• Have you ever picked up a friend’s self-help book and discovered a problem that you never knew you had?
• Have you ever been browsing in the advice aisles and been pulled into a book about a girl who sounds just like you?
• Have you ever wondered if these personal improvement authors have professional credentials and practice what they preach?

Advice is everywhere and as a savvy member of Generation WTF (you’re likely a WTFer if you are between the ages of eighteen and twenty five), your first job is to become a more sophisticated reader of this popular genre. You might not want to see laws or sausages made, but if you are one of the 125 million Americans who have purchased a self-help book, it’s important to know the tricks of this trade.

Generation WTF: From "What the #%$&?" to a Wise, Tenacious, and Fearless You is no ordinary self-help book, and this is no ordinary personal improvement website. To prove it to you, in this next series of posts, I will uncover the nine secrets that self-help writers, publishers and marketers don’t want you to know.

But wait, you say . . . she’s a self-help writer! Yes, it’s true. But I’ve studied this genre for more than a decade—and I’ll tell show you that real advice exists: It’s just a matter of rigorously testing it and then presenting it an honest way.

Dirty Secret #1: Most self-help quizzes are rigged so you’ll fail.

Can you love yourself at all times?

Do you ever complain?

Are you ever unhappy?

You need a self-help book.

Here’s a sample from a quiz that appeared in one bestselling self-help book:

1. Do you feel anxiety, pity, and guilt when other people have a problem?
2. Do you try to please others instead of yourself?
3. Do you over commit yourself?
4. Do you come from a troubled, repressed, or dysfunctional family?
5. Do you deny that your family was troubled, repressed, or dysfunctional?
6. Do you wish good things would happen to you?
7. Do you think and talk a lot about other people?
8. Do you ever get depressed or sick?

Did you answer "yes" to any of these? Then, apparently, you are codependent and need this self-help book. But these are all normal human emotions and feelings to have at various points in your life.

Lesson: Make sure you are properly diagnosing your alleged "problem" before following the advice in the book about how to "get better."

How Generation WTF is different: The surveys that I’ve included in Generation WTF are academic, peer-reviewed personality tests. Rather than quizzes that give you meaningless "scores," this book is filled with thought-provoking exercises so that you can craft a personalized plan for success. The idea is to give you the tools to help yourself—not to tell you that you’re broken or damaged.

Dirty Secret #2: Be aware that authors don’t always follow their own advice.

One marriage "expert" got divorced just as her book was published–and blamed the divorce on bad dental work rather than admitting perhaps she didn’t know all the rules for a happy marriage. Several bestselling diet experts are, themselves, overweight. One guru told his followers that they could be youthful and energetic like him if only they followed his positive-thinking plan—while secretly he was taking handfuls of hormone pills to affect change in himself.

Lesson: Think about who is giving the advice before you follow their rules. Most self-help gurus don’t walk the walk—they just talk the talk. Why? Because their prescriptions for success are incredibly difficult to live in day-to-day life. It’s not that they mean you harm (probably), but rather they are writing about ideals—pie-in-the-sky suggestions about what might, in a perfect world, work for some really creepily motivated people (who are willing to leave a wake of personal destruction to accomplish their goals).

How Generation WTF is different: The advice presented here has been tested and found to be useful by your peers—other young-adults looking for success in school, job searches, and beyond. Plus, it’s based on psychological and sociological research about what works and why. There’s no manipulation here, and I won’t lie: Personal change is hard work. But if you’re game, you’ll learn some life lessons that will make you happier, more productive, and help you shoot ahead of your competition in the "real world."

Self-help is about becoming a better person—and also getting a leg-up on the competition. Think of this book as the greatest hits of hundreds of self-help books in one, specifically tailored with the best advice for Generation WTF as you head into the workforce.

Dirty Secret #3: Those "real people" quoted in most self-help books probably don’t exist.

Anecdotes about people "just like you" are written as miniature soap operas and personal gossip to make you feel connected to the message. They probably don’t exist. How messed up is that? You think you’re reading nonfiction, but self-help authors walk a fine line to get their points across.

One writer tells a story about a conversation he overheard after 9/11 in New York City: A grandfather was walking with his grandson telling him, "I have two wolves barking inside of me. The first wolf is filled with anger . . . the second wolf inside of me is filled with love . . . " The boy asks: "Which wolf do you think will win?" and the grandfather replies, "Whichever one I feed."

Did he actually hear that conversation? We’ll never know. Anecdotes get us hooked—just like made-for-television movie plots and gossip among friends. We can’t resist the inside story, the latest piece of juicy news. It makes us feel special, involved, part of a community and in the know.

But this comes at a price: There’s no evidence that the stories are true. At best, they are idealized compilations—examples to help us feel like the book speaks to us, and a demonstration of what our interactions should, or should not, look like. Maybe someone actually used that analogy about the two wolves . . . but did they use it on the street in New York City after 9/11? Maybe. Maybe not.

Lesson: Anecdotes are idealized. And those magnified moments—those aha! moments when the recipients of advice realize that yes, this works—are often combinations of ideas from a variety of different people, combined for maximum impact. Changes in your life might not play out like that. Make sure to adapt the lessons of self-help to fit with your own reality.

How Generation WTF is different: I’m a journalist and a professor. I believe in presenting quotes, facts, and ideas just as they happened—whether they are neat and clean, or messy and unfocused. The quotes from students in this book are all taken from papers, class discussions, and in-person conversations. They are real, which means they might not always tie everything up in a nice bow . . . and some comments may even contradict each other. But that’s real life—and, if you’re anything like the WTFers I work with, you want the reality, not some fake fantasy of platitudes.

Click here to see more dirty secrets in Part 2!