“Success coaching often glorifies financial gain—but at what cost? This post explores the hidden mental health impact of hustle culture and why it’s time to redefine success beyond wealth.”
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Jonathan Arenburg is a Canadian author, speaker, and trained counsellor exploring how modern life clashes with our biology—shaping anxiety, depression, and PTSD.
Learn MoreHome > Mental Health > Behaviour and Personality > The Dark Side of Success Coaching – And Why We Need a New Definition of Winning
Success coaches. This title bothers me. Not because I detest what those who want people to win from a financial perspective, but because of the value and normative Behaviour around the idea of “the more money the merrier.” But does having a boatload of cash really make one a qualified success?
If we accept this to be true, then we have little choice but to see it as something to be fixed rather than an aspiration.
From my point of view, this is not so. Sure, a certain level of income can buy you peace of mind. Not worrying about where the money is going to come from to fix the car is better for one’s mental health, but the idea that the sky should be the limit — and justifying it will make you a “better person” — is maladaptive. As far as I’m concerned, it fits neatly into the box of dysfunctional thinking.
Even if successful people, at least in the capitalist sense, may be living their best life, the trickle-down effect on the majority — the less fortunate — leaves them caught in the toxic mental sludge of another’s wealth accumulation journey.
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