Why Self-Improvement Advice Doesn’t Work
To make it work is to overcome something the industry has pushed for centuries.
One lesson that I am consistently reminded of in self-improvement is that it’s key to be able to read between the lines. That lesson started ever since I joined a network marketing company and listened to the various individuals selling the dream.
Every week there were some new faces, the same speech, and similar conversations. People excitedly talking about being their own boss, how they brought on some more people and so on.
It all felt great being around these individuals, even though for me I had made no sales and I was “fully committed” to this business.
I was reminded about this when I read a post from Jessica Wildfire’s Substack in which she outlined the history of self-improvement and what self-improvement consists of. Time after time, some of the biggest names in the industry have played into this particular theming that encompasses this industry.
It started with Phineas Quimby in the 1870s and his work spurred Mary Baker Eddy, a founder of Christian Science. Both individuals entertained the idea that illnesses were all in your head, though Eddy, being a religious founder leaned into the mysticality further.
The work these two established set the tonne for several spin-offs of these concepts. Nothing really changed, but each major success was sparked by similar themes and ideas.
Tony Robbins is a religious individual who runs diagnoses in front of a live audience. This isn’t different from what Quimby did.
Rhonda Byrne, the author of The Secret, leans into the mystical thinking and religious ideology that Eddy brought.
Some of the big named hustle bros build onto this same kind of idea. Tai Lopez shows off his incredible wealth. Others on social media will show off their incredible results on some of the latest trends, whether that’s crypto, generative AI or the next hot trend.
How these individuals thrive, and others like them, all come back to this particular feeling that we experience when around these individuals. What Quimby and Eddy and so many others learned back then and have baked into this industry is that their advice doesn’t work and it’s all by design.
It doesn’t work because it’s much easier to sell feelings than it is to provide legitimate solutions.
Feelings Are Powerful… And Exploitable
When it comes to most of the largest successful individuals in the self-improvement industry, there is a good chance of them using this particular method in order to expand their wealth. Reading between the lines, it’s clear that this is the case.
I saw this in the network marketing groups that I was involved in. I enjoyed the feeling of being in those meetings but had no drive to sell any products.
It was all just a waste of money for me.
It’s only been recently that I’ve learned to pause and consider my options more rather than act on my emotional impulses. There was a business networking group I joined and left a few months ago.
The reason I left is while business connections are great, the group lacked any creatives and easy synergies for me. The group had a financial advisor, a real estate agent, an accountant, and a painter, along with various therapists and lawyers. The system is helpful on paper, but as a freelance writer, unless those individuals had a blog and needed a writer, it’s pretty difficult to see how their extended networks would help me.
It’d be different if I was the head of a publishing house and had other writers working for me. But I don’t.
But getting back to our emotions, it’s easier to lean into that more. With the network group, some might consider me a fool for not committing to it. Especially since there is such a large group of people willing to help out. Hustle bros would push the idea to commit now and figure it out later. Others would sell hard on the possibilities since I would have a much larger network to tap into.
This is on top of having a social group I would be happy to be around for once since my high school years.
But the problem is emotions and practicality don’t mash well with one another. And when the industry is built on emotions as it has before, the practicality that this industry was meant to have gets blurry and difficult to interpret.
It’s easy to begin with some solid and truthful advice, but then twist it into something else or present something that clashes with it. I think of Tony Robbins and his advice which can be practical, but it’s not always helpful in people’s unique circumstances.
He needs to be doing more individual coaching sessions with people and genuinely invest in them and help them grow rather than spend his time in an auditorium or writing another book. The problem is books and those speaking gigs pay way more and give him more notoriety which in turn allows his coaching to be only offered to those in wealthy positions already.
And it’s much easier to continue and keep the status quo than it is to pivot and say, tackle cultural issues and be genuinely helpful.
It’s Exploitable Because We Get Addicted To It
We are social creatures and so we’re obviously going to react to huge bursts of emotional exposure which many of these self-help gurus thrive off of. The large crowds of people validate the advice given and can also deter people from speaking up about anything.
It’s why in a Tony Robbins seminar, you likely won’t hear anyone debating with Robbins about his advice. The mob culture feeds into just soaking up the positive emotions rather than looking at the fact that most people in his audience aren’t going to take his advice and put it into practice.
The spectacle and entertainment factor draws the people in which in turn validates the ideas and opinions that person has to say. Bring in enough people and even the critics will struggle to counter those ideas. Only in the time when major missteps happen do we see beyond the veil who these individuals are or were like.
Tony Robbins sexually assaulted a woman.
Dave Hollis, ex-husband of Rachel Hollis, died in April from a drug overdose.
I understand that with self-improvement people are allowed to make mistakes and even these prominent individuals have their faults. However, the emotions they leveraged and the stories they’ve woven have made fans of these individuals believe these people are the peak of humanity. That they could do nothing wrong and are the best, hands down.
People will take a bullet for Elon Musk, even though he doesn’t care about anyone but himself. People will willingly write article after article about his supposed great habits or emotional intelligence he has, reinforcing he is this brilliant individual when he clearly isn’t.
Those with enough charisma can easily position themselves as these perfect individuals who don’t make mistakes and are so egotistical they bring like-minded individuals who will agree with whatever they say without question or debate. They do this because as we all know, we’re emotional creatures, and those emotions can instead be exploited rather than to correct and genuinely grow and be a better person.
Their being in this higher position is all the more reason for accountability but we don’t deliver it for the sheer fact that emotions are addicting.
Many of these gurus don’t talk about the fact that addictions are difficult to break and one does not simply “break the habit” or “get over it”. If Dave Hollis was still alive, he could attest to the addictive nature of drugs and alcohol since his lifestyle had those things in spades.
You can’t “willpower” your way out of something that is designed to be addictive.
Dopamine is along the same lines as well. It’s much easier to get the quick rushes of that via checking social media, texts, or emails than it is to actually do the effort-requiring actions you need to do to get ahead.
The gurus provide band-aid solutions because ultimately those deliver a feel-good feeling rather than a genuine change in a person’s life.
To Break This Cycle It’s A Matter Of Overcoming Those Feelings
All of this comes back to what I said before: reading between the lines. A lot of things gurus start off with are the truth. But for any advice to be genuinely helpful, you need to work over the hype and the emotions and use that bit of information as a foundation.
You need to figure out your exercise regimen and eating habits. You need to figure out your ideal side hustle. You need to figure out your best revenue streams to create.
Getting to that point requires more research than whatever some hustle bro or self-help guru tells you, myself included. If you’re starting a business, you want to look at some examples of successes and also have an idea of how big of a business you want. After all, not every person wants to build the next Amazon, even though a lot of people would be happy if they did.
Hustle bro culture or any self-help advice won’t really help you with those things. A lot of that advice is generalized. Some of it is by design, but for those being genuine, it’s more that every situation can’t be addressed in a broad topic. But as general as the advice may be, they still instill general guidelines and rules that you can build upon for your specific situation.
You see this theme time and again and for the time being, people who want to grow have to use more of the exploitative industries and people who are using them. Reading between the lines turns into you using them more than the other way around.
As predatory of an industry as it is, network marketing taught me to seek connections, be authentic, and that growth is a work in progress. This was probably the heftiest cost for me at about $700 or so.
I have to thank Tai Lopez for his webinars, despite him being a total fake. I attended one of his free webinars and it changed my perspective on life and really got me to dive into reading and being interested in this industry. I never spent a dime on Tai Lopez’s courses to develop that.
I have to thank Robert Kiyosaki who got me started on developing a money mindset, even though he’s a grifter. I avoided his $45,000 training and it only cost me the price of one of his 18 books.
Their advice on the surface isn’t designed to work because those people have a specific agenda that specific industries have encouraged. It’s better to instill those feelings of being helpful than it is to be genuinely helpful.
But by reading through the lines of their work and finding your own way of doing things, I believe people will get there. And similar to my path, their inaccuracies could inspire people to change the structure of self-help or to seek better alternatives.
Because as much as emotions are exploited these days, the band-aid solutions that so many people offer aren’t addressing the root problems. You can’t go out for a run outside if the air you’re breathing in is literally smoke. You can’t get ahead if you’re a single mom or a person of colour who has an employer who cares about profit over their own employees. And you certainly can’t build a side hustle if your life demands you work two or three jobs.
Emotional exploitation isn’t sustainable and after 200 years of band-aids and woo-woo magic, more people will realize we need some better solutions than “thoughts and prayers” and “positive thinking.”
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