Seriously sick of steve pavlina

Community
1

I used to really admire Steve Pavlia when I first found his articles about productivity and sales, etc. However, over the years his phony stuff about psychics, being a ‘lightworker’ (i.e wanting to constantly give and help people without wanting something for yourself), and all this have really turned me off.

For instance, read this article from his wife, a supposed psychic, Erin pavlina:
Have you ever had contact with a deceased celebrity?

Read it with a neutral mind, and tell me, honestly, do you not feel that the whole theme of this article revolves around deceased celebrities being in trouble, until erin pavlina ‘the heroine’ comes in the play and rescues them? And the way erin remains innocently unaware of her powers just screams ‘b.s’ in my mind. When I posted this on the steve pavlina forums, I was promptly banned.

Now i’m reading a chapter from his new book, and it has gems like this (when describing how he used to shoplift when he was 19 years old):

On a typical outing, I’d lift a dozen candy bars and then drop them off in a public place, figuring that other people would eat them. I didn’t eat the candy because I didn’t think it was healthy.

I don’t know about you, but to me it instantly feels like an attempt to appear ‘heroic’, i.e if people pictured him stealing candy and eating it, he might lose that heroic appeal he has in their mind. So immediately he changes the story to ‘dropping candies in a public place, for other people’. How heroic.

Then a bit further down, it reads (while describing what he did after a close escape from going to jail for 2 years):

I landed a minimum-wage job in retail sales. Even with a criminal record, I probably could have found a more lucrative position, but I just didn’t want one. I only wanted to play it safe, stay below the radar, and eke out a “vanilla” life devoid of stress and excitement. Courage had become my enemy.

During this year of quiet, uneventful living, I worked on myself. I gradually developed a new code of ethics to guide me, integrating values such as honor, honesty, integrity, humility, and fairness.

Why does a book about personal development focus so much on making the author appear heroic?

To me, it feels like he is seeking to become either a cult leader like ‘Jim jones’ or some other sort of late-night scam tv commerical guru. He already seems to be on that path, his wife sells ‘psychic readings’ which one of her repeat-customer claimed feels like a ‘high school counseller’ reading, as she didnt give her any actual facts and just repeated info that was given to her. He himself will soon launch a coaching service costing $500/hour.

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I’ve read several Steve Pavlina’s articles and did not find in them anything I can use or which is helpful for me. Just a lot of words about the simplest things. Zen is much more interesting to me.

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Well, I heard about him, but I don’t have much of an opinion. I think I listened one or two podcast because someone at SP said he was great. But I didn’t find it any different to any other coacher who claims that their work to make your life better, without further interest.

I guess there are people that really need that, and in that case, it works.

I haven’t read the article, just the bits you extracted there… It doesn’t look heroic to me. If anything, the candy scene seems to be a bit absurd.

4

This guy seems so overwhelmingly self-centred and… well, a nutjob.

As for motivation and personal power, look into Tony Robbins. He bought out a CD collection called ‘Personal Power II’ a very long time ago (It had been collecting dust on a bookshelf in our dining room). When I was about 12 I had no motivation and little confidence, but after listening to these things for a month I had really made a big improvement.

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+1 to tony robbins, completely love him

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Here’s my take on this.

These are the same con artists that sell “money spells” for $127 per item (I had a good laugh when I discovered this). The only development in “self-development” is as per term - self, meaning development (financial) of the author himself in account of gullible readers.

I put them in the same league as Nigerian scam letters.

7

Are you seriously comparing Tony Robbins to a con artist?

Or am I misunderstanding your post?

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I’m talking about the origninal post and what I’ve gathered about this Pavlina character. I really don’t have any idea what Tony Robbins is about, I can’t talk about him.

9

Ah ok.

Nah, Tony Robbins is the real deal - he speaks in such an enthusiastic tone and with such power that it really change your neuro-associations of things you fear.

He holds seminars etc, and is world renouned.

He was even in the Jack Black film ‘Shallow Hal’ - he was the guy in the lift.

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I first found his blog about a month ago and I really liked it at first. Many of the tools and ideas he uses in personal productivity field seem very efficient - I know as I tried some and it worked!

But when I got to reading about polarization and darkworkers, lightworkers, that just seems like a lot of fluff to me. Pursuing money and power is evil?!

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[FONT=“Georgia”]What a disgusting person.

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[FONT=“Georgia”]Made even more disgusting by the fact that other people buy-in to this rubbish.

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I used to be a big fan of Steve Pavilna. He wrote really good articles on self empowerment but I think lately he’s lost track of his purpose and focused more on making money and less on helping others.

My biggest qualm with Steve Pavilina is that his audience is mostly geared towards people who want self help. Most people who fit in that category are probaly handicapped on some level such as being low in finances, or lack self esteem, or can’t find direction. Who else would seek self help? Healthy people, who have positive self esteen, don’t need to go to a site that discusses self help, because they already have it. So people who desire self help seek it.

And those type of people don’t have the self empowerment to make bookoo bucks. I took a private psychic reading from his wife - who advertises to his audience of people who are attracted to self help - and it really wasn’t anything mind blowing. Someone else wrote that her readings are like getting help from a high school guidance counselor, and that fits the description, and she charges now $500.00 for thirty minutes based on her powers as a psychic.

When I had her reading, the rate was much lower, but I was dissastified with the reading, becuase it didn’t help me at all. She charged me $150.00.

Now at $500.00 that reading would have felt like rape. I agree she’s entitled to charge whatever she wants, but as a customer who tried her services, I can give my opinion of what that reading felt like. And her reading was not worth the amount she charged.

And to be honest, how can a psyhic offer life altering advice within thirty minutes to an hour? If you charge $500.00 for thirty minutes, you should offer me advice that would change the direction of my life for that rate, but she didn’t do that.

She offered a bunch of images about how she read my energy, and answered questions that were on my mind, and her responses were fairly generic. From my opinion, a good psychic would cut through your bull***t, read your energy, and tell you what’s wrong without you having to speak words. But that’s not Erin, she doesn’t really give you a thorough reading about your energy, she just gives you general images of what she sees, and then gives you a hefty tab based on her reading.

I will also say that at the time I had her reading I was going through some tough personal issues and I thought a psychic could offer some clalrity. She didn’t. Of course I am the one responsible for my reality - not the psychic - but then again the psychic should not be taking advantage of your mental state by charging you bookoo bucks while you suffer internally and they make
income off your helplessness.

My belief is that if Erin and Steve want to make money - fine - and there is nothing wrong with making astronomical amounts of money like a Bill Gates. However you are making it off a market off of people who lack self empowerment, and don’t have the resources to make bookoo bucks to fund your bank accounts.

Start advertising your business to corporate giants that have that type of money - but they don’t need to read your words of self empowerment - because they don’t have to go to your site in order to make their lives work to create that type of experience of money. They already know how.

Or you could cater to the market you already do have, and make your rates reasonable to the amount of money they can afford. But you also need to make sure you offer a service that is worth whatever you charge.

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I think he was in a few Farelly Brothers movies actually, not sure which others though, the cable guy I think.