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How have you wasted money on personal development?

personal development self help

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#1 jroseland

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Posted 15 December 2016 - 11:41 AM


The story of how I met the disciple of the most hated man in the world is illustrative of how to (NOT) spend money on personal development.
 
I had just arrived in an exotic, new (to me!) city. I knew nobody there. I started by requesting to join the local RSD wingman Facebook group. As I've explained elsewhere my lifehack to forming intimate relationships fast is devoting my time socializing to high affinity groups with deep shared values; RSD trained pickup artists are actually one of the best such groups. In the Facebook group a cool looking local guy had posted that he was offering free introductory pickup artist bootcamps, which is like infield dating coaching. I've never taken a bootcamp but I've always been interested, if I had several thousand dollars just burning a hole in my pocket I would do a bootcamp.
He had posted a couple of indicators of credibility, and it was a novel application of the freemium model so I thought why not? What do I have to lose? I contacted him and made what I thought was a generous offer buying him dinner and then we could go out at night and do the free coaching.
I thought if he turned out to be a really effective coach I might purchase one of his coaching packages, if he sucked then at least I would have explored the city some and have had a stimulating conversation over a succulent meal.
 
I met him and he had gravitas, swagger and style. I picked his brain about the nuances of seducing the sexy local girls. He spoke three languages fluently. We talked about meditation,  fitness, Entrepreneurship  Biohacking, supplementation and Colombia. Overall a pretty impressive guy. Interestingly, he had worked directly with, at the time, the official most hated man in the world. Weirdly the most hated man in the world is not some tyrannical dictator or murderous narco boss but a douchebaggey pickup artist guru that had pissed off a bunch of feminists and the politically correct main stream media. My new friend had coached with him and had the photos to prove it. He really emphasized how much of an influence this guy was on him.
 
I was a bit disappointed when he announced a change of plans that we were not going to be doing the free bootcamp that night. He was instead going to pickup a girl who he knew that night and sleep with her. He offered to drop me off where I was staying. We hoped in his car which was a pretty nice car in that country we did indeed pickup a cute girl from a decrepit soviet style apartment building who laughed at my poor attempts at their language.
 
The next day we met up to discuss smart drugs which we was really interested in (who isn't!) and hung out in his nice apartment  Then he pitched me; he had a weekend bootcamp program that was $600. We would...
Do coaching at nightlife spots.
Talk to girls during the daytime.
He even guaranteed I would get laid on the bootcamp!
 
I didn't go for it for a few reasons...
$600 was a lot of money in that country. It seemed pretty steep for a weekend of coaching. Yes, world class dating coaches, like the most hated man in world charge thousands of dollars for a weekend of such coaching but they also have tons of credibility and evidence for their expertise. He had almost none. He didn't get into a lot of specifics about what the coaching would entail other than that I would get laid.
But more importantly he was dishonest; he didn't do the free bootcamp we discussed. 
How was I to know that he wasn't going to just take my money and pay a local girl to sleep with me?
 
I"ll add that this guy followed a lot of popular personal development and entrepreneurship content and it showed...
He actually had a pretty good hook; offering the free bootcamp, then showing me the nice car, the pretty girl and the nice apartment.
I can see how through a different cultural filter, he might think it was acceptable to bait-switch me like that but I really didn't want to pay $600 to sleep with a hooker even if it was packaged with some great coaching! Not to mention, in that country I could sleep with about 10 hookers for $600. It just wasn't a good deal!
 
I'm researching on how to rationally spend money on personal development. What kinds of personal development...
  • Products & technology
  • Training and coaching 
  • Courses
  • Books

...have you guys bought that really ROI'd vs what was a total waste of money?

 

My 1st thought is that in general any money that you spend on personal development is good because it really motivates you to follow though but we all know that this industry is thick with charlatans, long on marketing and short on substance.

 

My 2nd thought is that spending money on high quality food, exercise and fitness is probably most important because if you're not in good health and have a lot of energy you won't have the motivation to follow through on the your personal development stuff.

 

I remain really skeptical of coaching...

 

I know at least one lady who wasted $5000 on a week long John C. Maxwell coaching certification course which she did nothing with. Obviously, a lot of people are spending money the wrong way!


Edited by jroseland, 15 December 2016 - 11:48 AM.





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