I'll see you next time.

Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.

There are thousands of books, podcasts, and social media posts about how to be more productive,

strengthening your relationships, find your purpose, and be your all-around best self.

And there are legions of programs and seminars out there designed to help improve your life.

All together, self-help represents a multi-billion dollar industry.

But despite its ubiquity and cultural influence, you may have never thought about the

deeper underpinnings of self-improvement.

My guest has.

In fact, her research led her to add being a life coach to her academic work as a professor

of cultural history, surely creating one of the most unique career combinations.

Her name is Anna Schaffner, and she's the author of the Art of Self-improvement,

Ten Timeless Truths.

On and I begin our conversation with how the idea of self-improvement bar for being a recent

Western phenomenon traces back to antiquity and can be found across cultures.

We discuss how self-help reflects what a culture values and changes based on a culture's

conception of selfhood, agency, and the relationship between the individual and society.

From there, we turn to a few of the timeless principles of self-improvement, self-control,

being virtuous and building positive relationships, looking both at how they are tackled

angently, as well as more modern angles that can be helpful.

We discuss the downside of taking a strictly stoke approach to life, the idea of making

virtue a habit, and how del-carniggy can be seen as a modern Machiavelli, in a good way.

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