that is not how life works. You know, it's getting up every day and try again and try again, and if a book can help us understand our situations a bit more I think that's really valuable, and [to] feel less alone, that is really valuable.

So yes, I think there's a change from that. I don't know that people are buying into this idea that you can do 10 things before breakfast and then you'll be a millionaire.

Rachel Salaman: And then the subsequent fall when that doesn't happen.

Marianne Power: The fallout, yes, exactly.

Rachel Salaman: Sure. Well the end of your journey in the book is when you arrive at self-acceptance and even self-love. How do we stop that attitude turning into an excuse for mediocrity?

Marianne Power: What do you mean by "mediocrity"?

Rachel Salaman: You could say, "I would have finished my article today but I didn't, and that's OK because I'm gorgeous just the way I am." When, in fact, you should have pushed through and finished it.

Marianne Power: Yes. [Pause]

Rachel Salaman: Maybe your silence says it all, that it doesn't turn into an excuse for mediocrity?

Marianne Power: No, it doesn't. No, because I got to that bit of self-acceptance (and, on good days, self-love) and then I worked ferociously hard writing this book afterwards and was really hard on myself during that process. So, again, you have these moments of self-acceptance and "I'm great" and then moments of huge doubt again.

So no, that hasn't been my experience of it. I don't think self-acceptance leads to laziness, if anything it gives you a bit more faith in yourself and that things, you know, you can give them a try and maybe it's not the end of the world if it doesn't go that well, and you can do things just for the fun of them.

Rachel Salaman: As you've mentioned, you had this successful blog and now the book. Was your motivation purely to entertain people, or was there a different motivation?

Marianne Power: So the blog, I wanted to blog about what I was doing in real time because I wanted to be accountable. And that I would keep going and I wouldn't back out, because I am very good at starting things and not finishing things. So when I declared publicly to friends and family through Facebook, and then on the blog, that this was what I was doing, I kind of had to stick to it.

So the accountability was the main interest of the blog. And then, when it came to writing the book, I wanted it to be honest so that people would read it and feel, I guess, less alone. Just to be honest was the priority, and then for it to be funny as well, because even though I took this project really seriously (and I honestly was looking for answers) I was also aware that what I was doing was quite ridiculous. So, I think that's the Irish in me, to always want to laugh at what I was doing, you know, if you can keep laughing at yourself you'll always be laughing.

So the book's intention was to be honest and funny, and then also entertaining. You know, people who don't read self-help books like this book because it reads like a good story and you get little sneaky nuggets of wisdom in there, which I hope is helpful.

Rachel Salaman: And the book really is both entertaining and helpful. Marianne Power was talking to me in London.

The name of Marianne's book again is "Help Me! One Woman's Quest to Find Out if Self-Help Really Can Change Her Life."

I'll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.