The Miracle Cure: The Oldest Trick In The Book
Why so many of us keep tripping up over this at various stages in our lives.
Imagine a world where self-help writers and course-makers were similar to famous singers. Where they could build their entire livelihood around one hit and they never would have to publish or make another course ever again.
Sure there might be a struggle at first. But once you make that iconic article or course, you would be set for the rest of your life. You could retire, or you could make more if you like. But the decision is ultimately up to you.
The impact of this work would be incredible. It would be inspiring. Life changing. Engaging with that content would forever change your life.
It would revolutionize your life and shake you to your core.
You’d quote it time and time again, go back through it all over again and have your perspective change yet again.
They’d sell t-shirts with the title of the article or course. You’d buy multiple copies of it.
The reality though isn’t like that. I’ve personally written thousands of articles at this point and I’ll be writing thousands more. This is no different from so many other gurus out there where they release multiple courses, big projects, products, and other content too.
But then, why is it that for so many self-help gurus they market a book, a big course, or project as “the only thing that will change your life forever”? They drum up time and time again that whatever they are offering is premium, first-class content. That buying whatever they are selling will change how you play the game called life.
That you’ll start winning and get so tired of winning thanks to the strategies outlined in whatever they are selling.
It shouldn’t come as a shock that marketing is over-hyping anything and everything. But it says something in the self-help world where every big name self-help guru markets their current product and future products as the single thing that you will ever need in your life.
That this is their magnum opus to end all magnum opuses and that it’s the best thing to ever happen to the planet and to whomever lays eyes on this and pays the low low price of $299.99, down from $2000.
This can work in music because we remember jingles, lyrics, and melodies well. For us older, we can remember iconic songs growing up if we just heard them again now. Even just saying the name of a song can bring back memories.
Bohemian Rhapsody. Dear Prudence. The Final Countdown. 99 Red Balloons. Somewhere Over The Rainbow (not the one sung by R Kelly though).
The list goes on.
This can’t be said about self-help content and the fact it’s insisted on and is effectively a trope in the industry says something about it and us.
It’s Hype That Keeps Us In The Loop
At the end of the day, rich self-help gurus continue to use this ploy as a means of emotionally pumping people up. Emotional responses — good or bad — is always the core strategy for anything. But when it comes to self-help it works double duty.
It not only serves to rope people in, but also makes people more docile to further engagement and interaction.
It works similar to a cult where the more you linger in there, the more things seem normal. Even though someone new or rationally thinking can see this as nothing more than a farce.
It leads to predictable behaviour that you’d see in webinars where the self-help guru pushes their product. There are those who roll their eyes and think “ugh, another self-help course? Really?” while the others are more… well…
They go absolutely insane over it. Some will be outright hostile to those who publicly bash the self-help guru or what they are offering.
How people get into this state is a matter of psychology. Emotions are a strong gateway and similar to medication ads, some people will buy into them even with terrible side-effects.
In the case of the “Miracle Cure” strategy it leans into the idea of this truly being everything that you need to finally solve a particular problem in your life. That you finally get to live your life and start “winning”. Whatever that happens to look like.
It banks on your dream being something super exciting with the guru also adding maybe a few extra things to that dream of yours. It’s meant to be compelling. And it works a lot of the time.
It’s An Opportunity For Us To See It For What It Is
Being in that mental state with someone promising you that they will help out feels like a godsend from that perspective. I know this because I’ve felt it several times in my life.
The first time was with a Tai Lopez course. I saw the meme about him in his garage. But I was still wowed by his supposed wealth and wanted to learn from him. I took the webinar but couldn’t afford any of his courses back then so I left.
The second time was when I bought the book 6 Months to 6 Figures. A 164-page book outlining a speedy way to bringing yourself to earning 6-figures. It’s filled with compelling advice like:
- Eat organic food.
- Your time is more valuable than money.
- Stop making up excuses.
- Be a visionary and leader rather than a victim.
- Surround yourself with amazing people.
- Write down your goals
- Reduce your stress
- Work hard on yourself.
- Don’t be like other people.
The book opens up with this is advice that you never heard of before along with an encouragement to join the author’s Facebook community.
In other words, the book was designed to deliver a promise but it doesn’t outline anything super concrete. It’s all in on how you can enhance your own life and apparently that mixed in with any attempt at starting a business or something will apparently ascend you to six figure income. And yes, I cherry picked some of the general pointers but there isn’t a section on how to start a business let alone save money or consider particular financial vehicles.
The most business advice this book offers is to look for your “hidden opportunity” via your own skills.
The book underdelivers hard.
The miracle cure that courses, or books of self-help gurus reminds me a lot of that. They sell this dream, but in the end, a lot of the information isn’t anything that revolutionary. It’s already been said before.
It doesn’t actually give you specific steps or shows you how to get there or supports your endeavour to make the process easier.
All it does tell us is what all of this actually is.
Bland advice that gets your nowhere mixed in with someone’s vague intentions of making this advice the most helpful advice you’ll ever be exposed to.
In other words, a farce. A grift. A scam.
Unlike that book, I do want to provide some solid advice and help people overcome this. The problem is emotions are strong and gurus will do anything and everything to exploit it. But in the case of this “miracle cure” pitch, what helps me a lot is that the pitch is entirely a trope at this point.
People use this strategy all of the time.
And when you use logic, these pitches start to make less and less sense.
Like with that book I read years ago, my brain can’t wrap around how organic food would help me make six figures in six months. Organic food costs more and the author told me it bolsters my energy levels. But I already had good energy levels and it doesn’t really give me more.
And the miracle cure starts to break down more the more you hear it. If the next event, book, webinar, or course is supposedly the last thing you’ll ever need for the rest of your life, then the next “miracle cure” pitch has an incredibly high bar to clear. Perhaps even impossible.
After all, you already have the supposed cure for whatever you’re dealing with. So why would a second, third, or more be the actual solution this time?
Enjoyed the article? Please consider offering your support!
👉 Subscribe to my email list here and receive emails whenever I publish on Medium!
