Death of the Self Help Seminar
What a waste of bloody money that was!
It’s hard to put an actual figure on it (actually, all I’d have to do is check my bank account online, but I have the fear of God in me and an utter reluctance to confirm) but I’m thinking the whole little adventure cost me around four thousand of your lovely American Dollars.
Now, I’ve become less of a tight-arse in recent months, and so I can look at four hundred thousand American pennies and say, “no, that’s not a huge amount of money. It is perfectly reasonable for me to invest this amount in improving myself. I am lovely and marvelous and I deserve such treatment.
Yet four grand is what I’ve just splashed out on a whirlwind trip to Vegas for two, to attend a self-help seminar from one of the industry’s current leading thinkers.
(Note – this admittedly includes accommodation, food and several other totally-justified business expenses like playing slot machines and buying my girlfriend lots of just-about-there underwear from Victoria’s Secret. I’m working on the utterly feasible premise that I only brought this stuff as I was in Vegas, and I was only really in Vegas for the seminar, so therefore this can all come under one rather expensive self-help umbrella).
Anyway, for the sake of preventing any ill-will, I shan’t name the person who hosted this seminar, but rest assured that if you’re into your personal development you’ll more than likely know this guy.
I’m actually a little fond of him. His website helped me to build up the self-confidence to realize what I wanted to do with my life, and inspired me to quit my job too and set up my own website at Personal Development Planet.
Despite his recent somewhat strange posts of late I still had crazy love for this chap, and as such decided to fly to the other side of the world to share in his man-love. I was genuinely excited and intrigued to see what I could take away from three days in his company…
…And the answer to that turned out to be, not much.
And that’s not just me either. Out of around 100 attendees, I’d be surprised if even one of them experienced a significant and lasting change breakthrough over the course of three days.
Sure, there was loads of sharing and love and hugs and hyped-up talk of change, but very little in the way of change itself.
The three days ultimately seemed to be a convention for people who were saying “yes, I’d really LOVE to live like that… but unfortunately I have these special circumstances which means I can’t actually do it.
However, I’ve had a great three days where I’ve shared my fears with 100 other people too scared to take the plunge and thus I feel much better about myself because I’m not the only one who is a big scared wuss and who will just go back to life as usual.
This got me thinking, what exactly is the role of the self-help seminar in today’s connected world? What are they supposed to achieve? Is this possible or even feasible? Can people really change over the course of a few days?
Or, do we just accept that they can’t possibly work as advertised, and declare the death of the self-help seminar?
Self Help Seminars 101 – What Are They Supposed To Do?
Since my return and subsequent cost analysis (somewhere along the lines of “shit – what a waste of money that was”), I’ve been storming within my brain to try and work out what self-help seminars are actually supposed to achieve.
So, after (several) minutes of concentrated thinking, here are my conclusions. At its simplest level, I reckon a good seminar should at least give you breakthroughs in the following four areas:
1) New information. Er… yeah, call me a renegade but I reckon you should learn something(s) new.
2) Inspiration. The seminar should inspire you to do more than you’re doing now, and help you break down fears etc.
3) Support network. The people you meet at these things are often more useful than the information you get. As such, there should be ample opportunity for networking with new people and becoming buddies and sharing the love, etc.
4) Change. Er, you should actually experience some lasting change, a breakthrough, an “ah-ha” moment, a moment of clarity… or, ideally, you should “see the light” and make contact with God or at least a Deity of some kind. But, at the very least, you should make SOME changes. Otherwise it’s all talk and that’s just a bit crap.
At it’s most basic level, is there anything else a self-help seminar should achieve other than providing you with new information, giving you the inspiration to make changes, linking you with a network of similarly-minded people, and then helping you to make actual (and hopefully lasting) change?
I reckon not. In any case, even if there was more, the successful fulfillment of these four promises should be enough to keep even the hardest self-growth skeptic happy with their investment.
So… if all they have to do is fulfil four criterion, where are personal development gurus going wrong? Well, my Deloitte-style analysis based on the stonking three self-help seminars I have attended in my life is: typically, the problem tends to be with the “change” part of the equation.
In fact, the ones I’ve attended have all been awesome on the other three sides of my newly-patented “parallelogram for self-help seminar success” (has anyone ever pioneered a world famous parallelogram-based theory before?) – they have been brilliant for providing me with new info, getting me motivated and introducing me to new peeps – yet have been universally crap at actually helping me change long-term. Motivation wears off when you leave the seminar. Change does not.
So – what’s going wrong?
Why Change Is Hard To Do At Self Help Seminars
It’s probably worth noting at this point that I’ve done a fair bit of NLP training, and these courses have been genuinely awesome at helping people to change in some rather marvelous and profound ways. I’ve seen long-term sufferers of anxiety become confident for the first time in years, phobias melt on the spot, and witnessed lots of alpha-male-types positively melting when they play with their values and belief systems.
I’ve never seen similar results at more general self-help seminars. Why is this? Is NLP just super-powerful or is there something else going on? Why is lasting change so hard to find? How many rhetorical questions can one man ask in an article?
Here’s some ideas I’ve come up with:
1) Our self help guru has to keep lots of people happy and entertained.
This means that he has to be on stage, front-and-center, and must be seen to be “in charge” of the whole event. In my Vegas example, this meant approximately 50 minutes of guru-love for every ten minute of partner work. Yep, that’s 50 minutes of sitting in silence listening to another man speak, and five minutes per person to “explore yourself”, ask questions, come up with solutions, and make changes. No wonder changes were so few and far between.
2) Our self help guru has an ego too.
As an extension of the first point, I unfortunately found out that our guru will often have a rather large ego too, which means lots of plugging their recent book, lots of talking in a “high and mighty” tone, and lots of just generally enjoying being on stage in front of 100 fans. As mentioned above, 50 minutes of self-love per hour may be good for the ego, but it’s not great for changing the people paying to hear the ego speak.
3) Logic alone doesn’t cause change.
Finally, I’ve found that these kind of overhyped motivational events tend to work on the presumption that with enough logic and social proof people will just magically change. Drag a guy on stage, have 100 people encourage him to follow his dreams, have the guru tell him he’s special, prove to him that he has the resources to change… and he’ll change, right? Wrong!
He’ll feel motivated on stage, then he’ll feel a bit pathetic afterward, when he realizes that 100 people know he’s a big loser because he won’t take the plunge and live his dream life. Knowing that you can do something and having other people believe in you may help you feel super-fuzzy on the inside, but won’t necessarily help you to change.
Resistance to change is one the biggest problems we have, yet is woefully under-referenced at the seminars I’ve been to.
Dear oh dear. It’s all a bit doom and gloom, isn’t it? Is it really the death of the self help seminar?
Hope For The Future
I’m going to end this article with a glimmer of hope (I’d like to say it’s because I’m a natural optimist, but really I’d like to become filthy rich in the future from running the most awesome, high-change seminars you could ever imagine).
As such, my crystal-ball prediction: I reckon that self-development seminars will be around for a long time yet.
Why? Well, not all people who want to make changes are as educated and well organized as you, and they may have challenges reading even brilliant blogs like mine or Tim’s .I’ve even heard rumors about people who don’t like reading self-development books (gasp!) By the way, did you know you can gets Tims brilliant 5 * rated book Don’t Ask Stupid Questions for free, just by clicking here?
There may be some strange people amongst you who prefer to learn in person with other people. And there are some people who are just mugs and will spend money on any old crap, like me!
Whichever way you look at it, people will be paying gurus lots of money to make changes (they are unlikely to ever make) for some time yet.
So… how can we make seminars better? (And by better, I mean better for the poor fuckers who spend the money and travel round the world, not better for the guru who seems more concerned with how he is perceived than the actual content of his seminar.)
Well, here’s a couple of ideas. In the spirit of democracy, I’d love to hear what you reckon in the comments below too.
1) Er… make change the core focus of the seminar.
Wow – groundbreaking stuff – but if the guru wanted to, he/she could feasibly combine enough powerful techniques to make change for the attendees a near-inevitability. I know enough NLP that can help most people to overcome some pretty serious mental blocks in a couple of days.
I reckon Tim has a whole host of super-powered stuff he could whip out too, and most of it doesn’t require a cauldron or any dark magic and Satan-love whatsoever. So, simply, the next time the guru sits down to plan a seminar, he should decide what results he wants his flock to get, and then plan a program around that. Simple, no?
2) Teach attendees strategies for maintaining the changes.
This is kind of like a post-traumatic-change course – along the lines of “change can be really scary and hard to keep up, so let’s practice some stuff to keep you on the right path” – and then teach attendees things like visualizations, mastermind groups, support networks on blogs and forums etc.
At the minute, I get the impression that some gurus couldn’t give a shit about what happens to their students once the seminar has shut its doors, and they probably realize that most people will revert to type once they get back home. The guru needs to help mitigate for his students’ weaknesses and make lasting results his number one focus.
3) Make the seminars have a 100% focus on the student. As a bit of a recurring theme here, I don’t think paying $4000 to hear a guy speak (at excruciating length) to one volunteer for 45 minutes, and then having 5 minutes to talk about my own challenges, is a good ratio.. I want to know when I sit down at the start of the three days that the whole seminar has been specifically designed to help ME to get the most out of it – and not just the guys who get picked to come up on stage.
So, is it really death of the self-help seminar? Well, whilst from my experience the industry seems to be on its last legs in terms of content, people will be paying money to attend these things for years and years to come. As such, it’s our job to demand more and make sure they improve. I’ve had enough of paying to hear a dude rabbit on about how wonderful his particular technique is. I want change and I want it now!
This leaves me to end with two questions:
1) What do you want from a self-help seminar?
Have I struck a nerve or do you love them just the way they are? What can we do to encourage gurus to put on workshops that are for our benefit? What would you need to see / get to make your attendance worthwhile?
2) Why on earth isn’t Tim doing them?
Surely, a guy who can help change even the most single-minded of people (er, yeah, I’ve done some coaching with him) could come up with some ideas to help a group of people change in one big happy go? What do you reckon – would you attend a Tim-run workshop? I would… just not for $4000. Anything under that and you’ve got your first attendee, mate.
Bio: Carl Harvey quit his job to run Personal Development Planet, before Tim made him realize that it’s a bit shit (Tims note: Don’t think that’s quite what I said!), so he is now focusing on making his uniquely irreverent and foul-mouthed rants shine through. No more Mister Friendly Motivator. Check it out as it’s not half bad and it’s going to be bloody brilliant soon and there’s not that much swearing yet if you’re easily offended, and if you are, what the hell are you doing here?
@Carl
I’m sorry to hear that your result from the workshop wasn’t what you hoped it would be. I was also a participant and my experience was, shall we say, *radically* different.
I’m kind of late to the party and I only have a few minutes to comment right now, but I’d like to mention a couple of points.
– I can think of at least six people at the workshop whom I met personally, and have stayed in touch with, who made highly significant changes in their lives within a few weeks following the seminar (we’re talking ‘leave job / spouse’-scale of life changes). For more than 5% of the group to make such radical changes so quickly doesn’t seem to be a bad success rate.
– A substantial part of the value of the workshop for me personally was the creation of a network of people with common values and interests who became friends, got to know each other during our time in Vegas, and stayed in touch. The majority of this social activity did not occur during the short minutes of pair work during the workshop itself, but during informal times like lunch, dinner, going out on the town, and so forth.
– As Bud pointed out, many people have remained in touch via facebook, formed mastermind groups, and otherwise created support networks to extend the short term “motivational vibe” into long term life changes.
– At the end of the workshop, general feedback seemed to be that the one-on-ones went a bit longer than strictly necessary to be valuable for the group as a whole. Your criticism of that was on target and aligned with the general consensus.
I knew it’d be Steve Pavlina. Awesome site but he’s not done much in the way of seminars. The one you went too is his second.
@ David – ROTFLMA – I’m being superficial?? Is that right?
Every post I do is under my own name, every comment I make on other peoples blogs is under my name and can be linked back to here.
You otoh are gutless, clueless and pointless.
Tim, you are being superficial
All facade and no content
You are even censoring content. You give dismissive replies then offer no chance for others to answer you fully. When it comes to information, all that matters is the info. So what is scaring you?
CRAP LINK REMOVED
@ David – Or should I say Lance? Let’s hope people are a damn site more sophisticated than you
If you’re going to comment under multiple names at least change your e-mail address you muppet! I can still see the IP but it wouldn’t flag my attention so obviously.
Curious to know why you don’t just post under your real name. I have 3 of them here, which one is it big fella?
@ Carl – Moi? ;-)
@ Sami – You make some really interesting and valuable points.
Briefly – yes, pers dev is SO broad that to try to cover everything / lots in 3 days is a bit mad.
Also, whilst I do know a fair bit from 3 years of studying self growth, I WAS promised new ways to explore my spirituality, etc, which were lacking, which is why I got the hump; however, I would agree that people with less knowledge of this area would have got more out of it, so I can see your point. Perhaps these seminars are great for newbies only??
A narrow focus would be best, I agree. Spending 10 mins on EVERY area of your life is a bit of a pointless exercise, IMO.
@ Tony – Brownson went and posted this article in SP’s forum too, so I think the cat would have leapt out of the bag at some point anyway ;-)
Errr…now I feel really bad about mentioning he-who-shall-not-be-named’s name! :(
Well, the self help seminar format is in its demise because people are a bit more educated than before. They are more sophisticated are are able to understand the sort of twaddle that goes on in such formats.
For example, the main new age pseudosciences are being used as examples at universities to help people understand the difference:
Link removed because the person wasn’t even honest enough to post under their real name. I wonder why?
Self-help in three days… That sounds like a shotgun approach to me, or am I the only one who thinks that self-help, self improvement, personal development, or whatever the heck you call it is actually a rather wide concept that draws from psychology, biology, philosophy, business, and a lot more.
Seriously, there is so much ground to cover, and Carl, it seems like you know a lot already about the topic so that means it’s even more difficult to satisfy your own personal needs, or what you wanted to get out of it. Or was the seminar meant to address some specific issues of which you didn’t have much prior knowledge, but failed to deliver that?
I can’t help but think that it pays off much more to have self-help seminars with a very narrow focus, such as developing personality, success in business, healthy living, psychotherapy, NLP etc.
Some dating gurus and pickup artists have had this approach for a while now. If you check for example David DeAngelo’s stuff you’ll see that it’s all about self-help and developing yourself, but the focus and the context is dating and relationships.
//sami
Hijack away Harvey!
Thanks a lot for a sensible and mature debate guys and you both make some excellent points. I don’t really want to dive in on the specifics simply because you two were there and I wasn’t.
I have been toying with writing a rebuttal as I said before because I can see both sides.
My guess would be the women that left her husband was already committed to doing that an an unconscious level and the workshop just cemented that.
I think people do change, but I think the reasons are unclear. I definitely think social proof plays a very large part, but of course a total idiot wouldn’t be able to generate any social proof with his audience.
The majority of the attendees would have been ‘sold’ on the idea prior to the start and that makes change more likely. If you’d picked 100 random people off the street, you would have seen a different story unfold.
An other thing to remember is people desperately want this to work and as such that dramatically increases the likelihood that it will because their belief system is set up that way.
They will be looking for evidence to back up their belief that they were wise to invest $500, not looking for something that tells them they just got conned. It’s somewhat unusual for somebody to go in really wanting it to work and then being hugely disappointed.
I really don’t have the answers to this. I think if people benefited then it was worth their money, if they didn’t, then it wasn’t.
And one more reason it wont have worked for everybody, is because the whole premise of the book it was based on is imho, nothing short of ludicrous.
After working one on one with hundreds of clients there is no doubt in my mind that we all have wildly different values and to suggest there are 3 main ones flies in the face of anything I have ever experienced.
As I never tire of saying, nobody can say ‘this is how it is’ they can only say how it is for them.
@ Bob – You make a good point. Whilst I obviously didn’t expect he-who-shall-remain-nameless to sprinkle “magic pixie dust” on me, I’m a massive consumer of pers dev literature & programs, and as such expected to be at a sort of level where really high level breakthroughs could be achieved over the course of 3 days.
I hope you don’t get the impression I blindly turned up expecting someone else to “fix” me, or something like that. I just thought that these “diving deeply” exercises, would actually cause me to… well, dive deep. These turned out to be very superficial (please see below).
As an aside, I’ve heard good things about your book, and dl a free copy yesterday. Very kind of you, and I read the 1st third and it’s very good. Thanks!
@ Maureen – Go on Maureen! That’s the good news I was looking for!
@ Bud – Wow, this may take a while ;-) Cheers for the debate mate!!
1) If you take a look at the bolded “note” 5 paragraphs in, it details what the $4k investment covered. I thought this was crystal clear, but obviously the 1st few commenters missed this, so I revised and made my costs clearer. Didn’t mean to confuse – and if I did, sorry (as you’ll see from my immediate feedback) Anyway, the cost of it is minor really in comparison to my time / effort – i.e. a week away.
2) Erm… The title of the unnamed workshop was “Achieve New Personal Breakthroughs
in This Transformational 3-Day Workshop”. This is pretty descriptive, as for me Breakthrough and Change are pretty… well, interchangeable.
Also, from the sales page: “This workshop is designed to give you many mental and emotional shifts — those wonderful “a-ha” moments — right there during our 3 days together.”
Also from the sales page – “you should be leaving on Sunday feeling that you’ve already experienced significant mental and emotional shifts”
Now, as I said, I am / was a big fan, so I kinda ate this sales blurb up. I figured that he had pioneered some really cool exercises to try out, which leads me to…
3) Did I honestly think I would have one on one time with him? … Well Bud, not necessarily with him, but CERTAINLY with other members of the group!
And certainly for long enough that we could discuss, debate, implement, try, fail, and have a proper go the exercises. 5 minutes per person to talk to a stranger about my entire life in relation to work, money, health, etc, is WOEFULLY inadequate. After small talk and starting the exercise, your time is up. Unbelievably poor planning.
Another quote from the pitch: “You won’t be subjected to 3 days of solid lecture”…
Er… that wasn’t really true. The format – in my eyes – was repetitive, uninspiring, and a regurgitation of he-who-shall-remain-nameless’ book. With 5 minutes per hour of meaningful “breakthrough” work, and 40-45 minutes of guru / volunteer monotony.
Scribbling notes like a university lecture while the guru goes on, i.e., about the love in my health situation (???) and various other hard-to-digest topics – lots of people I could see were struggling to understand what they actually had to do – which is not cool.
4) No, fair point here Bud, you got the right guy! I was hit by a food poisoning bug (typical!!), so I did a third of the first day only.
The thing was, Nina (my lady) briefed me on everything that was covered later that day, but a lot of this seemed pretty basic to me – for example, I know all my planet A and B stuff as I have big, clear goals and know where I stand in relation to them (Thanks Tim!)
So, you kinda have a point but I did catch up (as far as I could). Maybe that would affect how I viewed doing the same exercise again and again for the next two days straight.
Conversely, Nina had a great time – I’ll ask her to post her thoughts here – however she’s quite new to all this stuff so perhaps the content seemed more original?? We’ll see. All I know is that it was worth it for me for the Vicky’s Secrets stuff anyway…!
5) Bud, I’ve stayed in touch with quite a few people, none of whom have made (or are planning to) make significant changes, which is really saddening. Sure, there’s some optimism, but no sudden “ah ha” moments.
I’d love to see who has actually quit their job, because the usual suspects (i.e. people who went on stage) I all spoke to after, and no one seemed like they were going to do anything, hence my frustration.
I REALLY GENUINELY hope they do, because that’s my point – if people could be inspired to ACTUALLY change, seminars could have a great future. One of the goals of my site is to inspire people to do what they want to do – my life is awesome since I did it myself.
(Ps – Please send me a private note and let me know who the people who made the big changes are. Sweet.)
Hope this response works for you man. Same thing to you tone-wise.
Glad you had a good time, but for me, it was not a good investment – other than to affirm that I’m on the right path now.
Perhaps another variable to consider is how much pers dev stuff you have learned / practiced / implemented, because looking back at it now maybe it’s the younger / newer converts who really got the most out of it.
Cheers dude – sorry for hijacking your blog Brownson.
One last thing:
I do agree with Carl on this major point. When you go to a conference and are surrounded by a bunch of amazing people it’s easy to say you’re going to change. However when you return to your own current reality it can and IS often difficult to sustain what you picked up at the conference.
Being back for almost two weeks now I certainly understand how the hype of the weekend can often make you overly optimistic, but I think the shifts in your mindset are important nonetheless. Obviously you’re not going to be at the amazing state you were at the conference but it at least gives you a shot to turn your life around.
I’ve done my best to remain in contact with those who helped me achieve clarity while at the conference and it seems to be as if it has worked so far. I can definitely see myself staying in contact with a handful of those of whom I met.
Again, the conference was far from perfect, but overall I’d have to say I was very pleased with how it turned out.
Another thing..
“And that’s not just me either. Out of around 100 attendees, I’d be surprised if even one of them experienced a significant and lasting change breakthrough over the course of three days.”
Curious, Have you talked to anyone else who has attended?
I’d say a good 20 of us have stayed connected through Facebook.. and have even set up mastermind sections.
Several of the attendee’s have actually quit their jobs to pursue something more rewarding. One woman is divorcing her husband whom she felt she had no connection with.
( To clarify, tone is often difficult to pick up on blog’s so I’d like to remind you that I mean nothing but the best when asking these questions.. )
I love Tim as much as the next guy, but even he will surely have some problems when he begins his workshop. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE EVERYBODY.
Hey guys,
Just want to share another perspective here. First off, I’ve been a big fan of (he shall remain nameless)’s work, however I am not one of those who subscribe blindly to his ideas. As mentioned in Carl’s post, ( he shall remain nameless)’s latest stuff is a bit to ‘out there’ for my standards. I’m not here to try to sell you on the seminar, as you really have to be a right fit for that kind of thing but I must say I enjoyed the seminar. ( I will say that it was far from perfect, however that’s to be expected for it only being his second time.
I have a few problems with Carl’s review of the conference.
Note (I’m writing this under the assumption that Carl attended the second workshop with his girlfriend.)
1. You mention the conference cost you 4,000 dollars, but you didn’t even acknowledge that the conference itself costs 500 dollars until later on in the comments. Don’t you think that’s a bit misleading? Is it his fault that you live on the other side of the world? I realize that it does cost to get hotel and stuff but I only ended up paying close to 1,000 dollars (which I found to be a good deal.) I’m curious as to what your girlfriend got out of the conference (if anything) ?
2. You mention that you were ‘promised’ spiritual breakthroughs. Does he really ever promise that?
3. Did you honestly expect for everyone attending to have some one on one time with him? Do you realize how impossible that would be? I do agree that the 45 minute segments weren’t always the greatest use of time but I felt it was worth a trial and error approach.
4. Again this is under the assumption that you attended the second workshop, but I did not see you staying afterwards connecting with people ( It just so happens I grew the most that way.) In fact, I believe you left early the first day early because of sickness am I correct? Leaving early on the first day of a three day conference would obviously have an impact on your overall experience.
Please correct me if I’m wrong. I could be thinking of the wrong person. Yet I’m almost certain I have the right person in mind.
Carl’s article does bring up some very valid points for which I applaud him. Blindly following a ‘guru’ leads no where. Thanks for letting us hear the other side.
The only self help workshop I went for was AWESOME. It had all those things you suggested a useful seminar should have.
They still offer the courses but I’m not sure where. I know they run some in Vancouver: Context Associated. Changed my life.
I used to tell people that there is nothing worse than motivating incompetence and that is why I don’t do motivational speaking.
But, that ticked a lot of people off as they wanted someone to do something for them – change them – rather than doing the hard work of changing themselves.
Yeah, do you know at least 20% of my emails come back with that message!
Surely with this new found insight, I could be on the verge of a massive productivity increase.
Maybe now I’m a productivity guru I’ll pitch Leo @ Zen Habits for a guest post:
Me: Leo, great idea for a post.
Leo: Yes?
Me: How to get 20% of your day back by dropping the use of c***, f***, s*** and balls.
Leo: Erm… Why don’t you try Tim @ A Daring Adventure
Me: F***
@ Carl – Stop being a modest knob for a moment. The ‘sprucing’ was minimal at best and the article could have run as was, I’m just a tad anal. As foir the swearing, well yeh, that was a bit on th eheavy side!
I even got this message:
This email has not been delivered to xxxxxxxx due to the inappropriate nature of the language.
Please check the content before attempting to resend.
I’ve never actually been to a self help seminar so I suppose I wouldn’t not entirely what to expect but I do agree with your points of what it should have and learning something new/exciting would be my first expectation.
@ Susan – Thanks, and yep – I think these will be around for a long time yet. I just think they’re rendered obsolete in their current fashion; people can “get inspired” by reading books, blogs and watching videos online; but what they can’t do on their own is benefit from working with other people on shared goals. My major issue with this seminar was the near-complete lack of time for individual / partner / group work. If there was less of a focus on “inspiring” people, and more on actually helping them individually, all would be right in the world ;-) ps yes I liked your take on change in step 1, particularly the bits on loss / gain (I reckon all compelling goals have a bit of both types of motivation)
@ Tisha – what’s crackin’ girl? Haha – cheers for the love. I like your reframe too – Tim helped me to see it in that way in about 0.5 seconds – he has strange powers like that which make everything a bit obvious… So yeah, I definitely know what NOT to do when I do them… and, for the record, pdplanet got mad love for the ATL
@ Evan – true that my brother
@ LC / Matthew – thanks matey
Thanks for sharing. Very informative.
Go with the resistance (it’s where the energy is).
I can not wait to attend your training. I know it will be focused and straight to the point, no games! I like seminars, but really, you’ve got to give it to me straight. I’ve had enough Rah Rah pep talks! Great article. The great thing about attending is that you learned what you need to do to strategically focus your seminars and produce awesome results! You know we gotz mad love for Personal Development in Atlanta!
@Carl: well since you put it like that MAYBE something can be done, and I think something SHOULD be done – I am with you on that one.
@Tim: yes, I think maybe for Rich and Happy a seminar would work, as you are trying to communicate various ideas there – and those ideas are not always easy to grasp.
Love what you have to say, there’s so much hype associated with these events and any big PD/media Guru for that matter. However, the fact is, people love to be inspired so yes there will always be an attraction/need. Funny, the timing of your piece as I’ve just posted the first step to change on my website (it’s my little ebook – oh and a little plug) and the idea is to generate some conversation so that people first understand exactly what you say: “Resistance to change is one the biggest problems we have.” I invite your view on my perspective about change. Thanks for covering off so much in this post. Seminars have a purpose, but I trust people get the idea that personal coaching really is about staying with someone long enough to manifest the changes/behaviours/attitudes whatever it is, to truly grow & transform.
Cheers from the North.
Susan
@ Ali – yeah, I think I know that you know that I know who we’re talking about ;-) It’s a shame because I had so much man-love for him, and I just found the whole thing massively disappointing. Oh well. It’s not so much the money but the lack of spiritual breakthroughs I was promised…!
@ Dave – yeah mate, it does look that way doesn’t it? Maybe because the NLP courses I’ve done have been 10-15 people, it’s been a lot easier for changes to take place. 100+ people with a dude talking on stage is NOT the way forward…!
@ Timothy, my dear Timothy – thank you for deleting (several) swear words and sprucing it up so it looks like I have a handle on the English language without the need to resort to profanities.
Yeah, everyone enjoyed the course, and I (almost) enjoyed it, but I couldn’t believe that no one actually WANTED to start living life on their terms – everyone was too busy just floating around in a raw food BDSM inspired trance to notice that NOTHING WAS DIFFERENT! (oops – too many hints now)
Anyway, yeah I’ll def come to HTBRAH seminar, but the numbers would have to be lowish I reckon… but I have faith you could make it STONKING… lets brainstorm, I’ll be the groupie microphone runner if you like ;-)
A huge big thank you to the Carlmeister for a really amusing and thought provoking post!
I personally had no idea of whom he was speaking about until some of you here mentioned the poor guys name. OTOH, maybe it isn’t him at all?
@ Ali – What is this a Gilkey love-in?? I’ve already linked to the guy in the post, now I have my commenters dropping random links in too.
Good job I like the guy ;-)
I think with most seminars it’s largely down to social proof to make things work.
My guess would be 95% of the people at the unknown seminar above enjoyed it, because they went there expecting to enjoy it and they looked around them seeing other people ‘enjoying it’ and thus unconsciously felt compelled.
Whether they will look back on it in 10 years time as a turning point is another matter altogether.
I really want to get into seminars for How To Be Rich and Happy, but only if I am convinced I can deliver value to the majority of the people.
I agree with Dave and think it should be value to the attendee first and then worry about how we can make money from it and some people really don’t care to do it that way.
I think that to accompish the things you are talking about, the size of the group is going to have to be much smaller. That means that the students need to mean more than the bottom line. For many, I don’t think that’s a problem, but successful businessmen tend to rise to the top, and it matters to them.
Great post, and very interesting to read your experiences. And yes, I know who you’re talking about (I think I actually met Tim on his forums, way back when…)
I’ve always been a little sceptical of seminars touted by the guru-types — if I wanted that sort of help (and had that sort of money!) I’d probably pay for life coaching.
The one seminar-type-thingy I WOULD love to attend (and would probably have gone for if I’d not already booked SXSW) is Charlie Gilkey’s & Pam Slim’s Lift Off Retreat: http://www.productiveflourishing.com/join-us-for-the-lift-off-retreat/
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Facebook by Carl Harvey: Guest Post – Death of the Self Help Seminar? Oh, it’s a big Boom! – http://tiny.cc/AKEkZ…
@ Mark – yeah, there were (a few) chicks there, but I still don’t understand who you’re referring to ;-)
And yeah, I caught “him” looking at my fine-ass woman a couple of times, but he didn’t try any crazy s*it on with her… Good!
We were all playing “guess the groupie” though, as he let slip one of the “slaves” would be there. Not sure if we cracked it or not.
Anyway – to reiterate – it wasn’t all bad – far from it – but I was just … well, expecting a lot more.
Ah, nice to see I haven’t been booed off… how refreshing!
Cheers for the love folks, I was a big nervous virgin before this went live.
Anyway…
@ Mick – cheers mate, the opportunity cost of my lady in Vicky’s Secrets was admittedly high, but arguably would’ve been even higher had I persuaded 5 other women to try out the other 5 sets at the same time. Maybe next time?
@ Kelvin – hmm… Thanks, however I respectfully disagree. I’ve found some NLP techniques causing (seemingly) lasting change in just a few minutes – those “ah-ha” / “Jesus I can see the light!” moments where you just KNOW that you’re different from now on. For example, with Tim’s help and Allen Carr’s book I stopped smoking in about 3 seconds flat. Sure, it took work to get up to that point, but I see no reason why 72 hours solid work at a seminar couldn’t produce something like this… in theory, at least
@ Tony – Steve who, mate? Not heard of him…. (haha – oh dear – perhaps my powers of subtlety are less well-defined that I had imagined) Thanks for the kind words. I agree with you – life coaching works – but is there NO WAY that you can take the key principles from that and apply it to a group?? Even if you 80/20’d the f**k out of what REALLY works in life coaching?? Call me a hopeless optimist, but there MUST be a way… Come on Tim Brownson, wave your magic fairy dust and come up with a concept!
@ Amit – first of all, I feel like we share a bond – I too am an “attention seeking whore”. Ha! Hilarious. I definitely get what you mean re: drugs. Very valid point. Perhaps I’m just a personal growth crackhead? Hmm… Was interested in doing Robbins but I’m not after cuddles with 100s of strangers and shared man-love, I want to sit down with someone who KNOWS the human brain, and get them to delve in MY head and come up with solutions for ME. Me, me, me, me, me…! Ha. Very egoic, but I want my money’s worth.
Oh, and to clarify, the actual course cost me just over $1000 for two places. The rest of the money was on flights, hotels, food… and a week in Vegas. So… I hope my reckless exaggerating doesn’t undermine the tone of the piece. Sweet!
Great post. Were many of the delegates at this seminar women so the host could explore his polygamy, or did he have to satisfy himself with a little self-help? Call it a hunch!
P.S. the last picture you used, I used that too for my ’10 things personal development guru’s don’t tell you’ post *shameless plug*
Ruddy good job ol’ fellow! I’ve been to many of the big ones but I made a firm decision about two years ago to not attend any more PD seminars as there’s nothing for me to learn but to now just put everything into practise.
To be honest, I would never spend $4000 on one. the most I ever spent was about £800 for a weekend with John DeMartini and yes, I would say that was worth it because he truly is an educated man who has something very different to bring to the table that no other presenter has, that i’ve seen. His is the only seminar where I’ve retained the information I’ve learned and actually found it not only practical but it also has all come to fruition.
I went to Tony Robbins and that was about £350 and that was worth it to for the sheer entertainment value and for doing the firewalk.
When I first went to a Tony Robbins seminar and then left the problem for me was depression. The seminar built me up so much it puts you in a totally different world and when you leave you’re back in your old boring world. it’s like a drug fix, hence my reason for never returning again because I realised that point. Not many people do, they’ll keep going and keep spending the money.
A while back I wanted to run my own seminars but I’ve realised that’s not what I want to do now but for me, there’s a lot of truth missing from it. Yes I am an attention seeking whore and I like being on stage in front of hundreds of people making of fool of myself which is why I do stand-up comedy. But I will be there in the capacity of an entertainer, with a message.
Thanks for sharing the low down on the Seminar you went too…for some reason, I find it somewhat comforting.
Well, hopefully I won’t surprise too many people by saying the words “Steve Pavlina” …hehehe. The clues were many.
I must admit I have some real problems with the self-help industry. Because by and large I think it mostly just doesn’t work – at least the way people expect. It rarely brings real change. You especially see it with SP’s site – it’s mostly a group of people who are hoping some of his magic pixie dust will somehow fall on them. It’s hilarious. And I think the less said about those “recent strange posts” the better.
I really enjoyed this guest post. Nicely written, and bang on the money IMHO. But I’m not sure Tim doing seminars is the way to go. Life coaching, unlike much of the “self-help” clap-trap out there, *does actually work*. That’s an absolute fact. Part of why it works in because it’s one on one. I’m not sure it would on a per-group/seminar basis at all.
Never been to one of those, but wow, $4000? Maybe these seminars can serve purposes like:
1) They can sew the seed, but it’s still not going to grow if you don’t water it afterwards.
2) The price tag can be a reminder for the commitment you once made.
It takes discipline to make a more permanent change. A three-day seminar will not be sufficient. But think about it this way… if being at a seminar for three days is enough to change everything about you, without much effort afterwards, then you are probably someone that’s easily brainwashed and that’s never a good thing.
Carl, what a great piece about value, both yours and the presenters.
lets see 100 x $4000 = a shitload of money in anyones language (even accounting for costs incurred to run the event)
If you got nothing out of it, you also lost the opportunity cost of the two days (unless of course the nearly there underwear produced the desired outcomes in which case may there was not lost opportunity cost???)
I don’t attend seminars like these a) because 4K is a large chunk of money that I can better invest, and b) I have seen scant evidence of lasting change in anyone who has attended them, so do not see the long term value equation.
Mick