I am an addict.

No, not drugs, alcohol, or pills and not even ones featured on the show “My strange addiction” (Sylvie watched a few episodes). Not even binge-watching season after season of a show on Netflix.

I am an addict or for a better term a junkie of webinars. Every personal and professional development guru has turned to the “free webinar” as a way of marketing their programs. In fact, for an hour or 90 minutes (or in one case several hours; I turned it off after 3) of your time, they’ll give you a ginormous discount and some freebies, if you sign-up immediately for their paid course.

At times, I have signed up for so many, that I forget about them or better yet forget what the webinar is about. From these webinars, I have learned how our thoughts control our mind and ultimately our success, my hidden superpowers, how to bring abundance into my life, the power of affirmations, who my alter ego is (Cleopatra if you missed that blog), etc. Basically, all the webinars boil down to “change your negative thoughts to positive thoughts, change your life.” It simply is different branding.

Here’s the funny thing, at the beginning of 2020, I said that I would take a break from personal development courses to save my credit from overuse. Then I got sucked back in by the allure of a free webinar (and of course I wasn’t going to buy the program). Why are we a culture that is willing to pay someone else to teach us how to live more positively or have a better life or tune into our authentic self?

“A while back, our team polled over 1000 people who invested in personal development seminars/ courses, set goals, and worked on those goals for 90 days. The data from those polls was pretty shocking- 96% of their personal development efforts completely failed.” — Srinivas Rao, Why 96% of Personal Development Efforts Fail

The reason: Taking action. In order for your mindset to change, you must take action toward your goals to change it. My action: reciting affirmations daily (along with morning and nighttime prayers), exploring writing a book, and creating quarterly goals (both personal and business). And if at the end of the first quarter I don’t see progress, well then I’ll make myself some vegan, gluten-free mac n’ cheese (see recipe here) and drown my sorrows in a bowl of creamy goodness.