FEEL like you’ve reached a point where you’re stuck in your life? Meet the Glaswegian whose cult book has taken the US personal development world by storm and whose tough love approach is now heading for the UK.

Gary John Bishop, 46, who was born in Shettleston in Glasgow’s east end – once the city’s most deprived area – claims his straight-talking Scottish take on the popular find-the-answers-within-yourself philosophy can help sort you out everything from your relation problems to your career and finances.

Bishop, who now lives in Florida and runs his own coaching business, turned to personal development 10 years ago. Though initially resistant he found the process life-changing and after working in the self development field, including as a facilitator for American personal development giant Landmark Worldwide, he decided to self-publish his take, packaged in an easy-to-apply format.

Yet he was amazed when the book – colourfully titled Unf*ck Yourself – which he hoped would sell a few thousand copies, sold over 40,000 in just a few months at the end of last year and appeared on the Amazon bestseller lists. Publishing deals followed – the book will be published in the UK by Hodder this Thursday and on August 1 by HarperCollins in the States.

Bishop admits that his core concept of taking responsibility for your life and for the changes you want to make without blaming or looking to others to solve your problems, is not new.

However, he says his straight-talking, “anti-voodoo” and empathetic approach is something that even the biggest self-help sceptics will be able to relate to.

The book focuses on the need to challenge self-limited beliefs that we mistakenly develop as well as “negative self-talk” which can prevent people from aiming for what they really want in life, due to fear of failure.

“When I was a kid I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t smart,” he said. “Everything else just followed. I wasn’t smart enough to go to college and so on. Growing up in the east end was challenging and there was all the usual violence around me. My father was an alcoholic.

“For a long time I blamed him and held him to account. But it was a massive breakthrough when I stopped believing that he was responsible for how I lived my life.”

After leaving school with three O Grades and a Higher in English, Bishop drifted through several jobs before moving to the States with £800 in his pocket to tour with his indie music band. He ended up working in construction.

In 2007, struggling to balance his work and home life, he did his first personal development workshop and everything started to fall into place, including his strained relationship with his wife.

“I was working 60-70 hours a week and my wife would say, 'we should spend more time together'. What I heard was, 'you are failing as a husband'. I would say, 'I’m working my tail off for both of us' and she heard, 'I don’t want to spend time with you'.

“I learned that it was ok to say I was scared or that I didn’t know something – that was quite hard to say growing up in Shettleston.”

He admits some right-wing commentators have been attracted to the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” sound of his rhetoric but insists that is not what he is about. Instead it’s about accepting structural inequality and working with awareness to achieve your potential regardless.

“I’m really interested in the resigned, the people who feel defeated," he said. “This book is for single mothers and unemployed fathers. It’s a cold reality being a joiner when you have to get up at 6am every morning and go to work when you know you have so much creative potential but you can’t get to it.

“It doesn’t mean inequality is ok but you can either rail against it or you can conclude that though you have to bear it in mind it doesn’t mean that you can’t have the life that you want to have.”

He is already working on a further three books and aspires to further develop his knowledge and understanding of his subject.

Tamsin English, the commissioning editor Yellow Kite, the Hodder imprint publishing Bishop’s book, claimed few self-published books ever achieve the reach that Unf*ck Yourself has.

“Launched just weeks before the US Presidential election, Gary’s writing has really struck a chord with readers, with many of us feeling more despondent than ever navigating a world where so much seems beyond our control,” she said.

“Gary’s unapologetic advice is empowering because it leads us to recognise that all of our limitations are self-imposed and that we can affect change in our lives.”