What is important to you? And how much would you pay for it?
From numerous discussions that I had with MBA and economists, the central concept of what they do is to compare the opportunity costs between taking action A vs. B. In other words, what are the relative and comparable values between two actions, items, etc.?
This got me thinking about this whole self-improvement and what these self-hype gurus are trying to promote. What service are they providing? Is the service worthwhile? If you were not spending your money in this, where would you spend your money? And this reminds me of a documentary of male prostitutes / entertainment workers in Japan, "The Great Happiness Space," which I have posted here before.
In many ways, these seduction gurus are not very far from being male prostitutes. They are like surrogates for sex for many sex-starved/deprived men. For many guys, I can sort of see how desperate they are for companionship and of physical nature, sexual contacts. Rather than pursuing the stigmatized action of going for prostitutes, they go learn how to get girls, or pickup. Of course, that doesn't sound very pleasant, they call this action something pleasant, like self-improvement, and we all know how important that we must improve ourselves, because after all, we always are students and we can always improve!
So in come these guys, they will teach guys how to get laid, why sell you fish when they can teach you how to fish?! I.e. why would they hand you girls like a pimp would, something we all frown on, when they can teach you to be better men so that you can get girls. When you examine this phenomenon further, at the very basic biological and physical levels, we need women for sexual gratifications. So these guys, in effect, are providing a sexual service to other guys. Instead of pimping out girls to guys, they are selling themselves to other guys, which means these "dating coaches" are really surrogates for prostitutes! which makes them, in effect, male prostitutes.
Jokes aside, do these guys really provide any added-value? Like a chef would when s/he cook what farmers and butchers provide? If you were to pay for prostitutes, do you get more than just sex? Do these guys truly teach you how to be better men, rather than just getting girls?! They would like to convince us that they are... If that's the case, I'm all about applying what I talk about to myself. By that, I mean why don't psychics apply their abilities to improving their conditions? If they are truly such high value men, you know, billionaire guys like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, why do they have to stoop so low to provide such service to other guys?
My proposal is that these self-hype gurus don't really provide any value. This is the best that they can do (applying the Peter Principle here) and if they were not doing this, they would be out whoring themselves in other ways. So before you think about spending money on these guys, ask yourself, if you are in this for girls, perhaps you should just pay girls for their services... rather than through intermediaries such as these self-hype gurus; unless, of course, that you really want guys!
7 comments:
Don't remember where I read this, but its like in a sense, you're trying to pay for self-fulfillment, as if that is a commodity that can be exchanged for a sum of money as easily as we can acquire a new CD by going to the shop and buying it.
I think it's the same whether you're paying for a guru/dating coaches services, or going to the bookstore to buy a book on how to get rich with real estate. On the surface, you're buying information (maybe not in a lot of cases). Underneath it, you can get sucked into thinking that just buying the book is a step towards making your life better. Maybe it is, but often it isn't. At the absolute best, it's only a very tiny tiny first step.
The fact is, anyone can say they're a coach on anything over the Internet and sucker at least a few people into paying money for them. I don't think it's something confined to just dating coaches.
I think it's just a reflection of our culture - we're a culture that believes that anything can be bought for a price. If something's too hard to make, buy it. If something's too hard to do, pay someone else to do it. So logically, why can't we just pay someone to make us happy if we don't want to do the work ourselves? Therein is the mistake.
I disagree.
I'm well aware of what I call the self-help addiction in which you use another person (a self-help "guru") to feel better without taking the necessary actions to develop yourself. And it is an addiction because you "need" more and more advices because you are "broken".
But I also believe that if you truly want to be better and you are willing to do the necessary effort then a good mentor could shorten your path.
PS: I'm following your blog for a while and your point of view is interesting, but I'm afraid you are rejecting the whole self-help thing for the sake of it. I think that reality is a bit more complex...
My view point is more nuanced than what I expressed on here.
I am of the opinion that I'm not perfect and I can always improve myself. What I choose to improve starts from within myself rather than what outside marketing tells me that I'm lacking.
However, I do seek out materials from many diverse fields and synthesize something that works for me.
The problem I suffered from before and I also see in others is that I was led to believe that I am missing this and that, I'm not good enough because of something else, I need to subscribe, I need to take workshop... Those marketing gimmicks are all about telling you what you will get out if them, and very little if any useful materials.
I see, I never thought about this. You're saying that some "gurus" out there are selling products that you don't need, by telling you that you need to "fix" yourself.
I'm thinking about keyboard jockeys and inner-game junkies, that never stops to read and worse never go out because they need to work on themselves first...
Somewhere I've read an interview to Neil Strauss, in which he says that you can work on your-inner game, but only after that you have discovered your sticking-points in the field. Otherwise you are doing nothing useful.
You hit the nail right on the head in terms of most guys, I would say 85-90% of guys in this just to be part of something. They have so many deeper unresolved issues that they are paralyzed, hence, they have approach anxiety, and they have to work on their inner game,...
All of those are just manifestations of them (1) not being comfortable inside their own skin and (2) they want something (be that sex with girls or money from guys).
Rather than accepting what Neil Strauss says as truths. Find out what you want out of your life, find out how others have achieved those goals, try out different ways of working toward your goals, evaluate yourself honestly and change your goals or your paths accordingly.
I can't articulate exactly what my problem is, but I feel like I need some advice (otherwise I'll be a ladies man, which I'm not). But I just can't decide who to listen, I'm downright confused by marketing and it's all rendered worse by my mental inflexibility and my tendency to over-think everything.
I still feel some moments when I'm totally free, I'm focused outside and don't think too much about what's going on. However normally I'm stressed because I feel the need for a "framework" to plan what to do but I can't decide what framework to use.
Perhaps the problem is that I need knowledge before acting, but at least in socializing you can gain the true knowledge only by acting.
Maybe the solution is to say "fuck this shit!" and just push my comfort zone for some time to gain some experience instead of living in a fantasy world governed by conflicting rules and laws...
PS: I think that this article is worth reading:
http://www.thundercatseductionlair.com/2008/08/22/the-forbidden-truth-by-brad-p/
(I'm not BradP or a BradP's fan)
Email me if you want more specific suggestions.
I really like BradP's materials, start talking with people in general and then slowly apply BradP's techniques.
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