The Anti–Self Help Man
Early morning alone time coffee musings
When you reach the second summit, something else becomes visible.
Not just your own patterns, but the industry of self-help, coaching, and spirituality. Every generation produces its prophets. Different languages, different hurts, assorted trauma and desires being touched, yet they seem to have the same structure of late.
Big stages. Bigger promises. Certainty packaged and sold.
Sometimes it is religion. Sometimes it is consciousness. Sometimes it is biohacking, abundance, manifestation, optimization. Often it is marketed as funnels and smoke and mirrors.
Although the vocabulary changes, the hunger does not. And every few years something surfaces:
Associations. Contradictions. Hidden behaviour.
The mask slips. We act shocked.
and…
We should not be.
Charisma Is Not Congruence
A man can speak about enlightenment and still be unconscious. He can preach discipline and live indulgently. He can build legions of followers and still be internally fragmented and cause a wake of destruction behind him. Or her.
I saw this as a young man watching the rise and fall of televised ministers. PTL. The tears. The donations. The scandals. The collapses. The apologies. It created an aversion to wolves in sheep’s clothing. It created a distrust in the self-help gurus of the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s. It’s why I kept a small footprint of my work on social media. I am no guru, and I don’t have all the answers. I share what my life is like and I share time I spend with my family. I am also clear that I am no role model of perfection. I want more life. I want to love my wife and kids and serve the world.
Werner Erhard said something that stuck with me:
“The beginning of all authenticity is to be authentic about your inauthenticity.”
The Pattern Is Ancient and prevelant
I saw this growing up in the 70s and 80s. Western civilization was trying to figure itself out. People were seeking answers and there were those more than willing to fill that need. Often with self-aggrandizement dressed up as service. Influence monetized without integration. Followers treated as leverage.
And here is where the uncomfortable truth may lie:
The problem is not them.
The problem is our desire to be led at all costs.
We want the answer. We want the map. We want someone to tell us what works. We want certainty handed down from someone who seems further up the mountain.
That hunger creates a market, and markets reward performance. (Notice I did not immediately say results.) Self-help does not have metrics like a stock portfolio.
I’ve noticed that the following may have a kernel of truth to them:
The louder the promise, the larger the following.
The simpler the formula, the faster the growth.
The stronger the identity, the stickier the tribe.
And slowly, without even noticing it, we build dependency.
What I Refused to Do
I have spent well over a decade in coaching and mentoring, and years coming to terms with my humanity before that. I have built a strong business doing it. And I have railed against something for years that many people did not understand.
I refused to turn insecurity into a funnel.
Because the moment your income depends on someone staying incomplete, you are standing on unstable ground.
If your business requires your clients to feel broken, you will unconsciously reinforce brokenness.
If your authority depends on followers, you will subtly cultivate dependency.
If your identity requires being the enlightened one, you will defend the pedestal.
The second summit dismantles that.
You stop trying to be impressive. You stop trying to be central. You stop trying to be the answer.
You become the crucible for congruence and self-authorship.
The Anti-Self Help Book
That is the core of what I am writing in The Anti-Self Help Book.
It is not anti-growth. It is not anti-mentor. It is not anti-spirituality.
It is anti-dependency.
It is anti-performance masquerading as transformation.
It is anti-self-aggrandizement dressed up as service and posturing.
My life has not been a straight line of clarity. I am not a guru and I am not perfection by any means. I live a life I love and I play full out. Sometimes playing full out, I make mistakes and scratch the surface of where I am still blinded by my own “brilliance.” My life in the last fifteen years has been a beautiful mosaic of aliveness.
It has been real heartache. Real internal suffering. Real confusion. Real marriage tension. Real business shifts. Real ego. Real blind spots.
There was no moment where I found “the answer.” There has been no final arrival.
Yet there has been integration. And the removal of sedation. Over and over again. There was noticing when I was posturing strength instead of embodying it. There was recognizing when I blamed others for not rising instead of examining my own incongruence.
There was discovering that ignition without presence burns.
And presence without ignition dulls.
Life has not become a solved equation.
It has become flow. And often with flow we get caught in the current like an inexperienced, unaware swimmer getting caught in a rip current. Life is like that a lot.
Life for me has become a playful, demanding, unpredictable adventure. My life and business coach Steve Chandler opened that up as a possibility for me. Once I lived life as a positive adventure, my relationships became better. Once they did, my business grew.
What Second Summit Energy Is
Second summit energy is not about being above the industry. It is about being uninterested in theatre. It is about refusing to monetize dependency. It is about refusing to sedate to stay accepted. It is about living in such a way that your words and your life match.
No savior. No pedestal. No secret formula.
Just full voltage and power that flows through clean as a fiber optic cable.
The Invitation
If you are still seeking answers, watch intently. Learn. Study. Model. Let yourself be shaped and know thyself. For if you truly know yourself, you become the true author of your life.
I love every book I have read by Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle. I have loved studying in a room with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli for days on end. I loved the nine-day School for The Work with Byron Katie. I loved being a part of Steve Chandler’s Advanced Client Systems and his M6, as well as being mentored by him personally for three years.
One thing I decided early on is that these people were my peers who were a few steps ahead of me. Their guidance allowed me to write my own doctrine. To build without referencing or ceding my own wisdom. I had an idea I would need to stop looking for someone to save me from my uncertainty.
The Anti-Self Help man does not search for answers.
He authors his life.
And he breathes at altitude without applause.
Beautiful
“My life has not been a straight line of clarity. I am not a guru and I am not perfection by any means. I live a life I love and I play full out. Sometimes playing full out, I make mistakes and scratch the surface of where I am still blinded by my own “brilliance.” My life in the last fifteen years has been a beautiful mosaic of aliveness.”