Yvain, do check out pjeby's work. I have to admit I some points I found myself reading OB as a self help attempt. I'm glad I kept up, but dirtsimple.org was the blog I was actually looking for.

Your point about mysticism is interesting, because I find pjeby's perspective on personal action and motivation has a strange isomorphism to Zen thought, even though that doesn't seem to be main intention. In fact, his emphasis seems to be de-mystifying. One of his main criticisms of existing psychological/self-help literature is that the relatively good stuff is incomprehensible to the people who need it most, because they'd need to already be in a successful, rational action mindset in order to implement what's being said.

Anyway, I hope pjeby chimes up so he can offer something better than my incomplete summary...