Show Notes
In this episode of “Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice,” Patricia and Nicole discuss how to read self-help effectively. They delve into their views on self-help books, highlighting the trap of constant improvement and sharing methods for effectively integrating helpful insights into daily life. They discuss the importance of discerning valuable advice from what’s not relevant, and the need to actively apply self-help tips rather than just consuming them passively. Additionally, they reflect on personal experiences and the significance of their annual cherry-picking tradition.
Mentioned on the show:
- Bookshop Affiliate Storefront (links below are affiliate)
- Become a patron! Patreon.com/eedapod
- Subscribe to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Newsletter
- Snacking Cakes: Simple Treats for Anytime Cravings: A Baking Book by Yossy Arefi
- Self-Improvement Products And Services Global Market Report 2025 via The Business Research Company
- Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski & Amelia Nagoski
- Patricia for Book Riot and All the Books!
- “Burnout is Not Your Fault” via EEDA Pod
Find the full show notes and official transcript on our website: eedapod.com
Follow the show on Instagram & find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, & Spotify
Sound editing by Jen Zink
Transcript
Music: [00:00:00] [Intro Music]
Patricia: Hey there, Dunkaroos. Welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle.
Nicole: And I am not an AI chat bot I’m Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We’re recording the show on May 23rd, 2025. And you brought up Dunkaroos, which means I have a fun fact.
Patricia: Share your fun fact with everyone.
Nicole: Do you know who was the original voice for the Dunkaroos kangaroo in the commercial?
Patricia: I only learned this within the past few years, but please share with the folks.
Nicole: One of my favorite stage actors, John Cameron Mitchell.
Patricia: A-K-A…
Nicole: A-K-A. [00:01:00] A lot of people will probably know him as the original lead in Hedwig and The Angry Inch.
Patricia: Yeah.
But yeah, he was the original voice of the Dunkaroos kangaroo.
Nicole: Which we learned when we saw him do like a one man stage show in Berkeley or something.
Patricia: Yeah. That was one of the last things we saw before the pandemic started.
Nicole: Oof.
Patricia: Yeah. Oof.
Nicole: [Big Sigh]
Patricia: But since we last recorded a show, we did one of our favorite annual traditions.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: Which was we took our friends cherry picking.
Nicole: Oh, I’m still like just thinking about those cherries. I know we have a bunch in the freezer. We should make some ice cream.
Patricia: Yeah.
This year we also made cherry preserves and I, I think we canned them properly so they are shelf stable for a year.
Nicole: Ooh.
Patricia: And also strawberry jam.
In the [00:02:00] same, we used the electric water bath and canned them. So we have strawberry jam.
Nicole: I guess I better make some yogurt.
Patricia: Yeah, maybe make some yogurt and we can
Nicole: then have
Patricia: Mix. Mix some of that in.
Nicole: Yeah. Otherwise, what do we put it on?
Patricia: Biscuits.
Nicole: Biscuits.
Patricia: I also, there is a book, a cookbook called Snacking Cakes, which is an amazing cookbook. I’m actually gonna link it in the show notes. Where like every cake in the book, the idea is one bowl. And also it’s mostly stuff you’re already going to have around the house. And you should also be able to have like a small cake within an hour. And there’s one, it’s like a vanilla cake with a swirl of jam in it. And you could use any kind of jam.
Nicole: Right. You made this once with like a, a guava jam or something?
Patricia: Yes. Yeah, we had made it a few times.
Nicole: Everybody was impressed with it.
Patricia: Yeah. But now we can make it with the jam we made.
Nicole: Ooh. [00:03:00]
Patricia: Reminder that this podcast is independently run. That means we are paying for everything out of pocket. Downloading, sharing, and giving us reviews and ratings are free ways to show us support.
If you have a few bucks our Patreon memberships start at $3 a month and we have a new tier, the dubious advisors, that’s the top tier, it is $40 a month. There are only 10 spots available, and you will get a once a month snail mail experience.
Nicole: And if you would like another way to support this show, you can head over to our bookshop that’s linked on our website and in the show notes and any purchase you make through that gives a little bit back towards supporting the show.
Patricia: Yeah.
And also independent bookstores when you shop at bookshop.
Nicole: Right.
Patricia: Just in general. Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah. Usually when I recommend books to people, I send them a bookshop link.
Patricia: Yeah.
Music: [00:04:00] [Transition Music]
Patricia: So today I want to talk about ,surprise, self-help. This thing we’re sneaking our queer little ways into. Nicole, what do you think of when you hear the phrase self-help?
Nicole: I think a lot about like pop psych books that take one little bit of research and poorly understand it, and then extrapolate from that wildly,
Patricia: ah
Nicole: to try to help tell you how to make your life better.
Patricia: Mmm mmm
I’m reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell’s research tourism.
Nicole: Ooh.
Patricia: Which, hey, no shame if you were a fan of Malcolm Gladwell and you learned better, I definitely fell for it for many years. I read at least three of his. So…
Nicole: 10,000 hours
Patricia: 10,000 hours
Nicole: 10,001 hours.
Patricia: I think [00:05:00] of, when I think of self-help, I think of charlatans.
I will not name them here, but if you’re listening to this and you’re a person in or from the United States, then you’ll probably know who I’m talking about. I think mostly of books, but also of the talk show experts or, yeah. You know what, I’m gonna name a couple. The Tony Robbins, the Joyce Meyers, the Dr. Oz’s, and the Dr. Phil’s.
Nicole: Ooh. As we start getting into like the Dr. Oz’s and stuff, we’re, we’re starting to also venture towards the wellness end of the spectrum, which a whole bunch of this overlaps with that and is also full of charlatans and snake oil salespeople.
Patricia: Yeah, like I fully admit, it could be a really slippery slope, and I am very deliberate when I am scripting EEDAPod, and when I am writing the Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter to do my best to stay out of the physical health, wellness, [00:06:00] diet culture lanes.
Nicole: Now, the numbers on this are a little, shall we say, squishy. But one source you found values, the self-help and self-improvement market size at about 59 billion in 2024, and that came from the business research company.
Patricia: Billion.
Nicole: With a B.
Patricia: That’s such a huge number. When I tried to research the estimated number of self-help books published each year, I actually found a bunch of articles quoting one another, but no primary source, so I’m not gonna say that number here. If we’re including self-published books, I bet the amount is massive.
Side note, I have noticed that some self-help geared towards cisgender men is shelved in the business section, which is a [00:07:00] whole other conversation.
Nicole: Oh, it is a whole other conversation, indeed.
You do bring up something that we are also very careful not to do, which is make things up. We’re adamant about having sources for things. I don’t remember exactly what it was, partially because I have ADHD, but there was this one episode where I really wanted to say something because it, it like felt like it could be real, and I spent literally a couple hours researching it and in the end, I didn’t feel comfortable attempting to interpret the research for our audience.
It was just. Too far outta my lane.
Patricia: Yeah, you were actually like looking at journal articles too. You weren’t just Googling, you were
Nicole: No
Patricia: you were diving in.
Nicole: Yeah. And like then looking at the primary sources cited in those articles and tracking those down and like I, I went down a rabbit hole.
Patricia: Yeah. And I think that’s what sets us apart.
We are not [00:08:00] willing to lie to you. We’re not going to say the clickbaity enticing things like, here are the six ways you could tell you have ADHD. Like what? I actually saw a clip of a very popular self-help content creator and author say that exact phrase. It’s wild. It is wild out here in these self-help streets.
Nicole: It’s also why we’re not like wildly rich.
Patricia: You know, we talk about that sometimes. We’re like, ugh, if we didn’t have ethics, we’d have so much money right now.
Nicole: If, if I didn’t have a, like morals, if I was just okay with outright lying to everybody about
Patricia: my gosh
Nicole: things I said
Patricia: wealth,
Nicole: ah,
Patricia: wealth
Nicole: it’d be pouring in.
I’ve noticed when like we’re talking to people and particularly about like our show, your newsletter, and you mentioned self-help. There is often a strong reaction and it’s one of two.
It is [00:09:00] either like a EW, NO, like all caps, like disgust or they’re like super into it,
Patricia: or secret third option, like me super into it with 10,000 asterisks.
Nicole: Does that make you an expert at asterisks?
Patricia: Yes. I’ve spent my 10,000 asterisks asterisking and now I’m an expert.
Nicole: Ah, excellent. I hope you use your asterisk powers for good.
Patricia: No promises.
Nicole: Oh, if you’re not ethical, or are we gonna make that asterisk money?
Patricia: We’re gonna make that asterisk money.
Nicole: Okay. Really though, why, why are you into self-help so much?
Patricia: A few reasons. First, I fully recognize the trap that is the idea of constant improvement. This whole being better and no, we, we don’t have to constantly improve or be better. And I wanna put it out there that [00:10:00] sometimes what some of us who are into reading self-help, which is how I consume most of it, is reading, when we say I want to be better, we mean more specifically, I want to feel better.
Nicole: I mean, that’s why a bunch of us ended up getting degrees in psychology.
Patricia: There are a lot of you out there. There are a lot of psychology degree holders.
Nicole: A lot of psych majors out here.
Patricia: I think, and these are my own hypotheses, that many folks who read a lot of self-help have some sense of optimism, some sense of hope, and/or are desperately searching for some kind of control in the chaos that is life.
Nicole: And yes, sometimes there is too much emphasis on the self and improving the self and personal responsibility when the majority of the issues causing a person to grasp at self-help books are often [00:11:00] systemic.
Patricia: womp womp.
Nicole: As we discussed in our episode titled, Burnout is Not Your Fault. We are not going to self-help our way out of racism induced terror and stress.
We’re not gonna self-help ourselves out of burnout caused by being underpaid or all the issues that come with being unhoused or lacking adequate childcare, or the constant stress trying to navigate a world built around non-disabled neurotypical people. We’re not gonna self-help our way out of the terror and stress caused by homophobia and transphobia and anti-fatness.
Patricia: But my God, how we cling to self-help books anyway, with such unabashed hope. Self-help books can feel like a lifeline when they give us some sense of control, especially in the current iteration of existence. If self-help books were actually helpful, then why do we keep buying them and reading them?
Isn’t the idea that we would read a [00:12:00] self-improvement book, be improved, and then move on to something else? What is it about self-help that keeps us reading? I think it’s the promise. The promise of a better situation, a better relationship, feeling better, a better you.
Nicole: Self-help books are absolutely marketed as the one self-help book to rule them all. They promise to be the last one you need, the only one you need. The one that will help you fix everything to level up your life, make you a millionaire, give you the cleanest home and the perfect relationship. They’re gonna be the one to cure your anxiety and your stress, your acne, your IBS, and in the darkness bind them.
This is why they sell.
Patricia: Yeah, you’re gonna win friends and influence people.
Nicole: Isn’t that a business book?
Patricia: Womp Womp Womp. Oh, man.
[00:13:00] Okay. This is going to be a controversial book opinion, and maybe even dangerous for me to say as a book professional, but while I believe in the power of a single relevant book, a single book will not fix your life.
A book can indeed change you. It can change your worldview. It could change how you do things, but it will not fix you if, especially if you’re feeling like you need fixing. Stop looking for books to do the work. Self-help books are instructions, but they don’t build the cabinet for you. You’ve still gotta build that kallax.
Self-help books can only be helpful if you do the work and move the information off the page and into the real world and your daily life.
Nicole: Let’s talk about actually doing that. About reading self-help effectively and making the most out of it. Often immediately after reading a self-help book that resonates, we feel super [00:14:00] motivated.
We’ll use it as excuse to buy a new notebook or a chore chart or a tracking app, or make an elaborate spreadsheet and feel like our habits are finally atomic.
Patricia: Or in my case, after reading Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, I bought a whole exercise bike.
Nicole: Our most expensive reusable bag holder?
Patricia: Shh.
I’ll, I’ll fold those.
Nicole: We will finish a help book and make capital A capital P plan, A Plan, trademarked. And stick to it until we get bored or something major or minor derails us. I don’t know, a couple of days, maybe a week. We’ll then float around back in our old habits, in our old ways of existing, which we never really left behind until the siren [00:15:00] song of the next self-help book on our TBR catches our attention. And thus the cycle of life-changing magic continues.
Patricia: Wow.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to disrupt this cycle or at least make it work for us. And by us, I mean most people who read self-help. But I think that what I’ve kind of come up with will work for a lot of different content. First, I think there needs to be a perspective shift.
Not all self-help is helpful for all people.
Nicole: Huh.
Some things in some self-help books help some readers. That is a tongue twister. What helps me is not necessarily going to help you. Likewise, what may help many people in one demographic may not help most people in another. Thinking like [00:16:00] self-help books by cisgender heterosexual white people rarely help queer and trans, black and indigenous people of color.
Patricia: This is where I employ my one big guideline on how to read self-help, take what’s best and leave the rest. One book will not do all things, but there may be a thing or two in each book that’s relevant to a particular reader and their particular experience. Another phrase I’ve heard people use, which is similar is chew off the meat and spit out the bone, but that doesn’t rhyme, so I prefer my phrase.
Nicole: Also, who’s out there putting the whole like rib in their mouth?
Patricia: The book rib.
Nicole: Like no, you don’t put the whole thing in your mouth and then like spit the bone out. What is this? Some sort of like Looney Tunes situation?
Patricia: I was just gonna say that feels like a Looney Tunes situation.
Nicole: Yeah.
Okay. So step one, if I’m understanding this right, is to approach self-help with the knowledge [00:17:00] that not everything is for everyone, but there may be a couple of things that resonate.
Patricia: Yes. Step two is to record these things that you find that work for you. Uh, the phrases, the advice, whatever, and I don’t mean just highlight it in the book.
I want you to record it in a place in a single place that is accessible and easy. If that’s one of the many notebooks you’ve collected over the years, that’s great. You have permission to use the nice notebook for this. If it’s a spreadsheet or a notes app or voice notes, then that’s where it is. You will be growing an inventory repository of insights and advice and tips that work for you.
We can read the same books and our notes will look completely different.
Nicole: I have a tendency to forget what I read, so this makes sense. It sounds [00:18:00] like work though.
Patricia: That’s because it is work. But if you’re expending the spell slot to read a self-help book or listen to a podcast, I think it’s important that you get the most benefits from it.
Nicole: Okay, so step one. Be open and receptive, but don’t be afraid to discard what isn’t for you. Step two, catalog it. Is there like a step three, like profit?
Patricia: Kind of. There is a step three. You have to revisit the notebook or the notes app or the spreadsheet. Not daily, not even weekly, ’cause this could get pretty long depending on how much reading and, and consuming you’re doing.
Maybe this is something you do at the beginning of every month or the end of every three months. Remind yourself of what you found helpful. Did you forget it? Is it still helpful, or are you no longer the person who wrote it down?
Nicole: Okay. Okay. One more time, then step one, [00:19:00] take what’s best and leave the rest.
Step two, write it down.
Step three, revisit it regularly.
Patricia: You got it.
Over time, you’ll have your own bespoke custom tailored self-help book.
Nicole: Locally sourced
Patricia: Artisanal.
It’s like a commonplace book, but specifically for self-help. Also this advice I recognize won’t work for everyone. Not everyone’s brains work this way, and that’s okay too.
Music: [Transition Music]
Nicole: Okay. I have a feeling I know what you’re gonna say for this one, but Patricia, what do you want people to take away from this episode?
Patricia: I wanna add that, take what’s best and leave the rest can actually apply to a whole bunch of things.
Nicole: Oh, really?
Patricia: Yes.
Nicole: Are you gonna expand on that?
Patricia: No. Everyone gets to [00:20:00] try it out for themselves.
Nicole: Hmm. This is like eating the cinnamon roll around the raisins.
Patricia: I’m amused that you would eat the cinnamon roll around the raisins versus just picking out the raisins like that is a fascinating way to say that.
I mean yes, pick out the raisins and eat the cinnamon roll.
Insane person.
Nicole: It’s, it’s like, it’s like chewing the meat off the bone and then spitting the bone out.
Patricia: You spit out the raisins.
Nicole, what is your takeaway?
Nicole: Just reading the book or listening to the podcast or whatever isn’t enough if you’re going for like actual self-help. If you’re just reading for like entertainment, like you do you, but just like with therapy, you have to put in the work if [00:21:00] you want to see improvement.
Well, Patricia, what has been filling your cup lately?
Patricia: Well. Earlier this month I hit my nine year Book Riot anniversary.
Nicole: Ooh.
Patricia: I think that makes it officially the job I have been at the longest.
Nicole: What’s a nine year anniversary?
Patricia: I don’t know, we’ll have to look up like the wedding anniversary things, there’s like the traditional one, but then there’s also like the modern one, so we’ll have to look up.
Nicole: Is it like paper or something?
Patricia: Oh, I think paper’s earlier.
Nicole: Oh, okay.
Patricia: I don’t, nine is
Nicole: maybe it’s origami.
Patricia: Nine year is, I don’t know. I don’t even know. We’ll have to look.
But you know, I didn’t really have a timeline for how long I’d be doing this. I think I’m kind of shocked that I still love
Nicole: books?
Patricia: talk.
Well, no, not like, yes, I still love books, but I think I also love writing about books and talking about [00:22:00] books and sharing books, and especially uplifting authors from historically excluded groups and putting books on people’s radars that typically they wouldn’t hear of in any other way. Like, I, I still really love it.
Nicole: Yeah, it is really good.
Patricia: Yeah. I, you know, every year around my Book Riot anniversary, I ask myself, I’m like, do I wanna keep going? And past nine years and, and this year too, it’s, it’s a yes. I, I love it.
Nicole: She’s going for 10 folks.
Patricia: Yeah. Can’t quit now. So close to 10. Come on.
Nicole. What’s filling your cup?
Nicole: I’m still riding high off of going and picking cherries with our friends. Like I was trying to describe this to you earlier, like there is something about like a cherry that’s perfectly ripe right off the tree. It’s still warm from the sun and it’s from like [00:23:00] the side of the tree that the sun shines on, and like these cherries were so, like, they weren’t even red. They were so dark purple they were almost black and like the, the combination of tart and sweet.
Patricia: Yeah. I think what’s one of the things that also makes it so special is cherry season is so short.
Nicole: It’s so short. Yeah.
Patricia: The actual, the actual cherry season. Like you could maybe find some at the grocery store or the farmer’s market or something a little longer. But I think because of that also, um, and because we get to go pick it ourselves, um, which I recognize is skilled labor for many other people and we pay less for the cherries ’cause we are picking them ourselves
Nicole: and we’re able bodied enough to like
Patricia: absolutely
Nicole: climb a ladder like 15 feet into the top of the tree
Patricia: and it’s not our job. So it’s novel. It happens once a year.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: But I think that’s what makes it special [00:24:00] too, is that it happens for us one day a year. We rarely go back out there.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Consecutive weekends.
Nicole: Yeah, no, it’s like a one, once a year event and it is so good. We tried cherries at the farmer’s market the next weekend and like usually the farm market has really good fruit.
But because we’d had these like perfect cherries, honestly, like the ones at the farmer’s market tasted like crunchy water.
Patricia: They were crunchy water. I am interested, I wonder if it, that was our market. I’m interested in going to a different market this weekend.
Nicole: It was the, the equivalent, like the cherry equivalent of like seltzer water.
Like
Patricia: LaCroix
Nicole: LaCroix. Yeah. Like these cherries had, uh, once met a real cherry.
Patricia: Aw.
Nicole: But like, I think if we hadn’t had those other ones, maybe the ones at the farm market would’ve been fine.
Patricia: Yeah.
And like, I don’t know, the blueberries from the guys we get ’em through [00:25:00] from the farm market are amazing. So.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: You know, you win some, you lose some, but yeah, I, I am also feeling that cherry joy still.
Nicole: I’m just, I, I’m thi, I think about them every night right now.
Patricia: Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com. We’ll live a link to that in our show note.
Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E-E-D-A-P-O-D dot com. There. You can also find a link to our Patreon, our Bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing, Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram and Bluesky at eedapod and email us at eedapod@gmail.com.
Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent.
Nicole: We would also really appreciate it if you would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts that allow ratings. We are an independent podcast, so these kinds of [00:26:00] things really help other people find us.
Patricia: We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support there is going to help us keep the show going, especially without ads. You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod.
In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself, drink some water and read a book. We’ll be talking to you soon.
1, 2, 3.
Both: [Clap]
Nicole: Oh, that was such a good one.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah.