What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter Book Review (1986)
What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter is a 1986 book about the exact sentences you use on yourself and how to rank them. Helmstetter sorts self-talk into five levels, from "I can't" at the bottom to "I am" near the top, and argues that most advice hands you the top rung while you are still standing on the bottom one. Kevin Trudeau recommends it. Read it if affirmations have always felt like lying to your own face. Skip it if you want footnotes, because this book asserts far more than it proves.
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The five-level ladder fits on one page. That is the whole reason the book has lasted forty years.
What Shad Helmstetter Actually Teaches in What to Say When You Talk to Yourself
First, the title. Grindle Press published it in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1986 as What to Say When You Talk to Your Self, with Self as a separate word, running 228 pages. Pocket Books issued it the following year under the closed-up spelling, and the 1992 MJF Books edition uses that spelling too. Simon & Schuster reissued it through Gallery Books in 2017 and went back to two words. Both are correct. Same book either way.
Helmstetter describes himself as a behavioral researcher and states that he took a Ph.D. in motivational psychology from Southwest University. On his own site he says he produced the first professional self-talk audio programs in 1981 and has written more than twenty books in the field. This is the book that carried the term self-talk out of his audio programs and into general circulation. His question is narrower than the genre's. Not whether you think positively, but what your sentences express, and what meaning they carry when the only person who can hear them is you.
The Self-Management Sequence
Before the five levels, Helmstetter lays out a chain he calls the Self-Management Sequence, and it is a chapter title in the current edition. His order runs like this: programming sets your beliefs, beliefs set your attitudes, attitudes produce your feelings, feelings drive your behavior, and behavior produces your results.
Read it backwards and you get his actual argument. If you dislike your results, working on your behavior is working at the far end of a five-link chain. Working on your feelings is one link better. His claim is that programming is the only link where a change propagates all the way down, and that self-talk is the input to programming. Whether the chain is really that clean is a fair question. As an organizing device for a reader who keeps attacking the behavior link and failing, it is genuinely useful.
The five levels
This is the reason the book still gets recommended. Helmstetter's claim is that self-talk is not simply positive or negative but graded, and that you can identify the grade from the opening words alone. You do not have to understand the theory to run the test. You have to listen to how a sentence begins.
Level one he calls Negative Acceptance, and it sounds like "I can't" or "I'm not the kind of person who." Level two is Recognition and Need to Change, and it sounds like "I need to," "I should," or "I ought to." Level three, Decision to Change, sounds like "I never" or "I no longer." Level four is The Better You, and it is built on "I am." Level five he calls Universal Affirmation, phrased as "it is," and he gives it a spiritual cast.
The interesting move is level two, and it is the one the next section takes apart. Helmstetter files "I really need to get in shape" under damage rather than motivation, and that single reclassification survives whether or not you accept the rest of his model.
What the book says it is not
Two chapters exist mainly to draw boundaries, and reviews rarely mention them. One is titled "Not Hypnosis, Not Subliminal," where Helmstetter separates his method from both. The other is "A New Look at Positive Thinking," where he argues that positive thinking as commonly taught is too vague at the sentence level to change anything. He is not writing an affirmations book in the ordinary sense. He is writing a book about word choice, and the distinction is the point. The nature of the claim is worth stating precisely: he is not asking you to believe something you do not, he is arguing that the exact words matter.
The Five Levels of Self-Talk at a Glance
| Level | Helmstetter's name | Opening words | What he says it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Negative Acceptance | "I can't", "I'm too" | The most damaging level. You state something against yourself and then accept it. |
| 2 | Recognition and Need to Change | "I need to", "I should", "I ought to" | Sounds like progress, works against you. Names a problem and supplies no solution. |
| 3 | Decision to Change | "I never", "I no longer" | The first level that helps rather than hinders. Aimed at breaking a specific habit. |
| 4 | The Better You | "I am" | The level he treats as the most effective, stated in the present about who you are. |
| 5 | Universal Affirmation | "It is" | Spiritually framed. Written as a statement about how things are rather than about you. |
Try it on yourself. Take the last three things you said in your own head about a goal you have not hit, and find the opening words. If two of them start with "I should," you have your answer about which rung you are standing on.
What the Five Levels Sound Like on One Real Goal
The table above defines the levels. This one runs a single goal up all five so you can hear the difference, which is audible long before it is intellectual. The goal: getting back to running.
| Level | What you would actually say | What Helmstetter says it does to you |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "I can't stick to anything." | You state a case against yourself and then agree with it. The most damaging level. |
| 2 | "I really should start running again." | Names the problem, supplies no solution, and hands you the feeling of having acted. |
| 3 | "I no longer skip my morning run." | The first form that helps. Aimed at one habit, and phrased as a decision already taken. |
| 4 | "I am a runner." | Stated in the present, about who you are. The level he treats as most effective. |
| 5 | Phrased as "it is" rather than "I am" | Helmstetter gives this one a spiritual cast, which makes a neutral worked example hard to write honestly. |
Read the middle row twice. "I really should start running again" is the sentence most people would describe as motivation, and it is the one Helmstetter treats as the problem. Nothing else in the genre makes that particular call.
Self-Talk and Identity: What Level Four Is Actually Asking
Level four is "I am." That is not a description of a plan. It is a claim about identity, stated in the present tense, about a person who by definition has not finished becoming that yet. Which is exactly why it feels like lying, and why so many readers bounce off affirmations at the beginning, before anybody gives them an explanation for the discomfort.
Helmstetter's answer is level three, and it is the most useful structural idea in the book. "I no longer skip my morning run" makes no claim about identity at all. It reports a decision. A decision is something you can make on a Tuesday and have it be true by Tuesday afternoon, so the sentence survives inspection in a way "I am a runner" does not. That is a difference in the character of the statement, not in its tone. Level three is the bridge, and the ladder only works if you are honest about which rung you are standing on.
That honesty question does more work here than the wording does. Trudeau's Teachability Index puts a number on it by multiplying willingness to learn by willingness to change, and his Training Balance Scale loads the weight onto the internal side before any action. Helmstetter scores nothing. He hands you the sentence and assumes you will be straight with yourself, which is the assumption most likely to fail.
Why Kevin Trudeau Recommends What to Say When You Talk to Yourself
The book sits high on the recommended materials list published by the Kevin Trudeau fan club, listed there as "What to Say When you Talk to Yourself" by Shad Helmstetter. The reason is level two.
Trudeau's central diagnostic is the counterintention, which in his telling is a buried program running opposite to whatever you have consciously decided you want. The thing that makes counterintentions hard to catch, in his account, is that they do not announce themselves as opposition. They present as reasonableness. Helmstetter's level two is that same shape made audible, the thing you have told yourself so often you no longer hear it as a position. "I need to" is not resistance wearing a hostile face. It is resistance wearing the face of intent, which is exactly why it survives inspection. Helmstetter gives you a word test for something Trudeau describes as invisible.
The two men also part ways in a way worth stating. Trudeau argues in his material on why positive thinking does not work that the subconscious rejects any statement it does not already accept, which is why repeating a goal you do not believe changes nothing. Helmstetter's objection in "A New Look at Positive Thinking" is different: his complaint is precision, not belief. Same symptom, two diagnoses. Reading both is more useful than picking one.
Helmstetter maps closely to Trudeau's account of the three parts of your mind at the reactive layer, which Trudeau says runs most of your day and responds to repetition rather than reasoning. Helmstetter's whole method is repetition of a specific sentence form. Neither claim is demonstrated in either place.
One real divergence. Helmstetter takes a chapter to insist his method is not hypnosis and not subliminal. Trudeau goes the other way and puts the THETA state at the center of his approach, arguing suggestion needs an altered brainwave state to take hold. Anyone reading both will hit that contradiction. It is the clearest place where the two systems disagree about mechanism while agreeing about what to say.
If you have already read Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, the split is easy to remember. Maltz works on the picture you hold of yourself. Helmstetter works on the sentence. They are aimed at the same target from two different sense channels, and neither one replaces the other.
Where What to Say When You Talk to Yourself Sits Next to the Global Information Network
Trudeau founded the Global Information Network in 2009 as a paid membership organization, built on his claim that the most valuable knowledge about wealth and success has been kept away from the public. GIN is a progression, with levels and events and material that assumes you keep going.
This book is a single tool. It does not address what to want, what to care about, or what purpose to point any of it at. It addresses only the sentence you use once the goal already exists, which makes it a companion rather than a foundation. Trudeau's manifestation material, including Your Wish Is Your Command, works the other end: desire, belief and expectancy before any language is chosen. Helmstetter hands you the words. He has no opinion about what you point them at.
Read against The Magic of Believing by Claude Bristol, the lineage becomes clear. Bristol argued for repetition as the engine decades earlier. Helmstetter's contribution is that repetition alone is not enough if the sentence you are repeating is built at the wrong level. For where Trudeau's own titles sit alongside recommendations like this one, the complete guide to Kevin Trudeau's books and reading order lays out the sequence.
Who Should Read What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, and Who Should Skip It
Read it if you have tried affirmations and felt like a fraud saying them. Helmstetter's explanation for that feeling is the most satisfying one in the genre, and it does not require you to try harder. Read it if you catch yourself saying "I should" a dozen times a day and have never once counted.
Skip it if you need evidence. Read it as a set of models, not as science, for the four reasons below.
Common Criticisms of What to Say When You Talk to Yourself
It names no studies and carries no references
Helmstetter's most-quoted figure about how much of our thinking is negative is attributed in the book to unnamed "leading behavioral researchers," with no study named and no citation to follow. It has been repeated across the internet for forty years without anyone producing the source, and the book carries no reference apparatus at all. In a book by a self-described behavioral researcher that does matter, and readers who came for information rather than for a framework will feel it.
The programming language is asserted, not argued
Helmstetter writes about programming, and about what the brain does with the words you give it, and presents both as established. He does not argue for either. Treat the language as a metaphor he finds useful, because that is all the book gives you grounds to treat it as.
The book routes you toward the author's own audio programs
Helmstetter sells self-talk recordings, and the text points at them. That does not make the five levels less useful, and you should see the shape of it going in.
It repeats itself by design
Which is on brand for a book about repetition and still makes the middle stretch feel long. The core is the five levels and the Self-Management Sequence. You will have both inside sixty pages, and the rest is elaboration.
What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter Book Review: The Verdict
4 out of 5. The reclassification of "I should" as damage rather than motivation is the sharpest single idea on this shelf, and the five-level ladder survives being written on a notecard. A full point comes off for the missing evidence, the asserted mechanism and the funnel. Read it for the vocabulary it is giving you, not for proof that the vocabulary works.
What to Say When You Talk to Yourself: Frequently Asked Questions
What is What to Say When You Talk to Yourself about?
Shad Helmstetter's argument that the specific words you use on yourself matter more than whether your thinking is broadly positive or negative. He sorts self-talk into five graded levels and gives a chain he calls the Self-Management Sequence, running from programming through beliefs, attitudes, feelings and behavior to results.
What are the five levels of self-talk?
Level one is Negative Acceptance ("I can't"). Level two is Recognition and Need to Change ("I need to", "I should"). Level three is Decision to Change ("I never", "I no longer"). Level four is The Better You ("I am"). Level five is Universal Affirmation ("it is"), which Helmstetter frames spiritually.
Is the title "Your Self" or "Yourself"?
Both. Grindle Press published the 1986 original as What to Say When You Talk to Your Self. Pocket Books and MJF Books issued editions under the closed-up spelling, and the 2017 Simon & Schuster reissue went back to two words. Same book either way.
When was What to Say When You Talk to Yourself published?
1986, by Grindle Press of Scottsdale, Arizona. Pocket Books followed in 1987, MJF Books in 1992, and Gallery Books at Simon & Schuster reissued it in 2017.
What is level two self-talk and why does Helmstetter call it a trap?
Level two is Recognition and Need to Change, and it sounds like "I need to," "I should" or "I ought to." Helmstetter files it as damage rather than motivation because it names a problem, supplies no solution, and delivers the feeling of having acted when nothing has been decided. It is the reclassification the book is best known for.
Is What to Say When You Talk to Yourself based on scientific research?
Helmstetter presents himself as a behavioral researcher and the book is written as though it rests on research, but it names no studies and carries no references. Its most-repeated statistic is credited only to unnamed "leading behavioral researchers." Read the five levels as a practical framework rather than as a documented finding.
How is it different from ordinary positive thinking or affirmations?
Helmstetter devotes a chapter to separating the two. His claim is that positive thinking as usually taught is too vague at the sentence level to change anything, and that the wording of what you say determines whether it does any work. He also states that his method is neither hypnosis nor subliminal suggestion.
Further reading: a City Tech CUNY write-up of Helmstetter's five levels, internal monologue on Wikipedia, and affirmations on Wikipedia.