Guruless
There's an entire industry made up by gurus and life coaches who make money off of telling you what to do and how to live your life with abundance and intention and gratitude.
In a world that's becoming ever more agnostic, we are turning to these larger-than-life presences on stage and online to discover our own God and to stave off the longing in our hearts.
Do we need all these coaches acting as gurus in our lives or are we simply shifting the burden of religion off of gods and onto real, deified humans?
The fathers of psychoanalysis, larger than life icons for many in their own right, Freud and Jung had thoughts on the purpose of religion as a way to fill a void. The father figure shifts the burden of responsibility off of our own shoulders and so long as we can go to confession and say a few Hail Marys we will be avowed of our sins and led on our merry way.
The alternate option is that we turn inwards for the answers.
No one has all the answers and if you tried to hire experts on everything to “life coach” your whole world, you'd be broke before you know it.
We have to listen to our hearts. Lead yourself with what matters most to you. There are no mind readers so having someone else tell you how to do everything may not even resonate with what you want.
Self-help or success seminars make you feel great. They empower you for a minute but then that energy is gone and you're left right where you started unless you make a change for yourself.
There's a subset of people who become self-help junkies. Life coaching and gurus are their drugs of choice. They attend seminars and webinars, boot camps and classes to get the latest hack from a hype man or woman on stage. Adrenaline and dopamine surging through your body after these events much like a runner's high and so we get hooked.
By being hooked we no longer function on the opinions of ourselves. We reheat and serve up a repetition of whatever hot mess the guru is cooking up.
Everyone has an interesting story to tell. Everyone has an opinion. Take the time to reflect for yourself. You don't need a guru telling you how to think or what to do.
My friend Janet Di Bello and I talk more about this subject of gurus and coaches on the FlowCast this week.
P.S. This is not the same as having mentors. The mentor’s role is to raise the mentee up to one day reach or surpass the level of the mentor.