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Originally Posted by Markus74  I personally wouldn't say that they're total crooks. But some, or most of these people, are in this because of the money that can be made with selling such theories. And you always have to pay huge sums for their seminars.
But people want to hear stories like these because they make them feel better and even empower them to a certain degree. Although rarely to never to the degree of the promises.
The authors may believe, in varying degrees, into their own theories but I'm sure some of them privately don't totally subscribe to them. Or maybe they just don't care about the inconsistencies and flaws because they're just like their followers (or Mulder). They want to believe.
There's one sure thing though: The best way to make money yourself is still to sell 'the secret to get rich' to others  |
Well, here's the problem with your theory. Since every self-development author makes money from the books/seminars they sell (including Steve via his blog), your arguement would have to extend to the whole self-development industry. Meaning, it really has nothing to do with IM or LoA, but rather with the concept of selling advice. Any self-development author, regardless whether they are writing about time management or intention manifestation could be said to be "only in it for the money". Let's take Anthony Robbins as an example. He could be selling his crap to people like me, who believe in it simply to make money. I have a lot of his multi-media seminars and I have gone to one of his seminars in the past. I have also read pretty much every book he's written at least once. We could easily make the same arguement about him saying he's just in it for the money but he doesn't really believe in his own crap, just sells it because it makes money.
Here are the flaws I see in that line of thinking:
1) If the advice that is being sold was crap, the only power it would actually have would be to help the people selling it. There would be no examples of people who used the advice to change their lives for the better. Instead there would be the "guru" making lots of money and a whole bunch of victims who are simply short the money they paid for the book or seminar.
I know this isn't true from real life experience because I know several multi-millionaires who make money doing things that have absolutely nothing to do with the self-help industry and they credit these authors with their success. One of them is a guy who really made me believe in these books in the first place. Maybe that is one real life experience I have that you guys don't, and perhaps that's why I believe what I do and you guys don't. All I know is that the successful people I know are heavy into reading these books and going to seminars etc., and all the people I know who are broke and in debt refuse to read self-development books precisely for the same reason you guys are stating.
THis is of-course not even including my own success with self development material. I have made a crapload of money since getting into this stuff and have helped others make money with it. THat's nothing though compared to the other areas of my life that have had a quality improvement like my relationships, health, family life etc.
2) Scamming people with false advice doesn't last. If the self-development industry was a scam it would have disappeared a long time ago. If Anthony Robbins was selling crap advice, he would have had one seminar and then everyone would have told everyone how crappy it was, and how it DIDN'T change their life, and he would have disappeared off the scene like a bad haircut. The reason he continues to make money selling advice is because his advice is good. I can attest to that personally. Not just singeling him out, I would say the same about all the self-development authors I have read.
3) If you really believe in this "theory" then you can't just apply it to the self-development industry either. You'd have to apply it to everyone who sells any product or service. Like I mentioned in a previous post, how do I know my dentist isn't lying to me about brushing and flossing my teeth? I mean, he's in it for the money right? He could be telling me to brush and floss because he knows that is EXACTLY what's going to give me cavities and stuff so that he can fix them. Even with slightly more subtle advice from him like "stop drinking Coke!", he could just be telling me that because he knows drinking "Coke" makes teeth stronger!
Of course all the dentists would have to be in on this, but that's doable if the whole self-development industry is in on their own conspiracy.
4) The last and most important distinction is that with your line of thinking you severly stunt your potential growth, because your thinking is that when you read a self-development book and it makes sense to you then you consider the author legit and "one of the good guys", but since you already know and believe what they are teaching, you really don't get a lot of value out of the book. However, when you read a self-development book and you don't yet agree with the materials because it is out of the scope of your understanding or doesn't yet align with your beliefs you think "This is crap! This author just wrote this to make money! It can't be true!".
So you're always stuck. You'll be in the same spot 10 years from now as you are now because you'll just keep reading books from authors that align with your current beliefs and anyone who tries to teach you a new belief that might conflict with your existing beliefs you'll just dismiss as a fraud.
Some of the biggest leaps I've made in my success in life happened after reading books that I didn't agree with when I first read them. They pissed me off and I couldn't understand how they could be true, but because I trust the authors wouldn't be fraudulent I decided to experiment with what they teach to see if it works and it helped me out tremendously.
This is the same with my martial arts training. My Sensei will often bring something up that I have a hard time understanding as it might even go against my beliefs at the time. Instead of trying to figure out ten thousand reasons why he has to be wrong, I just go along with it and try it out like he suggests. In one example, there was a technique he was teaching that basically causes a person to drop straight down to the ground in pain simply by applying pressure on a certain spot on the wrist. Sensei demonstrated the technique and it looked fake. It looked like the other guy was just dropping to the ground on purpose for the demonstration, not because the technique actually worked. Myself and two other people I trained with tried it out and we couldn't make it work, and in fact we even called over another black belt who tried to do it to me and he couldn't get the technique working on me. I just stood there and didn't move while they tried to apply this so-called technique to my wrist but it wasn't doing anything to me. My wrist was slightly annoyed at best, but nothing enough to cause me to hit the ground. Sensei didn't come around that class and we never asked him about it that class so we left that night thinking that this technique is either fake or it simply doesn't work on everyone.
Two weeks later, I came to class and Sensei brought up this technique again, and we broke up into partners and once again my partner tried making it work on me but couldn't do it. He got frustrated and called Sensei over and said to Sensei "This technique doesn't work on Paul." and Sensei said "Hmm...really? Ok... mind if I try?".... he took a step in front of me, I grabbed his Gi as I was doing with my partner and he proceeded to try the technique. It only took him about half a second to apply the technique and it sent shooting pain down my arm all the way from my wrist straight down through to my elbow and to my shoulder joint. I hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. THe pain was quick and unbearable, and once he let go it was gone just as quickly as it appeared.
THe lesson learned was that just because it doesn't look like it logically makes any sense how something could work, doesn't mean it doesn't work. Just because your beliefs are in conflict with what someone is trying to teach you, it doesn't mean they are frauds just trying to scam you for money.
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My final comment is this:
I would strongly suggest you make a decision in your life to either believe that the self-development industry is a scam, full of tricksters who are just in it to make money, in which case it is better to stay away from it;
or
Believe that the self-development industry is full of people who have succeeded in life and simply want to share what they have learned with other people. THey have no ill-intentions and are NOT just in it for the money. THey DO make money, because there is nothing wrong with making money, and in fact if they didnt' make any money from their advice then people would just say "Well they can't be that good." anyways. I know that if I saw Tony Robbins living in a 1 bedroom apartment, driving a beat up 1982 Honda Civic with rusted wheelwells I wouldn't listen to him.