If you watch YouTube a lot, you might have seen adverts that promise huge transformations in just a few minutes a day.
Here’s a summary of one:
If you’re over forty, do military calisthenics for only a few minutes a day. You will become unrecognisable in thirty days.
Here’s another:
If your “mind goes blank during presentation,” fix it with 10 minutes per day of articulation training. If you want to sound smart and take the leadership, sign up. Do this now. And this is even better if you’re over forty! After twenty, reading only keeps you busy.
I have yet to meet someone who finds these adverts legit.
I personally find the articulation training advert laughable. They couldn’t bother to use the correct form of the word leadership. (You don’t take the leadership. You take the lead.) If they can’t get this right, one might imagine how bad the product is.
And who wants to only sound smart? Sounding smart is an egotistical vanity project. But intelligence (intelligence that comes from reading widely and living mindfully) and wisdom (wisdom that comes from emotional awareness and spiritual groundedness) are necessary to navigate the difficult journey of life.
The worst thing in the entire advert is the idea that reading will not make you more articulate. After twenty, reading only keeps you busy. The reason that statement irks me intensely is because it’s an outright lie. Reading and writing are by far the most effective ways to train verbal eloquence.
Many important skills (like reading, writing, physical strength, speaking well, etc.) can take much more time to master than a mere ten minutes per day for thirty days. But scams always promise massive results for nearly zero input.
That said, there is one thing that can change one’s life in only a few minutes a day: Meditation. You don’t have to spend a cent. You can just go sit quietly under a tree and observe the mind for ten to twenty minutes a day. Do that for a few months. See what happens.