Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

Marketing as Freedom: Mead’s Mojave Manifesto

Friday, August 21st, 2009

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This post originally began life as an email exchange between a friend and I shortly after the Project Mohave Liberation Manifesto was released on May 15, 2009.  Project Mojave is essentially a get rich quick scheme led by Clay Collins of the blog Finance Your Freedom (formerly the Growing Life). The project encourages its subscribers who pay $97 per month to  find an expert in a field, create an information product with them such as an ebook and to sell it for $47 on the internet. The manifesto itself was written as a marketing tool for Mohave by Jonathan Mead, a personal development blogger and marketer who writes on IlluminatedMind.net and also as a guest writer on the ubiquitous ZenHabits.net I have followed Jonathan’s blog, projects, and other social media identities for almost as long as he has been writing. Illuminated Mind began as a spiritually minded blog that explored simple Buddhist-like concepts and was critical of both productivity and personal development.  However, over the past year the blog has changed into a guide to “become free” through a variety of “unconventional” methods, much like the ones highlighted later on in this post. (more…)

Good News: You Can’t Have it All

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

jamesray349-200pxMany personal development gurus posit that you can and should have it all, that every area of your life can be perfected without any need for compromise. Consider this quotation from personal development guru James Arthur Ray’s website:

“You really can enjoy total abundance financially, relationally, mentally, physically and spiritually…” ~James Arthur Ray, Master of Hyperbole

The total abundance James Arthur Ray is really enjoying is an abundance of total bullshit. Not surprisingly, Ray’s tagline is “As seen on Oprah, Larry King, and The Secret,” sources not exactly known for their journalistic integrity.

Nothing real exists in “total abundance.” Not atoms in the Universe (approximately 1080), not the amount of money in circulation, and not even “abundance mentality”–which is sometimes present and sometimes not, no matter how often or intensely you visualize your goals. Perhaps Ray is referring to mathematical abstractions? “You really can enjoy counting a total abundance of integers. The possibilities of multiplication are unlimited!” (more…)