I still remember how it started. It was four years ago. I had just finished a normal day of school and went to meet up with one of my best friends. As I approached him outside the school gates, I noticed a book in his hands. Me being the curious kid that I was, asked him what he was reading. The front cover looked ugly. It was an obnoxious read with a font that didn't look quite right. But what fascinated me was the title: How to Win Friends and Influence People. It took me a whole year of procrastinating before I finally decided to do it. I ordered Dale Carnegie's book from Amazon and I started reading. And just like that, I was hooked. Self-development consumed me. I signed up to the local gym, started paying attention to what I was eating, started scheduling my days out, started taking my passion for acting at the time more seriously. I read book after book after book. I followed all the gurus I was told to follow, meditating, taking cold showers, reading affirmations.

to myself, visualizing my goals, I read more, I exercised more, I hustled more. I felt more confident and motivated than I had ever felt before. This is it, I told myself. This is what my life had been missing. Everything was perfect. [Music] At least, that's what I wanted people to think. The world of self-development had changed many things for me, but there were some glaring issues, issues that I had to come face-to-face with. And let this video be a warning to those of you that are looking to improve your life or situation, wherever you're at. I've been wanting to make this video since starting this channel, and I've finally plucked up the courage to do it. So get ready to sit back, relax, and join me as we dive into the toxic world of self-development. [Music] [Music] Hey, are you looking to improve your life? Do you want to change your current situation? Have you had enough of having enough? Do you want more happiness, money? Do you want to be liked? Do you want

people to notice you more. Okay, hi. Do you want to prove them wrong? The people that you know don't believe you can achieve something great. This is where it begins, at least for me. It started here. The reason I procrastinated on buying Dale Carnegie's book was because I never felt the need to. That was until my first year of college. For whatever reason, I struggled to fit in and find my place in that first year. Although technically I had friends, there was this underlying sense of loneliness, like I just wasn't myself. I was constantly worried about what other people were thinking of me, and I had this unhealthy desire to be liked by everyone. Then I got to a point where I said enough was enough. I didn't like feeling the way I did, so I decided to make a change. And that is what brought me to the world of self-help. This context is important to note because one of the biggest reasons for someone wanting to improve themselves is because they have a sense of dissatisfaction with where they're

currently app, and there's nothing wrong with our sentiment. Wanting to change your current situation because you're unhappy with it is a very powerful thing to do. The problem here lies in your vulnerability. If you're in a dark place and you're looking to get out of it, you can be susceptible to certain problems. Self-development has a nice lure to it, doesn't it? A world of people trying to be better versions of themselves, a world where you take control over your life and decisions, a world that makes you feel like you're making progress, like you're maturing and doing what nobody else is. This is it, you tell yourself, whilst everyone else is partying and indulging in short-term pleasures, I'm gonna be working on myself. It feels great, doesn't it? You feel better about yourself, own it, feels like you've climbed right out of that dark place you were just in. You've taken the bait, you've trusted a new voice in your head, and that is when you become blind to the traps that lie.

in wait, self-help makes you feel good. There's no doubt about it. There's this amazing feeling of satisfaction that I felt after finishing the final page of every self-help book that I read. I had a rise in motivation. I felt like I just completed the level of some video game and my character had just leveled up. You see, after every self-help book that you read, after every self-help video that you watch, there is a surge of dopamine that rises straight into your brain. That feeling of accomplishing something after reading each book made me feel incredible. And after finishing that self-help book, I would go straight onto Amazon and order a bunch of new ones. That cycle would repeat itself many times over: buy a new book, feel a strong sense of motivation after reading it, and then buy another book, and on and on and on it went. If you still don't see the problem with what's going on here, let's take a look at the addictive side of dopamine. The reason anything becomes addictive is not because of the thing itself, the

reason someone becomes addicted to a drug is not the drugs. It's what the drug does to your brain that rush of dopamine is what gets you hooked, and make no mistake, it is easy to get hooked to self-help whether orchestrated or not. The self-help world can pull you very massive illusion the illusion of progress. After reading that book, you feel accomplished. After attending that seminar, you feel accomplished. After watching that self-help video, you feel accomplished. You feel like you've achieved something great and have done something really productive. That motivation lingers in your system, urging you to buy the next book, attend the next seminar, watch the next video. It's only when you take a second to pause and reflect when you realize nothing has changed. One of my favorite authors, MJ DeMarco, has a concept in his book called action faking, which is doing things that make you feel like you've accomplished something even though no actual progress has been made. It's that weird urge you get to clean your room when an important assignment is due. It's creating a

schedule, and then calling it a day's work once you're finished. It's reading about business but never actually starting one. It's buying the business cards instead of actually picking up the phone and making a sale. Action faking is an even more lethal form of procrastination because you're tricking yourself into thinking that you're actually making progress. So let this be your first warning. You don't need to read every self-help book out there or attend every seminar or buy every online course or listen to every business podcast. There's a time when you're doing too much consuming and the action that needs to be taken is postponed. This is the first trap that so many people get themselves into, and it has dramatic consequences at the end of it: an empty wallet, a whole bunch of temporary motivation, and a gut-wrenching realization in the back of your mind that knows you haven't achieved anything yet. You haven't made any progress. You only got better at convincing yourself that you did. But behind this self-help addiction is

something more sinister because on the back of your constant purchases and your constant chasing of motivation someone is profiting someone is winning question is who. [Music] here's something you might not know the self-help industry is estimated to be worth thirteen point six billion dollars by 2022 with five point six percent average yearly gains. To put it lightly people are making Bank off of self-development. The selling of books seminars online programs podcasts blogs coaching live speaking events are some of the main mediums used so why does this matter. I remember being obsessed with certain gurus when I started getting into this. I happily would take out my wallet and spend money on their books their products and continue consuming their content with a smile on my face and that all-too-familiar feeling of artificial motivation. The thing is I never questioned their motives. I saw the self-development world as a secret community that I was a part of a community of other individuals looking to better themselves sure these gurus were making money but they were

providing so much value in return. They were trying to make my life better, right? Pause. This type of naive thinking becomes problematic when you're dealing with an industry that is worth billions. You are more profitable to the self-help industry unhappy and discontent than you are happy and fulfilled. Remember when we talked about how you have to come from a place of being dissatisfied with yourself in order to want to improve your life? Well, the business of self-help knows that. In fact, they rely on that feeling of inadequacy to pull you in. Oh, and they're very aware of how addicting self-help can be. A combination of you feeling inadequate and you getting a small high every time you consume self-help content turns you into an avid consumer of their products. And make no mistake, many of these gurus will continue to make product after which their own self-help addicted core fan base. They are urging them to produce more and more products. And then you fall into the trap of looking for the next big thing, a trap that further adds to

your consuming instincts. You think to yourself that you just need one more thing before you find the secret before everything changes. Then big secrets, losing weight, the next best business model to land yourself in the world of financial freedom, the new hidden secret to unlocking your charismatic self, the one meditation trick that will unlock your third eye, and so on and so on and so on. And as you continue consuming, thinking to yourself, this time things are gonna be different, your wallet continues to dry up, and you never truly find yourself progressing or improving yourself. No, all you've done is made yourself a consumer of the self-help industry. So here's your next warning: the self-help industry is a huge business, and it is relying on you not being content for you to continue consuming the goods and services that it produces. Be careful, question your favorite gurus, question the real value of the books and the courses and the seminars that you attend. Ask yourself, do I really need to be told to write down my goal seven different times in seven

different books from seven different gurus. Ask yourself, have I consumed more from this industry than I have actually put into action? I felt amazing after that first year of discovering self-help. The amount of confidence that I had in myself skyrocketed. I was happier than I had ever been. I wasn't looking back anymore. The old lonely, wanting to be liked by everyone else, a version of me that was gone, the unhappy me that wasn't there anymore. I wish someone knew, I felt like someone knew. I didn't ever want to go back to feeling like I did before. I'm going to be successful is what I told everybody, and at that time, success for me was becoming one of the world's best actors. But of course, this is never how reality plays out. It sounds really silly, but at the time, I truly felt like I was going to be happy forever, or at least in this constant state of motivation. Self-development is its own bubble. You're surrounded with positive messages, everyone's telling everyone, You're all gonna be successful. Oil gurus are making

posts about being happy and blocking out those negative thoughts, but just like any bubble, there's always a burst, and my burst came when I started losing my passion for acting. [Music] In that moment, it seemed like my whole world was turning upside down. Since I was a kid, I told everyone that this was my dream, this was my passion, that I was never gonna quit being an actor because that's what self-help taught me to do: never quit. I had made myself out to be this person who was destined to be successful, someone who had all ish together, and now, as my passion began to falter, I was left with this deep sense of dread and doubt, and I never said a word to anyone, not for a long time. I tried to convince myself that I wasn't losing my passion, that I had everything in check as I always had, that nothing had changed. Why, you might ask? Because in this bubble of self-development surrounded by positive messages, I was made to believe that negative thoughts about quitting were wrong, and even worse, I felt like if I

accepted those feelings of unhappiness with what I was doing. I would go back to being the old version of me, the version of me before self-help. It took me a whole year of inner self-talk and obey until I finally realized I had to come to terms with quitting, and I had to accept the truth that the world of self-development was trying to hide from me. There will always be struggle, and that's okay. It's okay to not be okay amidst this sea of people spouting the same positive, optimistic, good vibes messages. I realized that the actual meaningful things are created through struggle. [Music] Rich people don't sleep eight hours a day. That's a third of your life. If you want this, it's work. Work like hell. I mean, you just have to put in, you know, 80 hours. And you don't hurt our weeks every week 'cause that got to hustle muscle. And he's like what I said, I got to hustle muscle. Work hard, work, working hard, hard work, work harder, and work hard.

hard work, hard work. [Music] In this new world of Instagram entrepreneurs, fake gurus, and humble bragging, a whole new culture has been formed, and it runs deep in much of the self-help world. The term hustle has become a buzzword, and even I'm guilty of using it. This idea of grinding, working harder than everyone else, being productive every second of the day, is a principle that has become well-tore in the self-help community. Now let me be clear. I'm not saying that working hard is a bad thing. If you're trying to be successful with anything in a relatively crowded market, you are going to have to work hard at the right thing. The problem with hustle culture is that it's about working hard for the sake of working hard. It's become this romanticized concept. It's about sounding like you're busy and working towards success, even though you're not achieving anything. It feels good to pretend that you're hustling, but I can guarantee you that the people who are bragging about

working hard and hustling online are actually doing a whole lot of procrastination and action faking. And then there are those that are actually working every single hour of the day trying to make something work for themselves because that's what hustle culture taught them is the right thing to do. But that is also problematic. Working hard is one piece of the puzzle. Working hard at the right thing is the final piece of that puzzle. [Music] There are two immediate problems with working hard 24/7. I have found. The first is being at risk of burnout, a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive prolonged stress. The second is working hard at the wrong thing. You could have a fitness blog and be working on that 24/7, updating it with new posts and new posts, but the chances of you actually getting somewhere are very slim. There are thousands of fitness blogs out there. It would be really difficult for you to find your own unique selling point. That blog isn't solving any real problems. And if you had

just taken the time out of your hustling to reflect on your strategy, you would have noticed that sooner. But instead, you continue to work hard, thinking that that is all you need to be successful. Once more, the darker sides of the self-help industry revolve around casting a shadow over your eyes, making you feel as though you've accomplished something when you actually haven't, keeping you hooked to the next product and the next product, or in the case of hustling, keeping you attached to the idea that advice like working hard encompasses everything it takes to be successful. It doesn't. It's a facade, and the darker sides of the self-help industry rely on you believing in the illusion to stay profitable. I realized that this video has probably left some of you feeling a little confused about what you should do and what advice you should listen to. I obviously don't have all the answers, but I can say that the things that have genuinely helped me out in my life so far are going to the gym, eating healthier, going to bed earlier, and

waking up earlier, writing my goals down for the week, the month, or the year, but with an understanding that these things may or may not change over time. Meditating and reading books that are actually practical and helped me out with whatever situation I am facing. Hands down, two of the greatest books I've ever read are The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and Unscripted by MJ DeMarco. With both of those books, I never felt like they were trying to get me hooked to a product, or that they were just trying to give me a sense of artificial motivation. But with all that being said, let this video be a warning for the traps that might lie in wait if you do decide to get into the self-help industry. And if you do decide to make that decision and go through that journey, just make sure not to fall into the same traps that I did. So thank you for watching, but stop, do not click off the video just yet. I know you're sick and tired of YouTube people giving you

the monologue of like the video comment down below share it with your friends subscribe and whilst I recommend you do those things. I do want to take the time to say thank you dearly for watching till the end of this video. I put a huge amount of effort into creating these videos and I love doing it. So if you enjoy these sort of documentary-style videos on business finance and life in general, do feel free to check out my other content. I really think you will. It do you feel free to check out some of my other content. I really think you'll enjoy it. It is still early days for this channel, but I've got a lot of exciting stuff planned, so do stay tuned for that. And if you've got any advice, suggestions, or anything in between, feel free to comment below. I tried to respond to it all. And with all that being said, I really hope you have a wonderful rest of the day altogether now hands ahead salut [Music] you [Music]

The Toxic World of Self Help: Hustle Culture, Toxic Positivity, Addiction, and Fake Gurus.

Scripts