❀ the cult of: ➥motivational speakers ➥life coaches ➥personal growth gurus ➥new-age charlatans ➥AWESOMENESS FEST

know what gets me is e-book or webinar type "products" that are depicted as boxes, paperbacks, or spiral bound books. or a pile of a combination of those things!

Why is Jonathan Budd wearing a fedora while he does the breaststroke?

It's literally all affiliate marketing pyramid schemes, goole.

Lol dumb revive I should click my bookmarks more often.

still want a FRONTLINE episode on these bozos

thanks, silby

So it turns out I know a lifestyle coach - sad story, really. This is someone who lost their job in finance and now really, really believes in being a lifestyle coach.

All this rhetoric about personal development and well-being and living to your full prosperity co-exists, quite naturally, with a view that anyone fallen on hard times is a loser who doesn't deserve sympathy.

Oh, and in the books this person studies/preaches from, which I have read chunks of, there are sections about how to kick a drugs habit or help a family member with one, how to deal with suicidal thoughts and self harm ... none of which is written by an accredited psychiatrist or doctor.

I think this guy mainly just does a kind of feelgood, dramatically-presented business consultancy, but shit, I got a bad feeling when I turned up nuggets like 'Thinking makes you suffer' and 'Understand, your daughter's addiction is not your problem'.

lifestyle coach?

I'd like to acknowledge that this book sounds turrble while also delicately floating the notion that accredited psychologists and doctors don't strike me as having a track record of being any more otm wrt addiction than anyone else

motivational speakers life coaches personal growth gurus new-age charlatans of 250 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx575de46Dc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Swedenborg

floating the notion that accredited psychologists and doctors don't strike me as having a track record of being any more otm wrt addiction than anyone else

You mean literally no better than anyone else? Really?

Don't think I can buy that tbh

No doubt there are problems with the professionals, but hmmm don't want these vague problems to kid us into thinking that they're no better than some of the people talked about on this thread

aa folks are neither psychiatrists nor doctors yet have a better track record treating addiction hmm

Right, no, they're just people with lots of training and experience in how to help people with addiction

and even wrote a "big book" about it --- despite having no accreditation! nb the experience is all hands on. the only coursework is showing up to meetings and the only certification is your chip.

I'm as anti-charlatan as anyone itt and I'm totally in favor of evidence-based medicine. It's on that basis that I'm not on board with the notion that a medical degree is proof against quackery, especially in the case of addiction. Dependency is a separate question and one where the clinical model is 100% relevant.

This obsession with finding a formula for happiness seems to be ever more pervasive in pop culture and on the net (e.g. lifehack.org and others). But what about the fundamental and generally accepted-as-true idea that a sure fire way to make yourself miserable is striving to be happy?

idgi, I strive to be happy and it works out

This obsession with finding a formula for happiness seems to be ever more pervasive in pop culture and on the net (e.g. lifehack.org and others). But what about the fundamental and generally accepted-as-true idea that a sure fire way to make yourself miserable is striving to be happy?

The key to all this stuff - see also the wisdom of facebook image macros - is that it's all about your own happiness as the ultimate goal. Following god's rules/improving society/living according to your true nature/being thoroughly and fiercely 'alive'/and etc are all deleted, leaving only this idea of 'being happy'.

The reason why no-one's found out a way to be happy despite all this fevered activity is that 'happiness' in itself doesn't exist, or rather, all notions of happiness that have heretofore existed defined your personal happiness as something you got as a by-product of following some specific system which had some specific aim – other than happiness – as its end goal.

So no-one has ever been 'happy' purely; people have only been happy because they were a Christian and thought things were going well from a Christian point of view; or a Liberal and thought things were going well from a Liberal point of view; or otherwise subscribed to X system and thought, by the terms of that system, that the world and they themselves were more good than bad.

The quest for pure happiness is a bit like the quest for 'morality', etc; without definition you cannot get it.

the quest for happiness is like the war on terror

necessary and almost finished!!!

The Workshop will be conducted by Success Resources Lead Trainer

http://www.7forces.co.uk/london1

ABOUT ANTHONY ROBBINS

Anthony Robbins has served as a consultant to some of the most accomplished organisations and business leaders in the world. He has coached and counselled Fortune 500 CEOs, MPs and a former United States President. His clients have paid him more than one million dollars a year for his personal and professional coaching services.

http://blog.mainstreethost.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Dr.-Evil-One-Million-Dollars.png

lol what a childlike way to say that

"he got PAID a lot of MONEY"

one unifying feature of these life coach types' websites is that all their copy seems to have been written by children or robots, or perhaps robotic children.

I believe in vision boards ever since a month ago, because me and my sister wanted a really EPIC NIGHT at the goth club - like we wanted these specific club characters to be there, and for them to play certain songs, and we jokingly made a goth vision board and IT ALL CAME TRUE and I made out with a guy with an eyebrow ring. Bonus.

+1

amazing

it always helps to set an intention

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrhMVVaOnuo

that looks like hell on earth

black walnut trees? gross

yeah i mean i love camping but that campsite looks horrible

seems like 90% of what they do is start fires

lots of blowing ineffectually on lit tinder during broad daylight, yes.

Devil's box.

man these ppl must be everywhere.

just got an fb invite to (what i take to be) some low-rent podcast, with these ppl as hosts (nb i know one of them from my hometown)

http://www.synergywellnessic.com/
http://kimravida.com/
http://diyforyoursoul.com/

none of these sites is interesting, which is sort of interesting in itself. they're like weeds!

funny enuf here's the site running the 'radio show' -- advertised today

http://lifecoachradionetwork.com

part of me is kind of thrilled at the idea of people making a living doing nothing but telling other people what to do with themselves, with next to no measurable expertise or accreditation.

apart from the all-encompassing self-regarding delusion of it all. but other than that, why not?

lol someone needs an internet coach

http://tharyn.me/37-things-that-might-happen-at-mindvalley-in-pictures/

aw, it just seems like a lame, probably super-expensive theater camp

dying:

http://tharyn.me/my-veggie-wrap-spiritual-experience/

do mindvalley have a camp at burning man? they should

"you might brainstorm with famous copywriters"

aw, thanks for posting those tpp

decided to check back in on Zynnia

http://howtodocrowdfunding.com/

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/977893_587941447892349_140367068_o.jpg

When I'm not meditating, reading epic books, jamming to mashups, or painting, then I'm probably on my laptop in some tropical coffee shop making money.

http://i.imgur.com/RNYEY.png

brb, just going to change facebook cover photo.

slightly off topic but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFotnBAOku0