by Kaushik Guha

Created on: July 01, 2009

Do you usually avoid writing in the first person? If you are a personal development writer/speaker and you like to create most of your pieces from a third person point of view, I suggest you consider using a more personal perspective. That's right, I am referring to using more of the I' word. In my opinion, there are the 3 key benefits to this.

1.It makes your account more personal, enjoyable and easier to relate to. It makes you a real person, not a mechanical cyber-sales-bot that is spewing out a few lines of free information to hook the reader into buying a product.

2.One of the primary challenges that self help authors are now facing is credibility. More and more people (that have survived the traumatic effects of a rip-off) are discovering that there are many speakers who hide behind catch words and theories to sell themselves; real world evidence suggests that these theories obviously don't work in the lives of the authors.

Using the first person more than often usually helps trump this issue, because if you are using your own life as an example, rather than Oprah Winfrey's, you obviously are a person of integrity that speaks from his own perspective and has a voice of his own. This would make people more receptive to your ideas.

Some people have a different opinion on this. They say that readers are not interested to read your personal account, they are only interested to find quick-fixes to their problems. So just give them the solution and an explanation. That's the way to go about it.

I have not been experimenting long enough to make comments about this idea because I have been writing only for a month or so. But I can tell from my speaking experiences that personal anecdotes are always a preferred form of delivery. People are looking for solutions ..true. But they would like to hear your experiences so long as it is related to the problem or solution in some way.

3.As a writer it helps you get into a better flow state. When you are passively describing an experience or a theory in third person, you are nowhere in the picture. You are not an actor in that movie, you are just another reviewer. This will decrease your involvement in the piece you come up with, leaving dry theoretical prose. Bottom line: Be the actor, not the reviewer.

Think about it like an artist. Even when an artist draws something detached like a river over a bridge, or a boat caught in a storm, there is a certain aspect of his self that he brings to the

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