October 14: Reading Notes

This week I've been working on my chapter on the literature of sales, management and prosperity, and if I say so myself it is shaping up to be an interesting section. I have decided to explore 5 main themes in the chapter (this is usually the way I do it, though one or other of the themes normally fades away from lack of interest): Playing the Game of Life; Being Valued; The Book as Agent of Improvement; Controlling Our Reality; and The Moment of Success.




The main author I am using in this chapter is Paul Hanna. He is an absolutely intriguing figure, and I once attended a conference where he spoke, so I feel I have more of a handle on his whole technique. I will be drawing principally from his books You Can Do It, Don't Give Up and The Sales Motivator.

Another author I am using is the flamboyant advertising man Siimon Reynolds, especially his books Become Happy in Eight Minutes and Why People Fail.




The last person I am examining at any length is Sydney real-estate tycoon John McGrath and his book You Inc. Again, I have seen him in action at a conference, and his style is nothing like Paul Hanna's - he is quiet and shy and does a whole understated act.

I suppose that people imagine such books would be terrible, but in fact they are very effectively written, filled with quotes and case-studies and lots and lots of motivating exhortation. All of the above writers are actually quite good at what they do, and I would suggest deserve more respect than they will probably ever get from the literary establishment.




The central book I am comparing them all to, and the book they themselves cite frequently, is Napoleon Hill's classic Think and Grow Rich.

You Can Do It!

I've been reading Paul Hanna's book You Can Do It quite closely, because he will form the basis of one of my chapters. I really want to write something about the migrant experience and self-help authors, but Hanna doesn't mention it, at all. Frustrating for me. I shall have to read all of his other books very closely to see if I can make a case! It's interesting because throughout the book he refers to himself and his experiences regularly (which is characteristic of the genre as a whole), but he is normally only positing himself as teacher or catalyst for another person's realisation. An interesting way to cast oneself, and it's something I will be exploring further.
It's actually quite a good book - simple but effective. In real life (I've attended one of his seminars) Hanna is quite a charming man, and this unpretentious charm comes across in the book.
It has helped me make a case for the place of the ""Struggle" autobiography always present in Self-Help books. In this one Hanna details how he reached a low-point in his life when he didn't even have a car in which to drive to his cousin's wedding in Sydney's Western suburbs. This was his Scarlett O'Hara moment, and he vowed to himself that he'd never be car-less again.
This kind of scenario appears again and again in self-help literature, frequently framed around a struggle with serious illness (Hanna does this, too, in his seminars).
Hanna is big on attitude adjustment, goal setting and the power of affirmations - all standard ingredients of any self-respecting self-help book.
Ultimately the book is about enthusiasm and approaching one's life with passion - emotions more easily fired up in a seminar than a book, but Hanna does his level best to achieve it here.