Education
It is true. Self help is focused (mostly) on external success and, at best, brushes over the fundamental character changes that are necessary in order to become truly successful and happy. Self help gurus talk about "thinking like rich people" and visualizing every manner of external achievement in the greatest of detail. While none of this is bad in-and-of itself it ignores the fact that success begins and ends within you For the most part, self help ignores the moral side of self development. Very few self help gurus talk about things like honesty, patience and forgiveness (they do in Amway!). Focusing just on externalities is a losing game. Even if you achieve everything you ever wanted to you will be left dreading the day that things change for the worse or you lose some of what you have amassed for yourself You should appreciate good and beautiful things in life and should, as Don Juan would say, "Surround yourself with that which makes you happy." However, there is more to life than having and this is something very few self help gurus dwell on. The 60s social scientist and thinker Erich Fromm described humans as "being, doing and having" which is a far richer approach to life than the shallow self help aim of (just) "having"