HELP
Google “self-help industry” and you find a plethora of statistics…
It is a multi-billion-dollar industry, worth $13 billion in the U.S and $41 billion globally. Most motivational speakers are men but the average customer is a middle-aged woman between 40 and 50. Women make
up three quarters of self-help book readers, in fact, 70% of all industry customers are women. The self-help industry is tailored towards millennials, with 75 million millennial users globally. The mostly male motivational speakers earn over $1.6 billion every year, the top 17 most popular motivational speakers generate around $296 million with 12 of the 17 most prominent speakers 60 or older. Deepak Chopra has a net worth of $150 million, Tony Robbins $600 million….
When I google ‘help others industry’ statistics are harder to find, it's as if the 'help others industry' doesn’t exist. Yet 2014 figures show that total unpaid work in the UK had a value of £1.01 trillion, equivalent to approximately 56% of GDP. Globally, there is unequal gender distribution of caring responsibilities, with women spending up to ten times more time on unpaid care work than men.
So, despite the lack of a ‘help other’ section in the book store we clearly have a massive, global ‘help others industry’. For millennia many spiritual paths and thus humanity have placed helping others, compassion, kindness at their core. The success of Oprah Winfrey is based on a profound understanding of this spiritual, deeply interwoven connection between helping self and others. Oprah is worth $2.5 billion.
Helping others feels good, it creates a sense of belonging, gives a sense of purpose, helps keep things in perspective and is contagious. Helping others helps you live longer, boosts your self-esteem, creates stronger friendships as performing acts of kindness lifts your mood and ultimately makes you more optimistic and positive. Helping others reduces loneliness and isolation and creates connection with our community… The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.
Helping others is the best self-help in the world.
#community #gender #beinghuman