Why Learning from Success Stories May Not Be a Good Idea

I myself am guilty of this. For at least 10 years, I have read around 400 self-development books in the business category, from authors like Napoleon Hill, Brian Tracy, and many others. There is nothing wrong with those books. I am still grateful for having read them, and I still occasionally return to similar ones.

However, there is something fundamentally questionable in some of them: the assumption that if we want to become successful, we need to study success stories. The idea is that we should interview millionaires, learn how they got rich, and then treat their answers as a kind of recipe.

Of course, if we have to choose between advice from successful and unsuccessful people, it seems logical to listen to those who have succeeded. And in fields where success is closely tied to clearly identifiable skills—like music, the arts, language learning, or science—this approach can indeed be useful.

But when it comes to business success, things are more complicated. Even in music, there is rarely one single identifiable reason why someone becomes successful. There are usually many factors involved—some controlled by the person, others not.

Psychologically, humans tend to attribute success to personal factors and downplay external circumstances. At the same time, when we fail, we often do the opposite: we emphasize external factors and minimize personal responsibility. This creates a biased picture of how success actually happens.

Another issue is that just because someone became successful does not mean they know exactly why. We often confuse correlation with causation.

For example, imagine I suddenly become very wealthy next week and give an interview. I might claim that certain habits made me successful—reading Shakespeare or Spanish Renaissance authors, listening to classical music, or taking daily walks in nature. These things might be meaningful, but they could also be pure coincidence. I may not actually know what caused the success.

So if we collect advice from people like that, we might end up doing interesting and even enriching activities—reading literature, listening to music, going for walks—but that does not necessarily lead to success.

Still, we are naturally drawn to this kind of literature because we prefer shortcuts. Instead of running our own daily and weekly experiments—testing what works and adjusting along the way—we prefer someone to lay out a clear path for us.

That is, of course, why self-development books are so popular.

My question is: what do you think?

Personally, I have started shifting away from self-development books toward university textbooks in different fields—not to memorize them, but to expose myself to different intellectual stimuli. Ideas that I can process, combine, and then test in practice to see what actually works.

So what is your experience and view on self-help literature and the industry?

 

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Communication Psychology and HR: in small and practical lessons once a week.

With a focus on international and multilingual business conversations.

Gerhard Ohrband is a psychologist from Hamburg/Germany, specialized in Communication Psychology and HR. He consults individuals and companies worldwide (in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and Russian) on how to avoid costly misunderstandings and handle conflicts with employees and clients.

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