Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

Ten Easy Steps: Gangsta Rap for Spiritual Seekers

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

The following is a guest post from Philip Walter of myCreativeEvolution.com. Image credit: bitzcelt.

So, I have a confession to make: There’s a special place in my heart for gangsta rap. I know, what a tool, right? Yet another suburban white kid thinking he’s “hard” because he can quote 95% of the lyrics on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, but hey, it is what it is. I’m mostly over it now, some 15 years out of high school, but I still pull out those albums once in a while: Tupac’s All Eyez On Me, Eightball and MJG’s Comin’ Out Hard, or Biggie’s Ready to Die. (more…)

How to Respond to Criticism with Integrity: A Lesson from Scott Sonnon

Sunday, December 12th, 2010

I admit it—I have a bad habit of picking fights with authority figures to test whether they have integrity or not. But this is the first time someone I’ve criticized in the personal growth world has actually responded with maturity and integrity in a way that felt satisfying to me.

My bad habit probably stems from having numerous authority figures as a kid lacking integrity or even basic intelligence. In middle school I was often bullied and the teachers and administrators were totally unresponsive to my pleas for help. My parents were loving, but didn’t understand the extent to which I was harrassed verbally and physically all day, every day—from the time I got on the bus to the time I got off the bus at the end of the day. During my 6th grade social studies class, a classmate of mine literally spit on me the entire class, every day, and I couldn’t get him to stop or the teacher to stop eating donuts, pause the movies he played for us every day, and listen to me. So one day I fought back. (more…)

Why There is So Much Social Pressure to Do Work You Love

Friday, September 24th, 2010

I promise to make sense of the sandwich soon, but first a thought about work, passion, and alienation.

The problem with doing a job you hate is worse than mere alienation or not self-actualizing, as most personal development gurus put it.  Doing a good job—but without a convincing display of enthusiasm—will get you fired.

In our hypercompetitive capitalist environment, you are competing with people who either love to do what you are doing for a living (even though you hate it) and/or can pretend to love the work more “authentically” than you. These happy-looking people work harder, longer, and don’t complain to management when their health benefits are taken away. Your job security is at risk if you don’t give a convincing display of loving your work, hence all the anxiety-driven, manic (tom peters!) search for one’s “true” calling. (more…)

Critical review of Linchpin by Seth Godin

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

History is gifted with great thinkers who have produced prolific works of thought and depth. When Kant published a book, a flurry of talk and excitement rushed across Europe. Every thinker in the world wanted to understand, discuss, and critique Kant’s ideas and thought processes. The ideas were tested, holes were found, but respect for the work remains. It is the very act of critiquing, probing, and stressing the ideas of the book that shows it respect. If Kant had been read but not analyzed, it would be an insult to his ideas.

Seth Godin has recently “shipped” Linchpin and has created a sensation around the world. There has been a lot of buzz and praise of the book. In order to pay respect to the book, we must understand it, pick it apart, and analyze the ideas presented in it. This analysis might uncover holes, inconsistencies, and problems in the book. This is to be expected. Even Plato is not free from inconsistent thinking, yet he remains well-respected. (more…)

Towards a Socially Conscientiousness Lifestyle Design Movement

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

In his “The Lifestyle Design (un)Manifesto” Eric calls for the transformation of lifestyle design “into a collective of people who can influence the greater culture for a sustainable future.” Can lifestyle design be reformed into something more socially valuable? Put to work on the right problems, perhaps it can. But there are a few questions that we have to ask first.

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Social Media: Moving Towards A Brave New World?

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley depicts an ordered society where humanity is tamed and controlled through the use of excessive pleasure.   This pleasure comes in the form of unlimited sex, a designer drug named “Soma,” and a caste system that designs people specifically for their social roles, eliminating unhappiness in the work force.  The society as a whole is conditioned to believe in a consistent set of values, primarily designed to keep everyone in line and the system of consumption functioning at a near perfect level of efficiency. Those are not fitting into society are encouraged to enjoy themselves by taking Soma, as its hallucinogenic and anti-depressant effects allow them to snap back into blissful conformity with ease.   In essence, Huxley dreamed of a world where unimportant pleasures distract us from the greater problems at hand, and in the case of the book these problems manifested as the sheer level of control and lack of freedom exerted over all of humanity by the system. (more…)

WARNING: Motivational Speaker Tony Robbins is Launching New Get-Rich-Quick Internet Scam

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Personal Development guru Tony Robbins is known for his infomercials in the 80′s advertising his “Personal Power” motivational audiotapes, as a “life coach to the rich and famous,” and his appearances in movies like Shallow Hal.

Robbins, who has over 1.2 million followers on Twitter, has recently released a couple of videos on his “training blog” interviewing internet marketers Frank Kern and John Reese. What most people watching these videos don’t realize is that they are highly-manipulative advertisements, almost certainly for an upcoming get-rich-quick-on-the-internet product–the field of expertise of both Reese and Kern. (8/30/2009–Confirmed: this is for a $67/month CD, DVD, and manual course called “The New Money Masters.” Also confirmed is that Irwin F. Kern (aka “Frank Kern”) was successfully sued by the FTC in 2003 for $634,222.45 for running an illegal chain marketing scheme on the internet called ”Instant Internet Empires.”) (Update 9/10/2009: From 1:00-1:20 in the first video, a new segment has been spliced in where Robbins mentions the product. This was NOT in the original version for the initial product launch, and no note has been included as to the change, thus attempting to rewrite history. The original videos and comments are still on hidden blog pages not accessible from the main http://tonyrobbinstraining.com, but two new pages have been added with the new, spliced videos. The original comments included many people asking what these videos were about, for there was no mention of a product.)

Creating hype before the launch of an information product is a cutting-edge sales tactic that Frank Kern and John Reese both promote in their products. Here’s how they do it:

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Youtopia and the Bubble in American Egos

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

bub

What happens when a whole society of people learns to project an image of success and capability that few members of that society actually possess? Let us create for ourselves an imaginary world – we’ll call it Youtopia – and explore what might happen there.

But first, let’s consider why we might want to project such an image. Personal development enthusiasts regularly teach that projecting such an image will actually make us more capable and successful. Fake it ‘til you make it. The technique works because self-image can be a powerful motivator. It changes how we feel about ourselves and how others feel about us as well. We might begin this process being incapable and unsuccessful, but that changes as we begin to project a new image of ourselves.

In a socially mobile society like that of the US, in which individuals craft their own lives for themselves and must regularly recreate their own social worlds as they move from place to place and from one social class to another, the ability to project an image of success and capability can mean the difference between success and failure in almost any endeavor. So let us travel to Youtopia and see what happens when all of us do this? (more…)