‘Parasitic, talentless vultures’: Comedian lashes out at ‘mindset’ coaches

Comedian Lawrence Mooney says the self-help industry is evil, and ‘mindset’ coaches will never make you happy.

The reason I decided to write this book is because I’ve consumed an inordinate amount of self-help content and it didn’t help.

Sure, I change for a day, I mouth some aphorisms and give change some lip service, then revert back to who I really am: a very angry, very funny, heavy-drinking bon vivant with a lust for life and a massive appetite for joy and fascinating people.

I think boring is the worst thing somebody can be, and they are everywhere. I’ve read all the self-help books and I’ve decided to write my own and I reckon I’ve nailed it.

Lawrence Mooney has written his own anti self-helf book.

EMBRACING YOUR LIMITATIONS (EYL)

Part of the whole success lie is to follow your dreams. To think big, to imagine yourself in your dream job. Let’s look at why this is exactly what you should not be doing.

Let’s do a positive visualisation. I know this is sounding a bit like, you know, actual self-help. But just relax and do it – it can be fun, and arousing if you choose, plus all the rich mindset coaches are doing it, even if for the most part they’re people that should be horsewhipped in city squares for the charlatans that they are.

Visualise: you wake, lying next to your perfect partner in the most magnificent house in the most beautiful location you can imagine right now. Maybe on a clifftop above an ocean, or in a posh tent in a forest by a river, or in a boutique apartment in the most urbane international city, or in a cabin on a mountaintop covered in snow. Dream this dream, and then I want you to positively visualise, in the most minute detail, how your day there unfolds. Now, I want you to commit to pursuing that dream and not let anything stand in your way. See it, reach out and touch it – believe it can happen to you.

HELLO NEUROSES. This visualising and imagining bulls--t is a one-way ticket to pain. It’s the fodder of the self-help and motivation industries. Of course you’ll fall short, feel inadequate, buy another book, scroll through Insta, and repeat.

Well, you won’t be buying another freakin’ self-help book, because EYL is the end of the line. Let’s get to work on getting you free. Step one: lose the dreams.

You don’t have the intelligence or the wherewithal or the determination to make your dreams come true. A tiny percentage of the population have that kind of once-in-a-generation determination.

Neil Armstrong didn’t buy self-help books, but he did stuff his lines up on the Moon. If he’d just embraced his limitations he would’ve been relaxed and happy up there, because you don’t need dreams to achieve great things.

Lawrence Mooney and wife Lou. Picture: Liam Kidston.

You need to be super relaxed, and the best way to do that is to be unencumbered, and the best way to do that is to not care, and the easiest way not to care is to EYL. Self-realisation. Dreaming about success is a distraction you don’t need – it’s static in your attic, pal, and that’s not our way of doing things. Stop dreaming and suddenly you’ll be present. Though don’t freak out – I’m not going to Power of Now you.

Stop dreaming. Only you really know how lazy you are, only you really know the lies you tell the world and the exquisite ones you save for yourself. Only you truly know your limitations.

And they can be your biggest talent; they can be your POWER if you embrace them. So, step one: DROP THE DREAMS.

No more shooting for the stars. The sky isn’t the limit, it’s just refraction of light; it’s an illusion, so get real. EYL. Set yourself free, baby.

THE MOTIVATION INDUSTRY

Back to the slippery slope of self-help.

And beyond that: the motivation industry.

Once we’re knee-deep in the motivation industry then the next stop is life coaches, then mindset coaches. Every victorious sportsperson or sporting team has a mindset coach these days! Though so do the thousands of defeated and unsuccessful sportspeople and teams, but we don’t hear from them much, do we? It must just be that the good mindset coaches know how to pick winners. They probably used to be bookmakers, and in a way they still are. They write books about mindset and they gamble on backing people they think are going to win in order to give their theories credence.

But if you truly are into self-help and motivation, you’ll never feel right. They don’t want you to be successful, just like the diet industry doesn’t want you to be thin. The self-help industry is happier if you’re in a state of confusion. The motivation industry relies on you pursuing your unattainable dreams. But if you don’t chase them, if you surrender and EYL, you don’t need these motivators anymore, and they’ve gotta hate that. Every year there’s a new motivator with the same message dressed up in a different costume. Change, they say. Shed your belongings. Stop eating sugar. Embrace the power of now. Say f--k. Meditate. Be sustainable. It’s okay to be disliked. Vulnerability is the answer. F--k off. Tell them all to F--k OFF.

There’s one thing you need to do to EYL, and the best way to do that is to DEMOTIVATE.

Oh, and mindset coaches out there, you bunch of parasitic, talentless, soul thief vultures: I hope you’ve got contents insurance because I’m going to find out where you live and burn your houses down.

Comedian Lawrence Mooney.

THE SELF-HELP INDUSTRY

The self-help industry is evil. Its practitioners just want fame and that sweet fortune – I know, I want the same.

We all do, but I’m different because I want you to stop and calm down while those morons want to evangelise you into a s--tstorm of neuroses and headless-running-chicken action.

You know what? Do sweat the small stuff. Fix it the first time and make it go away: it’s all small stuff. A stitch in time really does save nine, so make a stitch here and there along the way, then your couch time will be long and sweet.

Self-help is very attractive in the bookshop: become calmer, organise your life, realise your potential, evolve, become spiritual, have a more fulfilling sex life, grow your relationships, be richer, healthier, happier, be more sane.

Yep, that’s all great, but if you can’t do any of that s--t already then no book is going to help you. The best thing you can do is resolve yourself to yourself, and ask the universe, your family, your friends and yourself to accept you the way you are. If they can’t, then leave – not the universe, of course; this book isn’t some Philip Nitschke suicide manual. So you can’t leave yourself, and you’d have to read some serious Stephen Hawking to see if you can leave the universe. Resolving yourself to yourself is the first step to being immensely successful. Why? Because you’ll be relaxed, you will have EYL, and like a wild animal in its natural habitat you’ll be dwelling inside your “Limitation Field”.

Anyway, back to my mum’s saying. God helps those who help themselves? My belief is that you are your own god, which means you will help yourself if you help yourself. It’s so much more appealing than the mawkish, simpering, cloying, wet, wound-licking world of self-help. Stand up on your own two feet, straighten up and fly right, and if your situation is really s--t then do one small thing at a time to change it. Don’t cave in, don’t lie down and don’t surrender to self-help.

Lawrence Mooney's book, Embracing Your Limitations.

This is an edited extract of Embracing Your Limitations, by Lawrence Mooney: Allen & Unwin, $33. Out now

Originally published as ‘Parasitic, talentless vultures’: Comedian lashes out at ‘mindset’ coaches