The 4-Minute Mile and the Myths of Positive Thinking

written by Eric Normand on February 6th, 2010

The story of Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile barrier in 1954 is often cited as proof of the power of positive thinking. The fact is, however, that Bannister’s realism, not exuberant faith, can easily explain how Bannister achieved the feat.

The typical telling of the story is a conflict between negative and positive beliefs. The good guy is Roger Bannister, who uniquely believes that he can beat the four-minute time. The bad guy is everybody else, including the other runners of the world. Bannister’s faith in himself propels him across the finish line, breaking the barrier, proving that the positive is stronger than negative. He wins over converts to his faithful cause, who then proceed to smash the barrier themselves. Read More

The “Negative Social Mood” and Bill Harris

written by Eric Schiller on January 11th, 2010

The Verdant Bough

If you are at all familiar with social media, you probably had a  good idea what was going to happen after Bill Harris decided to threaten Duff McDuffee.  Twitter lit up in support of Duff, a smattering of notable blogs wrote about the threat, and in the end Beyond Growth received a ton of traffic.  Perhaps the Law of Attraction works after all–Bill threatened Duff in a blast  of negative energy, and the result was a lot of negative publicity.  Mission accomplished Bill. Read More

The Secret Fails Harris, Threatens to Sue McDuffee

written by Eric Schiller on December 28th, 2009

Sink Hole

On December 22,  Duff McDuffee received an email message from Bill Harris, the founder of “Holo-sync” and the “CenterPointe Institute” claiming that he had been served with a cease and desist letter regarding the post titled “The Hollow Sink of Push-Button Enlightenment.”  Harris claims that he intends to file suit against Duff for “defamation” in federal court.  Harris finally sent the cease and desist document via email to McDuffee, you can read it at the bottom of this post (updated 12/29). In response to Harris’ email, Duff revised the post to insure no defamatory statements exist within it, and that it is clear that everything contained therein is his opinion.  This effort itself was mainly done to in good-will, as we do not actually believe that anything in the original post was defamatory simply because it was clear that the post itself was an opinion piece on a variety of intangible and unprovable subjects. Read More

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What is Beyond Growth?

Beyond Growth is a collaborative blogging project focused on critiquing and expanding the personal development field. Noting a lack of critical discourse in personal development, Duff McDuffee and Eric Schiller founded Beyond Growth in the hopes of using it as a platform to foster growth and responsibility. The subjects we plan to critique and explore include critical theory, cults, gurus, lifestyle design, marketing, psychology, rising consciousness and much more.

Contributors

Duff McDuffee
Philosopher

Eric Schiller
Social Critic
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