Go Help Yourself: A Comedy Self-Help Podcast to Make Life Suck Less · Misty Stinnett & Lisa Linke

Why I've Never Liked Self-Help with Josiah Jenkins

·30 min·2 clips

Misty argues that self-help ignores interest rates, the Federal Reserve, climate change, and medical bankruptcy.

1. Go Help Yourself: A Comedy Self-Help Podcast to Make Life Suck Less centers this episode on Josiah Jenkins explaining why he has never liked self-help. 2. Hosts Misty Stinnett and Lisa Linke bring back Josiah Jenkins, described as a trivia maestro and a recurring guest on “Self-Help Trivia.” 3. The episode asks why someone raised around religion and trained in skepticism would avoid self-help books. 4. Josiah says one reason is that he grew up with “so much religion,” which made self-help feel like “quasi-religion.” 5. He describes a non-denominational church with speaking in tongues, prophets, and the idea of a constant personal dialogue with God. 6. Josiah says that framework made religion feel like a roadmap with “tools of prayer” and daily guidance for ordinary choices like socks. 7. Misty asks whether religion felt like a form of self-help, and Josiah says it was empowering but also individualistic. 8. He says the second reason he avoids self-help is that college and further education made him think the books lacked “empirical backing.” 9. Misty responds by naming books like Atomic Habits, How to Keep House While Drowning by Casey Davis, and The Secret as examples of different kinds of self-help. 10. The episode also mentions UJ Fogg, Malcolm Gladwell, and James Clear as part of a discussion about research, synthesis, and authorship. 11. Misty argues that knowledge is not the same as wisdom and that some advice lands because it is embodied rather than merely factual. 12. Josiah says he worries about reading a book and then “ascribe to a bunk philosophy because it’s written nicely.” 13. Misty gives the example of the book Text So Good, which still affects how she texts and flirts even though she thinks the book is “bullshit.” 14. The conversation turns to the idea that modern marketing sells self-help as life changing, even when the result is small or partial. 15. Misty says their new project is built around the idea that true change is nonlinear and cannot be reduced to a simple A-to-B promise. 16. Josiah argues that American culture adds pressure through the “American dream,” bootstrap thinking, and the belief that people can be anything if they work hard enough. 17. The tone stays joking and fast, with recurring interruptions from Chicken, Daisy, and even an Alexa alarm that keeps interrupting the recording. 18. The format is interview-style banter, with Misty and Lisa asking follow-up questions and Josiah answering in long, reflective stretches. 19. People interested in self-help criticism and religion. 20. Listeners wanting a tight, topic-only book review.

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