Not all growth is good for you.
Beyond Growth is careful, sourced criticism of the self-improvement industry — the gurus, the myths, and the money behind “personal growth.” We check the confident claims against the actual evidence, so you can tell the real advice from the sales pitch.
More essays
Personal Development
Meaninglessness, Nihilism, and the Landmark Forum
The Landmark Forum walks every participant to the same scripted realisation on day three: life is empty and meaningless. What that technique actually is, and what happened when it went wrong.
14 July 2026 · Read →
Technology Of The Self
Does grounding (earthing) actually work? What the evidence really shows
Grounding claims that skin contact with the earth floods your body with healing electrons that cure inflammation and fix your sleep. Here's what the actual studies — small, unblinded and largely funded by the people selling the mats — really show.
13 July 2026 · Read →
Positive Thinking
The 4-Minute Mile and the Myths of Positive Thinking
Self-help's favourite parable says belief broke the four-minute mile. The real story — decades of records and training science — says otherwise.
13 July 2026 · Read →
Lifestyle Design
17 Steps to Instant Success as a Lifestyle Designer
A deadpan, satirical field guide to the lifestyle-design genre — the 4 a.m. alarm, the beach laptop, the manufactured origin story, and the course about selling courses.
13 July 2026 · Read →
Guru Criticism
Tony Robbins and the Cult of Aggressive Positivity: Does the Method Hold Up?
Tony Robbins built a roughly $600m empire on state, belief and the firewalk. A fair, sourced look at what he actually teaches — and where the evidence for it runs thin.
13 July 2026 · Read →
Guru Criticism
James Arthur Ray's Sweat Lodge Deaths: What Happened at Spiritual Warrior
In October 2009, three people died at James Arthur Ray's 'Spiritual Warrior' sweat lodge near Sedona. A sober, sourced account of the ceremony, the deaths, and the negligent-homicide conviction that followed.
13 July 2026 · Read →
The method
Watch for the deleted preconditions.
Most self-help myths work by deletion: take a real achievement, strip out the training, money, timing and luck that produced it, and the only cause left standing is belief. We put the deleted preconditions back — with primary sources — because that is usually where the truth, and the useful advice, actually lives.