With their brain cells, obviously.

Self-help literature has been popular for quite a while now. We are told that whatever the problem is, you just gotta change your thinking and - voila! - it will disappear like morning dew under the hot summer sun. I guess this is somewhat true. Thinking outside the box may lead you to see things in a new light, and something that you considered an impenetrable obstacle before might not seem that way once you've examined it from a different perspective.

However, I have a problem with books that present themselves as the Holy Bible in a specific area (often, it's something wealth and money-related) and attempt to teach you think like a person famous for their success, e. g. Bill Gates. The idea is that you are poor because you're not thinking right, that your ideas and aspirations are not broad and ambitious enough. It's a kind of "gotta spend money to make money" attitude.

Here's where the problem is: the reader is being used. They are being used exactly for what the book claims to be giving them - money. Do you think a book about Bill Gates mindset was actually written by Bill Gates? Or by a millionare? Or by someone with a nice house with a pool and a garden? No way. Well, maybe the latter one, after the author cashes out that sweet check she got for the book that is targeted at gullible readers of celebrity mags. Why at them, you ask?

Well, first of all, books like that are all about being memorable: "10 steps... 6 tricks... 5 ways... " and so on. The accent is placed on short, concise lists that mostly contain stuff you already know. They are like Buzzfeed articles: an illusion of content, but no actual substance.

Second of all, there'd be a couple of smart-sounding buzz words thrown into the mix just to add "legitimacy" to whatever basic crap the writer is saying. "Mindfulness", " Meditation", "Visualisation" are all great for this purpose. They have a similar effect on the reader as Latin. If one uses Latin, it's clear as day that they are smart. Or a show-off. The words above also convey a sense of exclusivity, but in a different way. Someone who says "Visualisation" sounds like he gets it. Like really gets it. Like he's guru of sorts. And with new age spirituality still being extremely fresh in our hearts and minds, we gladly gobble deep-sounding words up.

Finally, and this is pisses me off the most - the author rarely talks about factors outside of the reader's control. You see, thanks to 1920s America, we really love our "you can do it!" attitude. We are told as kids: "You can be a president when you'll grow up! " Or an astronaut. Or another Martin Luther King. Yes, it is important for kids to have dreams, but this is just simply not true. Some heights are not for us to climb. Social classes exist for a reason. Do you have any idea how hard it is to become a Supreme Court Judge? Or a member of the British Parliament? Arguably, to get a position like that, it must had been decided that you're worth it while you're still in your mother's womb! Sure, we don't really have aristocracy in the world anymore. Not in the "nobility" sense of the word, at least. However, we have the "have's" and the "have-not's". And the have's wouldn't be have's if they mingled with all sorts of various have-not's. So no, Christine, you're not gonna become the next Coco Mademoiselle. She was one of a kind. And no, Jeremy, you won't become the next PM of the UK. Why? Because your parents can't afford for you to go to Harrow School, that's why.

Instead, I think, we should normalize telling each other 'No'. I think we should normalize "crushing" children's dreams. Not in a sadistic sense, of course, but in a realistic sense. Nothing bad will happen to a child that knows they can't go to Hogwarts because Hogwarts isn't real. That doesn't mean they are not going to have dreams. Chances are, they will dream that there is a place just like Hogwarts that is real and where they will be welcome. Chances are, they might decide to build their own Hogwarts, a hundred times better than the one Rowling created. And not only they'll be happy, they'll also understand the value of doing something for others. This is another level, on which one could criticize the self-help literature: it is selfish, and it teaches that being selfish is okay. Focusing on yourself for a while is absolutely fine and is often very much needed. Having a clear idea about what you will and what you won't do is also great - being able to realise your own self-worth is marvelous! But being selfish, a.k.a saying "I too want to snatch a part of the common pie! Why? Well, others are doing it, Bill Gates is doing it, am I any worse than Bill Gates?", oh, that's bad. Why do that? You might want to have a claim to something just because you're alive - and that's fair enough, and if you want to do that, let's have a long and comprehensive talk on capitalism and socialism and see if maybe you'd like to change teams, but don't, for God's sake imagine, that because someone else was successful by being at the right place and the right time with the right idea and enough support that it might happen to you! The system that those self-help books described is a system of vicious competition, and such a system does not owe you anything. In fact, every book like that should have a warning banner: enter, but at your own peril!

And the children who grew up hearing the word 'No', who had the right amount of adversity in their life (not a lot, mind you, nothing serious, but just enough adversity for a young mind to learn to resist, but also give in when it's strategicly necessary), those children will turn into adults who don't need to buy a book "A Millionaire's Mindset" - they will be confident enough to either decide to learn the rules of the societal game of wealth and success directly by playing it, or will instead focus on something else that they see as necessary, good and useful - like frying pancakes competitively, or trying to grow worlds tallest carrot.