Marty Nemko: Best and Worst Self-Help Tips

Thursday, January 5, 2017

Best and Worst Self-Help Tips

Today is the 1,000th day in a row that I’ve written an article on PsychologyToday.com. This seems a good time to offer what I believe are my most helpful self-help tips, and I close with some popular advice I think is horrible. Here is the link to that article.

4 comments:

Swofford said...: Marty, thank you so much for your 1,000 articles in a row. They matter to us out here in the rest of the world!; January 6, 2017 at 11:04 AM
Marty Nemko said...: That really matters to me. Thank you for writing, Mark.

Marty; January 6, 2017 at 12:52 PM
Will said...: Thats incredible. How have you been able to write so much?; March 26, 2017 at 7:07 PM
Marty Nemko said...: Because I've concluded that the meaning of life resides not in balance but in maximizing one's contribution. One maximizes that by identifying what you do best and then spending as much time on it as possible. My best skill is coming up with ideas about practical matters and then translating that quickly into writing and into public speaking. That identified, I identify the most impactful venues for that work. It has included TIME, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Alas, for reasons I do not fully understand, they've blackballed me or at least stopped using my work. Now, my most impactful venue is PsychologyToday.com. They allow me to publish articles, without an editor, every day. So I do that every day I can come up with an article that I believe is worthy of readers' time. I am grateful that I was able to that for 1,000 days in a row. After that, I did run out and now I seem to be averaging about 3 a week. I strongly suspect that will diminish quickly. Thus, I am now looking for a new outlet for making a difference. Perhaps a book called Career Care. Perhaps more YouTube videos. I've made 95 and enjoy making those and while I've had few viewers, the thumbs-up/thumbs-down ratio is gratifying. . Here's the link to my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/mnemko But I have the sense that there's something I haven't yet thought of---Perhaps some big documentary or fictional film, "America's Most Overrated Product: Higher Education." Probably I should do more to market my work but I dislike marketing. I cling to the romantic notion that quality will tell. If so, my work is of low quality. What about scaling back my work and having more fun? That's anathema. I'll be 67 in June and I know that it's only a matter of time until I start going downhill and thus have no choice but to scale back. But for now, I'm at the absolute peak of my game and want to make the most of it.; March 26, 2017 at 7:19 PM