The self-improvement industry is full of contradiction. Perhaps the most obvious, is that most of the people who buy self-improvement products don’t seem to improve.

This leads to the perception by most effective and intelligent people that something is off. The industry must be either a cult or a scam.

My close friend Bjoern Herrmann perceives one of the leading self-improvement “gurus”, Tony Robbins, as such:

Tony Robbins implicates a short cut to personal success and happiness. I’d compare him to a pill of ecstasy – he makes a certain type of people temporarily feel better. This delays them from practicing continuous introspection and prevents them from maturing as healthy human beings. Instead they are being misled by false excitement. Go on his website and read these titles “The path to permanent weight loss’ or the ‘the money masters’ … the absolute wording in his messaging sounds to me like a scam to exploit people who lost their internal compass. Those people need thoughtful and ongoing support of their family and friends.  If I think about it there is not much difference between Tony Robbins business and a secte or a radical political movement. In fact many abusive and criminal sects/political movements started off as self help movements.

There is no doubt that the self help industry attracts people who are looking for a quick fix. Most of the people attracted to the movement are undoubtedly struggling and a bit broken. It does appear that most fail to make significant changes in their life because they have trouble following through and are unable to establish a work ethic of continual practice after the emotional high of the weekend or program wears off. (This problem is much wider spread than the self-improvement industry. People everywhere get excited by peak experiences and performances but fail to find sufficient motivation to endure the daily grind of building anything worthwhile. Many kids like playing sports, but few get up before school to practice everyday. Conferences generate many business ideas and partnerships, but few follow through and implement them.)

However, it is important to note that struggling souls looking for answers in a self-help guru may not be living admirably, the intention of buying a self-improvement product is more admirable than simply doing nothing and wallowing in self-despair. At least these people are trying to improve their situation. The majority of people with problems have resigned from trying to fix them.

Because the quality of the audience of the self-improvement industry is low, the quality of the content unjustifiably gets a bad rap. I’ve looked at enough of the industries’ material to know that there are many high quality products and techniques, do have the potential to create lasting change in people’s lives, if practiced regularly. I can say this from personal experience, having adopted many habits and techniques into my own life. But it does require a discerning eye though to separate the wheat from the chaff. For business reasons, I will discuss below, a lot of the gold is surrounded by crap as a result of a corrupting allure of profits.

I must agree with Bjoern that many info-marketers do have scammy marketing tactics. It is sad that many have adopted these tactics, especially when many of them have important ideas to share. I know this industry is particularly fond of the A/B test, so the messaging must have evolved this way because it is more effective and drives more sales. Even so, the moral judgment on scammy marketing tactics, isn’t so cut and dry. If the product is really good, how different is a scammy marketing tactic from a parent trying to get a child to eat their vegetables by singing “hear comes the choo choo train” and shoveling a spoonful of peas into their child’s previously clenched mouth.

On the other hand it is quite deplorable if it’s not just the marketing tactics that change, but the core content also morphs to pander to the quick fix mentality of the desperate consumer, as it has with the best selling book The Secret, which teaches people that the secret to life is positive imagery. All you need to do is want something bad enough, and if you just focus your intentions strongly enough on what you want, you will get it. (Watching Dave Chappele’s satirical take on The Secret is a must). Positive thinking is a necessary but not sufficient condition for goal achievement. But it sure would be convenient if that was all that was needed!

If it’s true that scammy marketing tactics get broken individuals in the market majority to open up their hearts, minds and wallets, then that means there is a serious void for the people who are really making waves in the world, who are scared away by these marketing tactics. Because I do think there is real value in many of the top-tier self-improvement products, that could help many effective people reach a greater percentage of their potential.

This is the paradox of the self-improvement industry. It starts out with well intentioned high quality content but because greater profits are found with the mindless majority, it inevitably evolves to cater to them, shunning the world’s more effective, independent thinkers, who are the ones who actually have the inter-personal foundation to apply these techniques to radically improve themselves. But the marketing causes the healthy to turn a blind eye, and the sick to buy a remedy they cannot absorb.