Beyond Growth
Not all growth is good for you.
Beyond Growth is sceptical, evidence-led writing about self-help, personal development and guru culture: the bestselling myths, the seminars and the money behind “personal growth”.
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The four-minute mile is the story the industry tells more than any other, and it is wrong in almost every load-bearing detail: the mile record had been falling since 1913, and the claim that 37 runners broke it within a year of Bannister is false. And if you have ever met the barefoot-on-the-grass pitch, grounding’s one real effect is trivial, and the health claims rest on small, mostly unblinded studies run largely by the people selling the mats.
Also worth your time: what Tony Robbins actually teaches, and where the evidence for it runs thin; the three deaths at James Arthur Ray’s “Spiritual Warrior” sweat lodge, and the negligent-homicide conviction that followed; why the experiments that measured manifestation found vivid fantasy drains the energy to chase the goal; and what the largest growth-mindset studies really found — an average intervention effect of d = 0.08.
More essays
Spirituality
Mindfulness: What the Trials Show
Meta-analyses find small to moderate gains from mindfulness, often no better than active treatments, and some people report bad effects. A fair reading.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Social Criticism
Do Rewards Kill Motivation? The Evidence
Nine meta-analyses have argued over whether rewards erode interest. The answer is sometimes, and it depends. What it means for pay, schools and work.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Social Criticism
Breakthrough with Tony Robbins: A TV Review
NBC's 2010 Breakthrough with Tony Robbins promised lasting change in one episode. What TV can show, what it cannot, and what follow-up research says.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Positive Thinking
The 369 Method: Does It Work?
The 369 method means writing one goal 3, 6 and 9 times a day. The Tesla quote behind it has no source, but writing down goals is a different story.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Positive Thinking
Do Vision Boards Work? The Evidence, Plus a Fix
We found no trial of vision boards. The nearest research says picturing success can cut effort; adding the obstacle and an if-then plan helps.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Personal Development
Do Goals Help or Hurt? The Evidence
Specific, hard goals raise performance in decades of studies. They can also backfire. Here is what both sides of the research show, and how to choose.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Personal Development
Deep Work by Cal Newport: What Holds Up
A review of Cal Newport's Deep Work: attention residue has research behind it, the rest is argument. What a reader can apply on Monday.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Personal Development
Ending Chronic Procrastination: What Works
Chronic procrastination looks more like a self-regulation and feelings problem than laziness. What the trials show works, and a plain way to start.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Lifestyle Design
What Is a Lifestyle Business? A Plain Answer
A lifestyle business is run to fund a life you chose, not to grow or sell. How it differs from a startup, how common it is, and whether it can do good.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Lifestyle Design
The Lifestyle Design Unmanifesto: Six Honest Rules
Six plain rules for designing a life around what you want, without the beach photos, the 5 a.m. alarm or the course: keep the job, build first, price your life.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Lifestyle Design
Why Every Lifestyle Designer Looks the Same
Lifestyle design sells escaping the herd, yet its followers share one template: beach laptop, 5 a.m. alarm, quit-my-job story. A maths model explains why.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Lifestyle Design
The 4-Hour Body Review: Which Promises Hold Up?
Tim Ferriss promised 2-hour sleep, 300% more fat loss from cold and 34 lb of muscle in 28 days. We checked three headline claims against the research.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Lifestyle Design
Lifestyle Design and Changing the World
Lifestyle design promises free time. The data shows where free time goes, how little of it is given away, and what small, regular giving looks like.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Lifestyle Design
Ethical Lifestyle Design: Three Tensions
Is lifestyle design ethical? Three honest tensions, geoarbitrage, cheap outsourcing and visas, each with a practical answer and a short checklist.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Lifestyle Design
Lifestyle Design Sucks? The Missing Failures
Most lifestyle design failures are never posted. What survivorship bias and US business survival data say about quitting for freedom, and what to do instead.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Identity
What Is Authenticity? The Be-Yourself Paradox
Authenticity means acting in line with what you really think and value. What psychology measures, why being told to be yourself backfires, and its limits.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Identity
Is Small Talk Fake? Congruence Explained
Is small talk fake? Congruence means matching what you feel with what you say, not going deep. What the research says about small talk and well-being.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Guru Criticism
Holosync and Binaural Beats: The Research
Holosync says it gives the benefits of years of meditation in about 30 minutes a day. Reviews of binaural beats find modest short-term effects and mixed brainwave results.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Guru Criticism
The Secret's Dark Side and the Sweat Lodge
James Arthur Ray appeared in The Secret, then three people died at his 2009 retreat. How the law of attraction can mute warning signs and breed self-blame.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Guru Criticism
The 4-Hour Body: Four More Claims
Our first review checked sleep, cold and muscle. Here are four others from Ferriss's book: no fruit, weekly bingeing, 5K to 50K, and a dose typo.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Guru Criticism
James Arthur Ray on Trial: Verdict Explained
The 2011 Arizona sweat lodge trial of James Arthur Ray: the charges, the June 2011 verdict, the sentence, and what it showed about duty of care.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Guru Criticism
James Arthur Ray After Prison: Buyer Checks
What James Arthur Ray did after his 2013 release, his death in January 2025, whether a guru's past should follow them, and seven checks before you pay.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Conscious Marketing
Linchpin by Seth Godin: A Critical Review
Godin's Linchpin says you can make yourself indispensable. We check it against research on job tenure, star performers and emotional labour.
14 November 2026 · Read →
Positive Thinking
Tony Robbins and the Cult of Aggressive Positivity, Part 2: How Positive Thinking Can Make You Depressed
Repeating an affirmation left low-self-esteem participants in a worse mood than saying nothing. What the research says about the cost of being told to feel great.
24 July 2026 · Read →
Positive Thinking
Is Manifestation Real? The Evidence Runs the Other Way
Manifestation promises that picturing an outcome brings it closer. The experiments that measured it found vivid fantasy drains the energy to chase it.
17 July 2026 · Read →
Social Criticism
The Pavlok: A Shockingly Bad Idea
Pavlok sells a wristband that shocks you out of bad habits, on the strength of 'proven' aversion-therapy science. Its own creator got called a con artist on live television for that exact claim.
14 July 2026 · Read →
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 →
Personal Development
Get a Growth Mindset (Or: What the Research Actually Shows)
Growth mindset became a billion-dollar idea in schools and workplaces. The largest studies ever run on it found an average effect so small it barely moves the needle.
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
The Lifestyle Guru Playbook: 17 Steps to Instant Success
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.