Is Steve Pavlina A Scam?
As a high-profile blogger, it is not surprising that Steve Pavlina is often critiqued and even dubbed as a scam.
Many people label him as a fraud or make jokes about him, all because they do not believe in his principles and advice. The Internet is a huge place, and there is space enough for both supporters and critics. But with the large number of people still not willing to believe in Steve’s concepts, many people tend to ask: “Is Steve Pavlina a scam?”
Steve himself faced his critics and answered all their allegations in a blog post he wrote back in 2006. The blog post is entitled ‘Is Self-Help A Scam?’
In his blog post, Steve acknowledges that there is indeed a dark side in self-help. He blames this on six different factors.
- False promises – Many self-help programs tend to make false promises about unrealistic results that people can enjoy when they sign up. These programs promise that by reading one book or attending one seminar, a person can already experience permanent changes in their lives. Although many false promises are easy to detect, many people still fall for them because they want those promises to be true as well. False promises are difficult to avoid in the self-help world as they are widely used to create marketing hype around various self-help products and programs. According to Steve, people can protect themselves from self-help scams by learning how to identify which promises are false, something that people can learn to do with a bit of practice.
- Fast and easy techniques – Many self-help programs promise fast and easy results. Once you hear those words, you should look for another program. The words ‘fast’ and ‘easy’ cannot be used in the same sentence as ‘self-help’. A genuine self-help process takes time, effort, commitment, and discipline. This is something that Steve reiterates in almost every blog post or article he writes. This is why Steve has called his program ‘personal development’, as he knows that growth takes some time to develop. This is one of the easiest ways to differentiate between real self-help and quick-fix scams.
- Lack of substance – Many self-help programs out there also fail to deliver any value at all. Many books and audio programs are guilty of this. Just like any other market, the self-help market is full of good products and bad products. The difference is, a bad product in the self-help market can harm more than just your finances but also your health and your entire life especially if it gives bad advice. Thus, it is important to really examine every self-help resource you use.
- No social contribution – Self-help programs that have no substance also usually face another problem: they make no meaningful contribution to the society. Again, this is another factor that can help you tell between a good self-help program and a scam.
- No integrity – It is hard to lie on the Internet. Steve advises that if you want to see whether a self-help expert is a scam or not, all you have to do is research their names online. Those who lie about their results obviously do not have integrity, which is a very important factor in establishing a presence in the world of self-help. In Steve’s case, his blogs and articles are very forthcoming about his successes as well as his failures. This is the difference between Steve and many self-help gurus out there. Steve does not simply teach; he shows his readers what is happening through his regular logs.
To learn more about Steve’s trials and experiments, all you have to do is read his honest and complete logs. He keeps nothing hidden, and everything on his blog is already in the public domain by his own choice.
Every self-help guru cannot avoid being accused of scamming people, but it’s in the work and the results that you can see the difference.
In Steve’s case, you only have to look at Steve’s work, which can be found in the various sections on this website, to know that the Steve Pavlina scam is probably not a scam after all.