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Tuesday, 14 September 2010 - Have you ever noticed that the magazines and diet books are always found near the checkouts of the grocery stores? They don't put them in the chips aisle, and they aren't found near the ice cream and frozen cakes. That would not be good for business. Instead, they are at the check-outs and after you have already filled your cart with the four essential food groups - bagged, boxed, bottled and canned. But there you are, waiting in line (the slowest line in the store no doubt), reading the covers of Elle, Flare, Cosmo, Women's World, Vogue, O, and Prevention while munching on a bag of Doritoes for which you are yet to pay. There are articles on the latest fashions and the newest looks of course, but there are also pages and pages of the latest super food, beverage, supplements and secrets to losing weight. By shedding a few pounds you will be able to wear this season's corduroy tights without looking like last year's Thanksgiving turkey stuffed into a cornish game hen's trousers, your sex life will look like that of a porn star, and you will be a more successful. How does CEO sound? But hey... no pressure folks.

As consumers, we get bombarded with diet plans after we've filled our cart with groceries. You go to a book store looking for the latest Tom Clancy, only to find that the fiction section is now half the size it used to be despite a boom in publishing. The self help aisle, on the other hand has more than doubled. If you need help being a better, more focused, easier to get along with, smarter, more flexible, better organized, happier, more relaxed, better at relationships, less bitchy, more desirable, more manly, more engaged, healthier, less cranky, more courageous, spiritually enlightened, self-connected, assertive, emotionally mature, outgoing, positive, mindful, more passionate, less co-dependent, friendlier, more optimistic, new and improved version of you, than you are in luck. No doubt there is a book or six on the shelf just for you that will guide you through on the journey of self discovery to You 2.0.

September is Self Improvement Month. A trip to Chapters or Barnes and Nobel, and even those without issues will be convinced they need help. If you come up with something that worked for you to get over a loss, or life change, it would be worth finding yourself a publisher and a promoter and sell your technique. Promote yourself shamelessly, and next thing you know you will have a variety talk show where you can help fix the illiterate masses too. Next thing you know, people will be looking to you to fix their lives so they too can become bigger (well, smaller maybe), better, and faster. September is also Shameless Promotion Month. Go ahead and promote your self-help solution. Physician... heal thy masses.