On the surface, personal development and conspiracies don’t really have much in common. Personal Development focuses on mental and emotional health while asking participants to be self-reflective and centered. Conspiracy theories usually focus on government, politics and the supernatural. Very much externally focused.
Through this blog today I am going to dive a little deeper to show how similar these two are in fact very similar and why personal development junkies just can’t get enough of their beloved conspiracies.
First, I am going to share how researching conspiracies led me to personal development then I will share how the two industries are very similar and finally how personal development junkies can be seen in the same light as conspiracy theorists to the uninitiated.
Before I start though, I want to show the definition of a conspiracy so that we are all on the same page.
Conspiracy:
n. An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
That’s it. Doesn’t seem so far-fetched from this perspective does it?
Let’s get started. For my own journey from conspiracies to personal development, we need to go all the way back to grade 10 high school. This was when I got my first taste of the conspiracy world and I haven’t been able to satisfy that hunger ever since.
The first conspiracy I ever looked into was the death of 2Pac Shakur. 2Pac was the greatest rapper of all time and his life was, allegedly, cut short at the age of only 25 years old.
There were conspiracies galore about 2Pac’s death. There were people who said he faked his own death. There were people who said the government killed him and others who said he died because of a gang war.
I won’t get into all those details about the 2Pac theory but that was my first visit down the rabbit hole and I absolutely loved it. The thrill of uncovering something that other people weren’t aware of or being in the “know” was exhilarating for me. I didn’t yet know how much this would change my life.
At the age of 19, I read a book called “Killing Pablo” that was based on the true story of how the American government helped the Colombian government hunt down and murder Pablo Escobar. I have always been interested in cartels, gangsters and that kind of thing but this book took it to another level.
In the book, the author Mark Bowden, not only detailed the hunt for Pablo but also gave startling detail of American and Colombian government involvement in Pablo’s organization. This was the first time I had heard of governments working hand and hand with drug cartels. The same cartels they claimed to be hunting.
This was the book that led me down the rabbit hole that I still have not emerged from 16 years later. Government.
Governments working with drug cartels were just the tip of the iceberg of conspiracies surrounding nefarious government agencies.
Shortly after going down this rabbit hole, I started researching the events of 9/11. When 9/11 happened I had just turned 16 years old and I remember watching it live on tv in Spanish class at school.
9/11 research did it for me. I won’t get into the details of everything I looked at in my 9/11 days but I must’ve spent hundreds, if not more, of hours devouring any info I could find. If you want to know my thoughts you can view a YouTube video I made several years ago on the topic here.
I won’t claim to know what really happened on 9/11 but what I do KNOW is that we were lied to. Massively. One of the greatest lies ever told.
And so this led to me a question that would forever change my life. If they are lying to us about 9/11 then what else are they lying about? It turns out that the answer to that question is EVERYTHING!!
History, the law, politics, health and wellness, aliens, science, religion and spirituality and everything else under the sun and maybe even about the sun too…
I started to pretty much question everything I had ever been taught in school or that I was told was true by some sort of authority figure. When I say everything I mean absolutely everything.
Luckily for me, my career at the time afforded me the luxury of having all the time in the world to devote to researching alternative theories. I began devouring any and all books and documentaries I could get my hands on. It was an obsession that has not stopped or slowed down.
So how did this lead me to personal development?
It started when I began to question our educational system and how it is designed to create employees for the corporations of the world. Employees that are just smart enough to do their jobs but not smart enough to question what they have been led to believe as fact.
I knew I didn’t want to be one of those so I decided to start studying business and got my business diploma at the age of 25. Being an entrepreneur requires people to think outside of the box and outside of the norm of what most people are taught in school.
Soon after I graduated I found myself enrolled in a multi-level-marketing business that had a big emphasis on personal development. I learned more about business in one year with this company than I did from two years of business school.
I really enjoyed the personal development training that came with it too. It was very similar to the conspiracy world.
You might be thinking in what ways is it similar?
To start, personal development was teaching things that I was never taught in school. The same as conspiracies.
Personal development pushes you to question your belief system. Our belief system is anything we hold to be true about ourselves and the world around us. Sounds just like what conspiracies do too right? Conspiracies are all about questioning what we are told is true about the world around us.
In personal development, we are taught that looking at things from a different perspective can often bring us a better understanding of people and circumstances. Conspiracies are exactly that. A different perspective.
Through researching conspiracies, I became a new man with a new mission in life. Personal development gave me the tools with which to see that mission through.
Finally, what I learned through personal development completely changed the way I look at myself and my life. Much in the same way that researching conspiracies changed the way I look at the external world.
Taking a different perspective and being open to new possibilities are quite possibly the most empowering things a human can do. It will lead you to new heights and take you places that you never knew were possible. It opens up a plethora of possibilities for your life.
Whereas not asking questions or not being open to other possibilities keeps you stuck inside the box that society has put you in. You get the same old same old. Booooring!!
I have met many people through my personal development travels that took the opposite journey as I did. They moved from the personal development world to the conspiracy world.
I am sure it looked much the same as my own journey. I am sure that many p.d junkies once they started learning about all these amazing tools and knowledge start to ask “why was I never taught this in school?”
That will eventually lead to asking the questions what else wasn’t I taught in school or what do I currently believe about the world that just isn’t true? And down the rabbit hole they go.
Don’t worry about the naysayers or people that will call you names and try to ridicule you because they do not understand you. Find the others. Find the ones that are like you and find the ones that need someone like YOU in their lives.
You are so needed right now. You are a light in a dark world. Shine bright.
People will always ridicule that which they do not understand. We’ve all heard the names that people call those that research conspiracies. The personal development world is no different.
If you research any reputable personal development company you will without a doubt find people online that call them cults and say that they brainwash people.
This happens to both worlds because both worlds cause people to think and be different. Then those around them do not understand this transformation that they have observed in their loved one and so they lash out at it. They see it as a threat.
Hold strong though. If you are reading this I 100% know that your purpose in life is so much bigger than what others, and possibly even you can see. You can’t give up now. The Earth needs you. Humanity needs you. I need you!
To end this on a positive note, it does not matter what caused your awakening or if you got here through personal development or through conspiracies. What matters is that you are here. Now the only question is what are you going to do with this new perspective? How are you going to influence those around you? What kind of impact will you make?
Find the others. Together we are stronger!!
–King Rodo.