
Ask HN: Thoughts on life coaches in general and Tony Robbins in specific - anondon
The whole idea of life coaches seems like snake oil at first glance. And what people like Tony Robbins have done is get rich off of telling people how to achieve goals in their life. Most of the advice has very little scientific basis and seems to delivered very eloquently to unsuspecting minds and this trend seems to have a religious flavor in the sense that people immersed in it cannot accept discussion apart from praise.<p>There has been very little discussion on this topic on HN and the hacker community generally.
Without turning HN into Quora, what are your thoughts on this topic?
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pitt1980
People find religion useful

Ideas can be useful even if they're not scientifically valid nuggets of fact

There are 7 billion unique people on the planet, all in unique situations, if
you reduce the ideas you find help to those with scientific basis that apply
in all 7 billion cases, you're left with a pretty small reservoir of ideas

I've found that a lot of self help books provide useful frame in which
thinking about how to approach different challenges in life

I found a fair amount of good food for thought

how much is that worth? I've found a good rule of thumbs is that if I can
invest a trip to the library, or a few minutes of my time while I drink a
coffee in Barnes & Noble, or 5 or 6 dollars for a used copy on Amazon, I have
good return on my investment

if I have to drop several hundred dollars to attend a seminar, I'm less
impressed with my return on investment, to the point that I'm probably not
going to go down that road

I think its helpful to be open to ideas wherever you can find them, then use
the supercomputer on top of your shoulders to decide if that helps you find a
useful solution to whatever problems you are going through in life

