Unhook Yourself from the Matrix
Do you ever get…?
- Joint pain
- Stiff back
- Dry eyes
- Runny nose
- Restless legs
- Tired in the afternoon
- Angry while sitting in traffic
- A craving for chocolate
- Unruly hair
If you experience any of these symptoms, consult your doctor. You may be suffering from—BEING HUMAN!
Last night I walked into the kitchen where my wife was preparing dinner and the TV was on in the background with one of those pharmaceutical companies pitching a newly invented drug to cure a newly invented disease. I was so appalled I looked them up—they have already sold BILLIONS of dollars of their “enlightenment in a bottle.”
I think it is time for us all to wake up and cut the strings to the puppet master that is commercialism.
Quick lesson in commercial marketing:
Step 1: Make people feel inadequate, inferior, ugly, stupid or weak.
Step 2: Reinforce this by pointing out what they lack (something you didn’t even know you lacked until they pointed it out).
Step 3: Then show an artificial contrast—the handsome guy with three makeup artists and painted-on six-pack abs or the airbrushed professional bulimic, I mean model.
Now here is the most delusional and damaging part:
Step 4: They get you to believe that your success will come from their magic potion, new golf club, fully loaded sports car or eye cream; then there is always that “little blue pill” for guys, or my favorite—the new KY Jelly Intense for girls (see ad below).
I’d love it if I could buy my success, fame, self-esteem, good relationships, health and well-being in a nicely clam-shelled package at the local Wal-Mart. But, that’s not how it works.
There is no quick fix, way to lose 30 pounds in 3 days, rub 10 years off your face, make money while you sleep, or too good and still true get-rich-quick schemes.
Stop buying into it; better yet, stop even listening. When you pull back the curtain to the wizardry of commercial Oz, there is just a greasy, overweight, (probably way too hairy) bearded bald guy in a way-too-small leisure suit giggling with delight as he rings the bell and the rest of respond by salivating.
Rouse yourself from your hypnotic stupor and unhook yourself from the mind-melding Matrix. Realize your only path to success is through a continuum of mundane, unsexy, unexciting and sometimes difficult daily disciplines compounded over time, leading to the results, life, and lifestyle of your dreams and desires. But that doesn’t make for alluring book titles, spellbinding infomercials, or direct mail with high response rates.
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As readers of Success I challenge all of us to support our friends/family/everyone we meet to resist the urge to believe the lies and let’s help people see the good in themselves so they don’t go looking for it from a product.
Let’s do it!
[Reply]
Darren,
Isn’t this just the marketing behind selling a product? Isn’t Success Magazine marketed the same way as these products?
(By the way, I am a subscriber!)
Thanks,
Andrew
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GO DARREN!
That was INCREDIBLE! You hit the BULLSEYE and popped the advertising balloon with that one! The ridiculous nonsense that passes itself off for marketing in the name of free speech is such a crock. Thanks for the direct HIT on the lack of integrity of our media ~ you sunk their battleship!
All the Best,
Bonnie Hanson
[Reply]
Darren Hardy Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Thanks Bonnie! Of course not all (or even most) advertising isn’t bad or lacking integrity. I am simply against the promotion that the key to your better health, weight condition, financial success, relationship magic is a magic bullet, pill or product. It is the daily discipline of good choices, decisions and behaviors compounded over time that yields a successful outcome. Straight forward, supportive and helpful solutions are great. Let’s just not overstate the outcome or the process by using airbrushed models and CG production.
[Reply]
Darren Hardy Reply:
July 14th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
See my comment to Bonnie Andrew. At SUCCESS our objective is to help guide and maybe even expedite your long and continuous journey to your grand success. You will never see any get rich quick, rub the lantern and sit on our couch waiting for the checks to come into your mail box articles.
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LOL!
That is too true. Love the line of the professional bulimic. Nothing beats a determined soul and persistance. I am teaching my 8yr old the difference between what he sees on the comercial and real life. Kid is getting it too!
Keep at em Darren.
Mark-
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Darren,
It goes beyond agreeing with you, I don’t watch TV and haven’t for over 20 years except for now and then when at a friends house or out some place. I am always appalled at how insulting to my intelligence they are. I am not inferring that I am all that smart, but the ‘MATRIX’ insults what little intellect I do have and offends my moral sensibilities. I wish to totally unplug, but the supermarkets tabloids still get me when I am standing in line. Thanks for pin-pointing the brain cancer in this society.
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How do I get my church youth to join Success for Teens or to get some of the Books for them?
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Darren Hardy Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Nii-Tackie – go to http://www.SUCCESSFoundation.org
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Great article Darren…really we need to wake up and say ‘no’ to this quick fixes. hope business will understand it’s better to add some values rather than fooling customers by lucrative advertisement.
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Marketing is the key force of all selling. This magazine is marketed the same way.
I read the magazine as well, and I like it. I am not a marketing expert, but I know a little bit about
Marketing, Marketing revolve around 3 emotions: fear, hate and love.
First: fear on not having enough, fear of not looking good enough, fear of not losing enough weight,
and so on.
Second: you should hate your immediate state and seek to change it
Third: you should change, and you must LOVE our new product, because if not you will never be good
enough.
Thanks for reading my comment.
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Touché… well said and about time! We need to pass this along to all the young people between 17 and 29!
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I quit watching or listening to TV or Radio except for what I decide is in it through my DVD/CD player. All that I see therefore is Motivation, no fear the worst pills. I don’t take the matrix flu shots or any FDA approved DOPE. Talk radio is another NO NO because I am not suffering from the Obamanation my friends wring their eyeballs over or from the rest of the World supposedly falling apart. I create my own reality enforced by SUCCESS Magazine, Ester & Jerry Hicks, Seth, Jim Rohn, Bob Proctor, Robert Kiyosaki and many others worth listening too or reading. I am 62 years old and feel better than I did 30 years ago when I worried about what the fearmongers believed.
Thank You Darren, for restoring SUCCESS
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This is SO true! I hate all of the stupid pharmaceutical tv ads! I personally can’t believe that people actually buy these products with all the crazy side affects they have! I just shared this post on Twitter…
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Fantastic post Darren. I am a doctor of chiropractic and a health coach to hundreds of patients in my community and this is one of the first paradigm shifts that I teach. There is no pill, potion, or lotion that will ever replace a lack of exercise, poor nutrition, or toxic thinking. We need to eat, move, and think by design to experience true health and maximize benefits of health promotion rather than focusing on the prevention or treatment of disease.
Thanks Darren, keep spreading the truth!
Dr. Ryan Hewitt
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Darren, Great post, I’m so glad I signed up for Seeds of Success. I too want to help others unplug from the Matrix. I’m an aspiring writer, and hope to one day have my own words grace the pages SUCCESS. I stand up and applaud You Darren, as well as Deborah, and the rest of the your Master Mind Team. I’m grateful for having found SUCCESS Magazine, and thanks for the free gift with my subscrption. It will hopefully help someone in need of IT.
Keep doing what you do Darren & Team.
Damien Balderrama
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In response to Andrew’s comment about Success being marketed in the same way as the typical get rich, or thin, or beautiful quick gimmicks I don’t think that’s true at all. In fact what we’re told over and over is that it’s not easy, that’s why everybody’s not doing it. It’s hard but we have to choose between the two inevitable pains of life, the pain of discipline or the pain of regret
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When you have deep pockets and no ethics, it’s amazing what you can sell to consumers. It’s sad that people fall for these gimmicks, but hopefully if we spread the word, less will. Thanks for the awesome post Darren!
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Generally good advert info.
However, generalising models as bulimics is not amusing at all, except to those adults who are still ignorant, hateful, or hopelessly insecure (or all the above). Like it or not, believe it or not, many girls are naturally thin. If you don’t like looking at certain types of people, look the other way and get a life.
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So true! Isn’t BIG PHARMA part of the “plan”? It’s not just blatant marketing that is appalling…. it’s that they are using the oldest trick in the book… keep ‘em sick and tired, angry or scared…. people will buy anything to avoid those things!
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That was a really good post Darren. You basically summed it all up in this sentence:
“your only path to success is through a continuum of mundane, unsexy, unexciting and sometimes difficult daily disciplines compounded over time, leading to the results, life, and lifestyle of your dreams and desires.”
As always, a pleasure to read!
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Thanks, Darren – great post!
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But Darren, BeautiControl does have that eye cream and miracle products to make you look 10 years younger! Didn’t they do an Instant Face Lift on you when you came to give us that great awe-inspiring-go-DO-it-speech? (which I LOVED, by the way). Even our products won’t make you successful or beautiful without a daily routine and a positive attitude! Thanks for your inspiration!
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