NO MATTER WHAT PEOPLE MAY SAY, Finding Ways to Improve Yourself, Is Not A Scam
I was listening to someone who was doing public speaking on the topic of how the self-improvement space is a scam. It didn’t sit well with me.
In fact, it was annoying in many ways. The self-improvement space is filled with valuable tools that we can learn to adopt and use towards helping us become the best version of ourselves.
The fact that there are people trying to tear it down is sad.
Do I believe there are scam artists out there who are working within this space only to take people’s money with no intention of providing sheer value?
Well unfortunately, yes. This does exist.
Fraud and scams exist within most industries today. But, because fraud is taking place within a given space or industry, does not mean we should avoid it completely or stop believing in it.
You may be reading this right now and have feelings of this industry being a scam. Maybe you have heard negative things about this space.
My objective here, is to offer a new perspective. This way, you can learn to believe in help and give this space your time when you need it.
How people try to defame and tear down an industry that is geared towards making people better, is beyond me. But my goal and purpose for writing this is not to cast judgement, but to possibly help or change at least one person’s mind to visit or re-visit this space, and open your mindset towards extracting the golden nuggets that exist.
Just how there are people out there trying to defame this space and talk down upon it, I feel like I need to do the opposite. I feel responsible to stand up for it and defend it. It has served me with tremendous value and loyalty.
My goal is to share my own personal experience with the self-help space, and share how it has added value to my life. I hope that it sheds light as to why the beauty of self-improvement is in the eye of the beholder.
To me, the self-improvement space is like a garden, it offers all of these different plants and whole foods that you can pick from. The purpose of these plants is to satiate you and help you fuel your body with high quality nutrients.
We can revisit this garden often, and we can pull what we need from it whenever we feel like we need something to provide nourishment and value to our body and mind.
But, we all know what happens if you go to the garden solely to consume—eventually, we end up with nothing.
Because self-improvement space has provided me with so much value during my darkest times, I feel like I am at a point in my life, where I need to start giving back to the garden.
There are people out there trying to discredit or downplay the very information and the very community that has helped many people like you and me turn their lives around.
Let’s get started by addressing the narrative that this space is NOT a scam.
Here Are My Top Reasons Why The Self-Improvement Space Is NOT A Scam:
Knowledge, Insight and Wisdom
The self-help space is an industry that is geared towards helping people become better by laying out experiences and wisdom that has been obtained over years of trial and error. Leaders of our time who have achieved some of the highest levels of success are providing information to anyone who is willing to listen and apply it.
Not only can you pick up information that can help you improve your own personal life, you can use that same information to help those around you to get better too. It pains me to hear people say that an industry that is providing timeless value and information is considered a scam.
Trail blazers who have created a new path to travel towards are taking their information and secrets, and they are providing that information to the masses.
Yes, we do have to pay to get some access, but a lot of the information is free today. We can’t get caught up on the negative. The fact that there are people out there who are scamming people out of their hard earned money cannot over power the fact that there are good people out there trying to make this world a better place.
Provides You With Positive Mentors
To gain access to mentors is one of the most valuable opportunities that we have in our era today. Today we have the opportunity to gain access to a vast amount of information. A-lot of that information, is being provided by hard earned experiences from some of the worlds most successful leaders.
The self-improvement space is what congregates all of this information and wisdom and puts it into a specific fashion of content that other people can consume. If they are disciplined enough, they can apply it and see first-hand just how valuable this space can be.
Helps you to Believe When You Don’t See A Way
There are going to be moments in life where you are going to get knocked down to your knees. Like Mike Tyson says:
“Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.”
—Mike Tyson
Life has a funny way of teaching you lessons. It doesn’t happen in this smooth, linear process. Instead you find yourself laying in a corner in the fetal position wondering what the 🤬 just happened.
If you haven’t been there just yet, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but don’t think for one second it’s not going to happen. It will happen. Experiencing difficult times is a requirement for us to reach the next level in this game called life.
When you get “punched in the mouth” by life, you will feel like there is no way out of your scenario. You may lose all hope. It is possible that you even throw in the towel and just feel like quitting.
I have been in these dark moments. More than once. You might even be reading this and you can relate. Maybe you’ve hit those valleys in life, or are going through them right now.
The self-improvement space is an excellent source for moments like these in life. Moments where you don’t have answers and are so far from the point of understanding. This is when reaching out to the garden of self-improvement provides you the nourishment you need to stand up one more time, and give it one more go.
Creates An Accountability Mirror
As a kid, I used to go through what I thought were difficult moments and at that time in my naive mind, I would always ask myself—why is this happening to me?
Actions have consequences and while I had heard this plenty of times growing up, I didn’t fully recognize that a- lot of the problems that I was experiencing in my life were all created by me.
Learning more about accountability through the self-improvement space, I realized that if I wanted to improve the consequences that were taking place in my life, I needed to start with improving myself first.
People don’t see this yet, and consequently the people who bash this space of self-improvement are the same ones who take no accountability for where they are at in life. They think they are just perfect, they don’t need the help. In fact, they believe that it is weak to ask for help.
One of the best details I have extracted from the self-improvement space is that in order to improve your life and your conditions, you need to first understand that everything is your fault. Learn to be proactive instead of reactive and take charge of who you are and where you are in life.
Provides Information To Improve Your Mindset
Saying that something which helps you to improve is a “fraud”, or a “scam”—all stems from a poor mindset.
Vocalizing such verbiage screams that your mindset needs an adjustment. Especially when you are talking to the masses. The mindset needs to shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.
The mind is extremely malleable, we can change anything that we want in our lives if we apply the will-power. By accepting, that yes, there are flaws in mostly everything, but we are going to focus on the positive instead of focusing on the negative, is going to provide your life with more gratitude.
We can’t sell ourselves short by creating echo chambers. We need to open our minds to the possibilities that exist on the other end of that wall that we have put up in our minds.
Some people will tell you that self-improvement is trash, it is for the weak, it is a scam to steal your money. I urge you not to fall into the trap of other peoples fixed mindsets. Choose to open your mind to try something that can potentially change your life when you most need it, regardless of what other people say and project onto you.
Provides Tools To Help You Navigate Through Life Better
In applying my time into the space of self-improvement, I have been able to extract valuable tools and principles that have helped me in my own personal life. Tools and principles that not even the closest, most loving people, in my life understood well enough to pass them down to me when I needed it most.
This is where people who call this space a scam, fall short. You can only learn so much listening to those closest to you. Your loved ones are going to try to do their best to help you navigate through life. The problem is that they don’t have all the answers. No one person does.
There are going to be times where your circle won’t be able to help you. This is where you need to expand to books, journals, videos, seminars, classes—professionals who have those golden nuggets because they have walked the path of hardship.
The contributors to the self-improvement space have reached levels beyond our own. Some have walked the road less traveled. We are doing a disservice to ourselves by not wanting to take a lending hand from someone who is reaching out to help you make your life better.
Final Thoughts
I believe a lot of people who view the self-improvement space as a scam are the same people who have never implemented the practices into their own daily lives with discipline and consistency to reap the rewards.
The self-improvement space is not just information it is a movement. It is a movement that gears us humans to become the best versions of ourselves. Our potential and our true purpose is getting lost in the translation of society and everyday life.
We need people who dedicate themselves towards this space to continue to put out content and value that can keep this industry alive. Like I mentioned before, there are a lot of people out there scamming other people out of their hard earned money. However, that is just a small fraction in comparison to the overall value that this space has to offer humanity.
It doesn’t matter how simple or common sense the information comes off to you. It is still positive information, and if practiced daily by more people across the board, we would have ourselves a better world to live in and raise children in.
In the end, this article is not so much about changing someone’s mind on whether or not this space is a scam. It’s about sharing the value that I have extracted over the years in order to empower other humans to do the same.
There are so many people going through hard times out there. Hopefully, this can help in some way.
The amount of help that this space has added to my personal life and those around me, is something I can never forget or take for granted.
I want to give back to the self-improvement space the best way that I can. The same way it was there for me, I want to be there for it.
For the time being, writing this and applying the principles into my life is the best I can do. 🙏
