Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone

As an admitted self-help-book junkie, I adored this book! The author has a perceptive, incisive, and sassy writing style that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was like having a good conversation with your smart-alecky best friend. It's a laugh-out-loud read for those of us still searching for that key to unlock the mysteries of this messy, challenging, and confounding life, but hopefully finding lots to laugh about (especially ourselves).

I enjoyed this book. Beth Lisick is an entertaining and very personal writer with a great sense of humor. The project of hers has merit: To choose well-known self-help teachers and try their ideas out on her own life to see if the stuff works. I'm the author of the book, Self-Help Stuff That Works, and I did very much the same experiment (without really meaning to and it took me much longer than a year), but my findings are similar to Lisick's: There is some valuable material out there, and there's a lot of nonsense as well. And I agree with her about which is which. I think this book would be especially good for someone who is highly skeptical of the self-help field and yet would like to explore it for personal reasons (motivated by a sincere desire to improve your life). It is a good, lighthearted introduction to the best and worst in the genre.

Since I live in the San Francisco area, I've known about Beth Lisick for years. She's hilariously funny, a talented writer and a local treasure. I was really happy that folks in the rest of the country discovered her with her best-selling "Everybody into the Pool," and many more people should jump on the Lisick bandwagon when "Helping Me Help Myself" is published. If you think you know what to expect from the description of this book (Berkeley hipster spends a year immersing herself in the work of self-help moguls like Deepak Chopra and Suze Orman), think again. A skeptic at heart, Lisick is nevertheless remarkably open-minded as she goes on a "Cruise to Lose" with Richard Simmons, surprised to find herself entranced by the perky spandex-shorted exercise guru. She tries to get her unruly child under control through a system called "1-2-3 Magic" and attempts to clear her clutter with the help of organizational expert Julie Morgenstern. Lisick knows she really does need help -- her finances are a mess (her only steady job seems to be dressing in a banana costume to hand out samples of fruit), she and her husband hardly ever seem to get together due to their erratic schedules, and while she's naturally skinny, she's never exercised, much less tried sweatin' to the oldies. Her year of self-help doesn't give her a fat wallet and perfect relationships, but she does come up with a lot of interesting (and often hilariously funny) insights. Whether you're a self-help skeptic or true believer, this book is a delight to read.

Scheduled for release just as your own New Year's resolutions are starting to fray at the edges, Beth Lisick's Helping Me Help Myself will help you put things into perspective. Not because she learns how to conduct her life in zen-like calmness, but because her life will make yours look well-organized by comparison. Lisick realizes that her life is disorganized, aimless, and her career is going nowhere. A major overhaul is in order, and since she's going to change every facet of her life, she'll need lots of help, and why not the best? She goes to self-help experts for tips on finances, child rearing, marriage, career, fitness, etc. Suze Orman, Richard Simmons, Julie Morgenstern, and others are recruited for duty. Lisick attends seminars, gets phone consultations, she even goes on a Richard Simmons fitness cruise. Does it help? Well, not really. But Lisick is lot of fun. Even though her life isn't streamlined and efficient, she seems to be a positive (if skeptical) and happy person, willing to try new things. She finds Suze Orman less helpful than I expected, and is surprised to find that she quite likes Richard Simmons. And the chapter about improving her writing the Julie Cameron way while spending every bit of her savings on a vacation in Tuscany - well, you can see that Lisick is fighting a losing battle. It's like watching Lucy Ricardo trying to become Martha Stewart. Another book came out last May with a similar premise, Practically Perfect in Every Way by Jennifer Niesslein. But Niesslein wanted help with areas of her life that already seemed under control. She just wanted to tweak things a bit. (After reading the episode about her neighbor stealing her recycling bin, I wondered if Niesslein might have done better to look for help with her anger instead.) And her choice of experts to consult put me off: Dr. Laura, Dr. Phil, a priest. Helping Me Help Myself is a funnier book, and when I finished it, I had to go to the library to pick up Lisick's other non-fiction book, Everybody Into the Pool, a memoir. And where had I seen her name before? Oh yes, in the credits of a very odd and enjoyable movie Spectres of the Spectrum (I can't synopsize here, it's just too weird).

I've never read this author before and now I can safely say after reading "Helping Me Help Myself", I can't wait to dive into her other works. This book is great fun, mixing it up with popular "self-help" programs out there. Whether "building a personal mission statement" or trying to get organized, Lisick gives us a hilarious glimpse into her everyday attempts at changing her life. This book can be read in many sittings as every chapter is a gem on it's own. Each month is set aside for a different program. For example March is "Hug it Out" and October is "Add It Up"...right through until December where Lisick takes on the ultimate: "The Existance of God". Save your money on all those empowerment books and lessons out there, and read this book. You'll be a lot better off for it, if not happier!