Exposing The Self-Help Industry, 13 Things They Don’t Want You to Know

Craig Stanland
6 min readDec 6, 2023

The self-help/personal development space is MASSIVE.

And it’s growing every day.

Especially since the pandemic when people lost their jobs or realized they didn’t want to do what they’ve been doing and want to do something else.

The number of coaches, “experts,” “thought leaders,” “influencers,” and “gurus” has exploded exponentially.

Everyone else is making a killing being a coach, so why not give it a try?

Some niche down and focus on specific clients, while others speak to a broad audience.

The advice, tools, tips, and steps are the same regardless of the audience.

And the truth is, there’s a lot of great and valuable content.

The flip side of the coin is there are also a lot of awful things about the industry that, as someone who’s involved in the industry, I deplore.

I decided to expose the dark side of the personal development space in the hopes of helping people make better choices.

Here are the 13 things the “gurus” don’t want you to know.

1. Hyper Focus on Positivity:

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Craig Stanland

I write about my journey from corporate success to federal prison and finding joy, mission, meaning, and fulfillment beyond professional and financial success.