Internet Self-Help Guru Steve Pavlina Decides to Have Sex with Women Who Are Not His Wife
Photo by: Nevit Dilmen
For the past several years I have been following Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development blog, www.stevepavlina.com. I first stumbled across his blog about three years ago after typing in the words, “what is my life’s purpose,” into Google, whereupon I landed at this blog post. I was amazed at the virtual poetry of his writing style and loved the simplicity of the actual advice, which he boiled down into four simple steps:
Here’s what to do:
- Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).
- Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”
- Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.
- Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry. This is your purpose.
After reading this article and getting inspired about the possibilities in my own life I found myself digesting reams and reams of his articles on a variety of topics that were unique, engaging, and enlightening. The most notable aspect of Pavlina’s blog is the sheer size of the thing. It has hundreds and hundreds of interesting articles. A lot of value for free. Pavlina inspired me to start this blog, and I used his suggestions and advice as to how to go about doing it.
Over the years, like many habits or interests, I found myself less mystified with Pavlina, especially when he took up a raw diet and seemed to post about his experiences in that area endlessly. Having a lot of experience with holistic nutrition and in the natural products industry, I’ve known many raw-foodists and my impression is that while consuming raw food should be an important component in our diet, going all-raw can be a bit extreme and the disciples of that mode of thought can at times appear a bit fanatical. Perhaps this was a warning sign.
That being said, I still read his other personal development articles with some level of interest and was reasonably excited when he announced that he would be publishing his first book in the fall of 2008. I even obtained an advanced press copy of the book, “Personal Development for Smart People,” in order to write a review of it on my blog. The enticing thing about writing a review of the book was that Steve promised to post links to reviewers’ blogs on his website, which receives many thousands of visits per day.
After getting my copy of the book I read it quickly and thoroughly. I can’t say it was easy to read quickly because not long after opening it did I realize that something within its pages wasn’t resonating with me. While I loved many of his personal development and entrepreneurialism blog posts, something was preventing me from connecting to his book and to this day I can’t exactly find the words to describe how I feel about it.
A former computer games programmer, Pavlina gives the impression that he lives his life as if it were some grand math problem or scientific experiment. That attitude towards life creates ample opportunity for writing about experiences and personal trials in a unique way, but ultimately in such a fashion that the replication of which would be impractical or impossible for many of us “regular people.”
An example: Pavlina writes several articles about the merits of “Polyphasic Sleep,” which basically entails abandoning the traditional method of sleeping 6-8 hours a night for a series of shorter naps throughout any given 24-hour period. The first thought I had while reading about this was, “cool,” given how he was able to come up with so much additional time to complete projects and be productive. The second thought I had was,”How the hell does his wife deal with him?,” knowing that my wife would never stand for me not going to bed with her and being up all hours of the night.
“Polyamory,” the Next Great Pursuit of Steve Pavlina
Which brings me to the point of my post. So Steve Pavlina’s wife, Erin, is also a blogger and the focus of her work is on Psychic Readings. He mentions her frequently in his blog and if you read Pavlina enough, you get the sense that you understand a little bit about how their relationship works.
Recently, however, Pavlina began writing about feeling unfulfilled in his marriage. That he had all of this “love” to give but felt that he couldn’t sufficiently express it within the context of a traditional monogamous marriage. This came as a surprise to me, but I was even more surprised when he announced to his readers this week that he was going to abandon his monogamous marriage for a “polyamorous” lifestyle, which basically entails opening up the marriage so he can have sex with other women. I mean, so he can share his “love” with other women.
On one level, I don’t want to be one to judge anybody else’s lifestyle choices, especially given the nature of my own blog, in which my objective here is to Quiet the Monkey Mind, the judgmental, chattering beast within who wants to make others wrong without seeing my flaws or lessons to be learned in my own life. On the other hand, I can’t help but experience some outrage and disgust, not necessarily with his choice, but with the blatant rationalizations and seemingly ego-guided reasons behind his decision. I am especially turned off by Pavlina’s justification of his decision to seek out sex (loving relationships) with women outside his marriage because he markets himself as a self-help guru who lives consciously and encourages others to do so, but this particular choice, when you dissect his rationalizations behind it, has very little to do with conscious living and just about everything do with trying to find ways to satisfy his sexual urges.
The other thing that really seems creepy about the whole thing is his unwillingness to accept that his two children (five and eight years old, respectively) might possibly be harmed by daddy’s new personal development project. Finally, there’s his wife, Erin, seemingly unwillingly placed in the middle of Steve’s latest escapade. He reports that she’s okay with his choice, but if you check out her blog here, you’ll find that she mentions nothing of this new “joint” decision to allow Stevie to wet his wick elsewhere. In fact, I would think that if his wife Erin were so on board with his latest endeavor, she would probably write a post about how she supports his choice and is excited about having sex with other men. But instead, what you will see is a post about her attempt to go on a raw-diet for 30 days (emulating her husband’s penchant for 30-day trials) with her apparent objective to shed some weight from her nearly 200-pound frame.
I mention Erin’s weight because this situation reminds me a bit of John and Elizabeth Edwards, in that there seemed to be such a mismatch in terms of physical appearances between these two that it seemed only logical that the better looking half of the partnership would be seeking out opportunities to share his “love” with women outside the marriage. When it was announced that John had in fact been involved with another woman, was anyone really that surprised, other than John-boy himself, who was probably so deluded by his own ego that he:
1) Thought what he was doing was okay, or
2) Thought he was so talented that he could get away with a clear no-no.
What does this have to do with Steve Pavlina and his wife, Erin? Well, if you’ve spent any time at all on his blog, you will notice that Steve writes frequently about diet, physical exercise, and overall nutrition. I wouldn’t exactly call the man a lady-killer, but he’s reasonably attractive and obviously physically fit. Then you see photos of Erin Pavlina, who clearly doesn’t embody the picture of personal fitness. I asked myself when I saw a recent picture of the two of them at some event with some other fauthors rom his publishing house, why this supposed master of personal development doesn’t coach his own wife to achieve a healthy weight? I instantly thought that there was a physical attraction mismatch within the relationship and it all suddenly made sense a few weeks later when Steve announced to the world that his next great experiment would be to spread his overwhelming love with other women within the context of sexual relationships.
My Take on What is Going On With Steve
The man is enjoying new levels of riches and fame with the publication of his debut book. He speaks all over the country at various seminars and events. Considering the demographics of the self-help market is dominated by women, undoubtedly he has inspired many women to change their lives for the better and has experienced the temptation of fulfilling his sexual desires with these many women who now look at him starry-eyed, as if he’s a master, a guru, with great knowledge and experience to endow upon others. I have seen this so many times, when men dispelling advice or coaching to women get caught up enmeshed in temptation. Fueled by his ego and the idea that he can do no wrong and justify all of his experiences as personal development challenges, he decides that there is a way to satisfy his carnal desires without having to go through a messy divorce, especially now that his assets are significantly greater than when he first hooked up with Erin. The classic “having your cake and eating it too” syndrome he could enact, masquerading as a noble desire to simply experience more love in the world, as if loving a wife and two kids were not enough. As if love could not be expressed by helping the homeless or ending hunger or starting a foundation, as if love expression only entailed penis insertion in new and exciting locales!
What bothers me most about his choice is again, not the choice itself. It’s the reasons behind the choice which I’ll go into greater detail now, addressing several of the points he makes in his lengthy diatribe defending his decision.
Dear Erin
He begins perhaps by speaking directly to his wife in a section labeled, “Hurt,” in which he celebrates hurt as a path towards greater love (so as to convince his wife and family that getting hurt by his choice will only lead to the expansion of their love):
Even when you’re faced with negative emotions, can you see beyond them and consciously choose to respond with love instead of reacting with fear?
Can you see how helpful this process is in the long run? The more you get hurt, the more you develop your ability to choose love.
Isn’t it better to accept the hurt as it comes, process it, let it go, and then move on? The human heart has a great capacity to heal. If you get hurt, you’ll recover. If you hurt others, they’ll recover too.
Translation: Honey, don’t you see that by allowing me to share my love with others, the hurt that you may experience is simply an opportunity for you to grow? Don’t you remember that you and I chose a path of growth, so shouldn’t you be excited by this new chance to expand your consciousness?
Allow the manipulation to commence. There is nothing conscious about intentionally hurting other people in the pursuit of your own growth.
Then, Steve goes further down this road, justifying causing others’ hurt as a method of staring down fear in the face, as if conquering fear, whatever the cost, is justifiable. Then he tips his hand a bit as to his true intentions, with a allusion to Scooby Doo that is simultaneously incredibly geeky and rather perverted:
It’s better to experience (or cause) one real broken heart than to fear a thousand imaginary ones.
But I can’t live my life cowering under the covers like Shaggy and Scooby. I’m gonna be kick-ass Fred.
You just know Fred was all over Daphne and Velma in the back of the Mystery Machine.
This guy is a self-help guru?
Next, Steve goes on to discuss the institution of marriage, which he refers to as a “consciousness-lowering bugaboo,” and “some sort of disease.” Then, in an odd turn, he half-heartedly celebrates his own marriage:
That being said, I’m actually glad I got married. Huh? The reason I say that is that being married for so long (almost 11 years) has helped me understand and relate to other people who are married. I rather like that I can share my thoughts about marriage as an insider. There’s just no way I could understand the realities of marriage if I hadn’t experienced it firsthand. Obviously with only one marriage under my belt, I may not be the world’s greatest expert on the subject, but it’s a lot better than having zero experience.
Translation: You’re cool and all, honey, but really this marriage has been nothing more than a bullet on my “self-help guru” resume. How can I dispel advice to others on relationships if I haven’t been in one myself? Now that I have that block checked, I ‘m ready to parlay this marriage in to greater opportunities to sell my personal development services.
Next, in one of his more sickening rationalizations, Steve talks about his kids and family, saying that people who criticize his choice don’t know what they’re talking about because they don’t personally know his five and eight-year old kids. He says:
Overall I expect that this change will be very positive for my kids.
Emily and Kyle are both very social and love meeting new people. Whenever we have house guests, my kids love interacting with them.
My son Kyle loves to say to people, “Come play Halo with me, so I can kick your butt!” He’s quite a trash talker when he plays, which is pretty funny to see from a five year-old.
Past experience tells me that my kids love it when interesting, open-minded people are brought into our lives. It just means more people for them to socialize with. The extra stimulation is good for them.
Do you have a clue what it’s like to have a personal development expert and a psychic medium as your parents? My daughter actually goes around telling her classmates, “My Daddy is the smartest man on earth, and my Mommy talks to dead people.”
Keep in mind that my kids share much of my DNA. First, that alone should scare you. Secondly, if you try to convince them they’re going to be damaged by my choices, they’ll just laugh at you. Then my son will proceed to kick your butt at Halo,
Translation: Honey, you know how much our kids like to meet new people, just think of much they’ll grow and learn from the litany of strange people that I’ll be bringing home. They will get a real kick out of coming into my bed in the morning and making a game out of trying to guess what kind of lady daddy brought home last night. Plus, my polyamorous friends will be great play partners for our kids. Just think, you could get a lot of work done while my sex partners play with our children! Oh and by the way, I’m the smartest man on Earth.
By the way, I know that Halo is a pretty intense, violent video game and it personally disturbs me to know that a five-year old is playing a game like that. The last line is the kicker: my choice is right and if you question my choice my kids will laugh at you, which only backs up that I’m right! It is stunning to read this coming from a person who teaches a pursuit of higher consciousness. And by the way, why exactly should be “scared” about the fact that your children share your DNA. Do you know something we don’t, that you are an ego-maniac whose genes actually shouldn’t be spread? Or are you just so scary smart that more of you on the planet will tip the balance of humanity and existence itself in favor of the super-race you are creating? Odd comment, to say the least.
Next Steve plugs his tiresome book, by breaking down Polyamory according to the “Univeral Growth Principles” he identifies in “Personal Development for Smart People.”
Truth – Polyamory can be practiced with total openness and honesty and no deception.
Real truth would be admitting to himself and the world that he is desperately trying to satisfy his sexual desires. Instead of practicing a little self-discipline (which he touts frequently in his other blog posts), he will create a situation in which he doesn’t have to lie or be deceitful to his wife about having sex with other women, and then gets to trumpet that noble decision as an expression of truth. In other words, he gets to dump his garbage on his wife and then call it being truthful, which he can later celebrate as an expression of virtue.
Love – Polyamory means many loves. Creating and maintaining authentic, loving connections is its very core.
Real love would be to set his wife and family free from his sexual cravings. The term “Polyamory” is one of the great circumlocutions or oxymorons in our language, like calling a nuclear missile a “Peacekeeper.” Yes, it may have kept the world out of some conflicts, but to call a nuclear arsenal that could destroy the Earth dozens of times over a Peacekeeper is a bit of linguistic gymnastics. Knowing how difficult it is to grow and maintain the loves in my life (my wife, child, unborn child, and extended family) the thought of complicating life with more people, emotions, and expectations is mind-boggling. The only way I could see it working is for it truly just be about the sex because there’s no real way for a man to fully be present and in the state of love at all times with multiple women. It’s hard enough to manage one’s job and one’s wife, or to juggle giving love and affection to both a child and a spouse. Steve essentially equates love with sex, and while love certainly can involve sex, it is perfectly possible to express love without intercourse. A guy with his influence and reach and many millions of readers could expand love in the world in a myriad of ways. Sleeping with other women is just that, sleeping with other women.
Power – Will polyamory be empowering? It will be a major growth experience to learn about it and practice it, so regardless of what degree of success I enjoy, it will empower me to grow. It will also require me to further develop my self-discipline, my communication skills, and more. This is a path that will surely build strength, not one that will feed weakness.
I honestly don’t know how to tackle this one, he’s just so off base. I’m not sure how sleeping around develops self-discipline. Weren’t many of the great masters celebate, anyway?
Courage (Love + Power) – Is this the courageous path or the cowardly path? It should be pretty obvious that going polyamorous, and especially writing about it along the way, takes Courage.
Real courage would be having the balls to divorce his wife and face the possibility of losing his wealth and his family in pursuit of his desire to have sex with many women. Steve is a skilled communicator (manipulator) for sure, who would rather attempt to convince his poor wife that this is a great choice so he doesn’t have to gather up the courage to make a choice that might be uncomfortable and costly, both financially and emotionally.
There’s a lot more to rail on about in his blog post, but I’ll wrap it up here for now. But first, one last point from Steve that simply can’t go without commentary:
My primary aim is to become as truthful, loving, and strong in character as I can (i.e. aligned with Truth, Love, and Power)… and to share what I learn as my legacy to humanity. We’ll see how far I can get before I’m assassinated.
Um, ever heard of messiah/martyr complex? Hey Steve, newsflash: living out your sexual fantasies doesn’t make you Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, MLK, JFK, or RFK. I guess literally spreading his seed is a legacy to humanity, perhaps in the form of more little Stevies running around as a result of this experiment, but come on, isn’t this comment going a bit too far in the category of adoration of self? Steve – you’re sticking your willie in lots of places, not feeding the masses!
Finally, a man supposedly dedicated to oneness, openness, and consciousness refuses to engage in any sort of debate over the merits of his decision. As if he knows the law and questioning of the law will result in expulsion from the school of personal development:
I recommend that the people who [disagree with his choice] should go back to my very first article (The Courage to Live Consciously) and start over from scratch, since obviously the message about living consciously hasn’t gotten through to them yet. Go back and chew on 2004 for a while. I’ll still be here when you’re caught up.
Translation: I know what consciousness is and you don’t. If you don’t agree with me, that just means you haven’t “gotten it” yet and need to start over on your path.
In some circles, we would call this type of thinking the markers of a “Cult of Personality,” wherein the Supreme Leader knows the laws and creates the laws by whatever actions he wishes to engage in. Disagreement results in ridicule, accusations of lack of consciousness, banishment, or worse.
The last thing I’ll say about this today is, Steve, there’s a resource for people like you and it’s not the “Polyamory” community. It’s called Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, and their website is right here. And guess what, you don’t have to pay some self-trained personal development guru to help you. It’s absolutely free.
And if that doesn’t work, get a puppy.
P.S. Unlike Mr. Pavlina, I welcome debate on this subject. I look forward to reading your comments.
Sphere: Related Content
You definitely had some food for thought in your blog post, but I think that making conclusions about how Erin feels based on no information is not the way to go. To help you get more information, here is Erin’s response posted in the forum:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/284133-post26.html
And for the record, I am not a Pavlina zombie. I personally would NEVER do what he is doing. But OTOH, I think it is impossible to make actual judgments about anything I know so little about, and Steve’s choice is one of those things. I don’t know Steve and Erin, and two blog posts are not enough to know what their motivations really are. On the other other hand
this sort of choice is one that is automatically lined with huge personal land mines, and there is a high, high chance for failure.
If Steve and Erin are approaching this as real partners, they have a much better chance of success. If not…well, I guess the divorce will be rather public as well.
Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Rachel.
You are definitely right that I am going out on a limb when it comes to making assumptions about how Erin feels about this whole thing. In fact, I wrote her a separate email to encourage her to write a full blog post about it, because until then, the only thing we can do is make assumptions.
And thanks for linking to the forum for us. I thought for a moment about checking her forum and didn’t see this reply in his forum (although I read through a lot postings there before writing my post).
That being said, I see nothing even in her comments on the forum that would indicate this is something she is excited about. It seems that she is tolerating it and hoping for the best. She says: “Steve does not desire an end to our relationship,” which from my perspective, is the problem. I would have a lot more respect for the guy if he realized he could no longer continue on within the context of the marriage and decided to end it.
My bigger problem is less about the actual decision and more about the tone and attitude that Steve is taking with this whole thing. I have a lot of exposure to addiction issues, etc., and his case seems like a textbook sex addict situation, combined with a “guru-complex.” I have read many, many of his posts and have never seen him quite so defensive, argumentative, and irrational.
Clearly, Steve P is a psychopath. This pattern comes out once you’ve read enough of his posts.
I happened to look at Steve’s blog yesterday, after not reading for it for a long time. Holy Tamales! When he started doing the raw food thing, I stopped reading his blog, not because I am against being a raw foodist, but because it was a radical departure from the material that he had posted on his blog prior to that. I wasn’t interested in the raw food experiment. But, yeah, I think he’s jumped ship with this new “experiment.” The power has gone to his head, as has happened before, in history, with some individuals who have become very successful or have a large following. He has lost it.
Thanks for taking the time to write this. I am not sure if framing his actions as that of an addict is entirely accurate, but I can’t think of a better label. Do you anticipate an honest recounting of his ‘experiment’ should it prove to have been a mistake?
“My bigger problem is less about the actual decision and more about the tone and attitude that Steve is taking with this whole thing. I have a lot of exposure to addiction issues, etc., and his case seems like a textbook sex addict situation, combined with a “guru-complex.” I have read many, many of his posts and have never seen him quite so defensive, argumentative, and irrational.”
The tone issue is actually the biggest concern I have with the post as well and one of the main reasons why I said you had a lot of good points in your entry. His tone IS very different from his other experiments. Partly it’s because he is being uncharacteristically defensive, and partly because this new thing is not really an experiment at all. He has already made his choice and value judgment and he is acting on it. Before, he had a “wait and see” attitude. This time, he “knows” what is correct for him before he starts and he is simply acting on it.
I also think he is definitely conflicted in ways he is not ready to deal with yet and he may in fact be acting from old negative issues that have been boiling under the surface. They may be “ready” to come out now because many other aspects of his life are doing well and it’s “safe” to deal with this now.
I’m glad you wrote to Erin and asked her to write more about this herself. I am not totally satisfied with her forum answer either, but I am also not ready to make conclusions about this choice based on an absence of information. It will be very interesting to see what more Erin says, if anything.
Just curious: you seem to be vehemently opposed to polyamory, and to have made a lot of assumptions that it’s really all about sexual variety – and inherently selfish and harmful, especially when poly people are also parents.
Do you actually know any poly people? Talked to us about our lives, our relationships? Our families?
Do you honestly believe monogamy (whether lifelong or serial) is the only “right” option for committed intimate relationships?
I challenge you have the courage to get to know some of us. There are lots of poly folk around, we’re not hard to find. Even though this screed of yours reflects bigotry, ignorance, and reflexive fear, the thing about blogs is they provide room to grow and change.
Nice article. I love reading in-depth analysis on Steve’s new direction, especially when they’re of the opposite opinion of him. I would love to read more articles by other bloggers who have a negative response to Steve’s thoughts. It helps me to see things more clearly. When you’re bombarded with positive reinforcements in the pavlina forum, you start to get a bit confused.
Strange the book didn’t really resonate with me either and I can’t exactly pinpoint why? Maybe it was a bit too much on the surface and I think maybe that’s the case with Steve in general. He’s a fantastic writer, easy to read and I can see how his words can easily manipulate the reader but not sure if he really is as deep as he makes out to be. I think at times he’s still a bit like a young boy that doesn’t want to face reality and so uses this fancy dancy experiments to justify his reality. I think the thing that makes this obvious to me is when he talks about being an “ex crim” aka petty thief. Every time he brings this up I cringe, because it’s seems to me that this is the big deal for him and it’s such a rebellious thing for him to do. Sure, it was rebellious, but that was years ago man. Go shoot some heroine right now and then I would be impressed. He’s living in the past with his rebellion, move on. By the way I was a petty thief too when I was much younger, do I dwell on it, nup. I learnt some valuable lessons about addiction and then moved on and hardly think about it anymore. Maybe I should write a novel about it too.
Thanks for reading, Martin. One of the big no-no’s about addiction is diagnosing other people. That should be left only to the addict, ultimately. So clearly I don’t really know if he’s a sex addict. But given the only evidence I have, that is the feeling I’m getting.
As to your other point…I just don’t know if he’ll be honest with us in case this thing backfires. Even if it does backfire, he’ll just chalk it up as a part of the “hurt/growth” cycle he prefaced his blog post about.
Once again, I appreciate you reading, commenting, and calling me out on the addiction diagnosis thing.
You really don’t have Erin’s side, as she has more fully stated it in the forums. Here’s an excerpt:
“Although Steve shares himself openly through his blog, he does not engage in intimate relationships with other people besides me. I’ve always thought this was a shame. I don’t want to keep him to myself…. I have learned to put myself in a high state of awareness and consciousness whenever I need to process something that is causing me fear. When I remind myself that Steve is not taking his love somewhere else, but simply expanding his field to include others, I feel blessed to be with a man who has the courage to explore life honestly even if it means defying social norms. It’s all part of his path to make the world a more conscious and loving place. Growth is not always easy, but it is always worth it.”
Her view on the whole thing, and how her view was obviously the product of living with her husband these years, is an interesting topic in itself.
Wow, that’s really fascinating Steven, thanks for bringing that to my attention.
I actually emailed Erin directly and she replied saying that she does support him and that I should listen to their latest podcast.
I actually couldn’t bring myself to listen to it, as I don’t really have 103 minutes to spare on something that has become a mere curiosity, as opposed to something I think I might learn something from.
I just can’t relate to this kind of talk, from either of them, and again, I can’t help but being remind of John Edwards for some reason. That woman he had an affair with had compared him to MLK or Gandhi and it seems like Erin has her guy up on such a pedestal that it doesn’t seem healthy or balanced. I mean, he’s not the savior of mankind or anything but the reverence with which she discusses her desire to let him share his love with the world is the stuff of Branch Davidians or something.
Anyhow, like I said in my post, I’ve already grown dissatisfied with Pavlina’s work, even before this latest dealio, so I’m just going to watch from the sidelines from here on out.
Doesn’t make his earlier work less effective, however, so I still might go to site to read some of the two years old+ articles.
Thanks for reading!
Paul and the Monkey
Hi I was married to a man like Steve for 28yrs. They are called self centred control freaks where I come from. I have learnt he has cheated on me for years and years. The best thing he can do is leave his wife if he wants to share his love and wisdom. His wife and kids will have more respect for him later. They can still be friends and work together. After a year without my Ex I have grown way beyond him and intend to be more successful than him even if I’m starting out at 50 with little education. I know I am smart and can do anything I want to. No matter how he tries to hide it Steve has a huge ego and is in denial
i feel relieved that someone actually took the time to put what I was similarily thinking into an intelligent document for others to read.I imagine once steve reads more criticism of this new polamory venture —his plunge into supposed greater “oneness”(I wonder, how is sleeping with an extra one or two or five people helping him to encompass the all or whole of oneness?)— he will tailor his rationalizations to plug up the the holes in his defensive reasonings of “why”.
I don’t have a problem with people leading their lives in whatever manner they choose. go have an orgy, what’s it to me? but i feel it’s fair for me to have an opinion about your choices if you’re going to wave your bare a** all over the internet and claim guru-ism about them.
It’s just he seems like steve is trying to making it look like he is seeking the route of polamory for reasons other than why he is truly doing it. and i could not possibly begin to guess what his true reasons are. I surmise it may not be for the reasons he is stating because his reasons aren’t making logical sense when comparatively lined up with each other. They are contradictory in my opinion. If you read from his first post on this subject all the way to his most recent post (and if you are a “SMART” person) you will see the blazing contradictions in his rationalizations. which would be fine if he were treating this whole thing as if it were truly an experiment. in an experimental situation a reader would expect the experimenter’s opinions to vacillate until he finds his truth.
but pavlina is taking a defensive stance in his writing. as if polamory were the highest, most loving thing on earth he could possibly be doing. (other than exposing his five year old son to Halo. for someone so “SMART” and conscious and a techofile i would think he would be aware of the whole garbage in/ garbage out rule. so as an analogy, I would think: feed the imagination violence, hey guess what thoughts your brain chooses to think? hmmm maybe violent ones? especially at such an impressionable and developmental age.)
—————-
steve wrote in one of his posts that if his marriage did not take the polamory route that he was ready to get a divorce anyway. (no pressure to concede erin)
And then to requote Erin (as was quoted above)
“… When I remind myself that Steve is not taking his love somewhere else, but simply expanding his field to include others, I feel blessed to be with a man who has the courage to explore life honestly even if it means defying social norms. It’s all part of his path to make the world a more conscious and loving place. Growth is not always easy, but it is always worth it.”
uhh erin, he would have taken his love somewhere else. he was ready to divorce you. ah, but that would be a complicated, financial and personal mess. not to mention a poor subject for a blog. (six months of such posts as: “how i slogged through my painful divorce and negotiated visitation rights”…)
I commend pavlina for helping to further hat has always been an interesting conversation in our culture. It’s just the egoic defensive stance behind his posts and reasoning that don’t feel quite on the money for me.
but hey, speaking of money…i am sure it is no accident that he managed to mastermind his personal crisis into a controversial, traffic building, blog topic.
Hi Stacey,
Thanks for reading and taking the time to write such a thoughtful response. Clearly you and I are sharing a brain on this one and I’m frankly a little surprised more people aren’t as bothered about this as we are.
Not because a guy out there is choosing to “expand his love,” but instead because an influential self-development blogger is doing something that appears to be quite selfish and aligned with his base instincts while masquerading the whole thing as a manifestation of higher consciousness, and being pretty defensive about it all along with way.
Not sure if you’ve had a chance to check out his blog since his big announcement, but he has a post in which he diagnoses people who “remotely” disagnose other people with disorder (i.e. people like us) using a brand new disorder that he made up. He calls it Remote Diagnosis Disorder and it’s so obvious that he’s tired of people diagnosing him as a sex addict that he just decided to create a whole new disorder so that he could cast off such judgements as a mere personality disorder on the part of the critic, rather than an observation of a potential truth.
His next post is about non-judging, as a response to the avalanche of people classifying his latest kick as a means to get more sex with more people without having to go through an untidy divorce. It seems to me that he is spending so much time defending his choice and disparaging those who might have a problem with his rationalization, that he is betraying his internal lack of truth as it relates to this matter.
Anyway, I am now taking this whole thing in with curiosity and fascination. Thanks again for writing in.
Nice article. Like one of the other commentators, I was initially motivated by Steve but then became less and less enamored with him over time. It was about at the time when he was doing the raw food thing that I put Steve P at the bottom of my important to read list.
To me, the drift centers around Steve’s lack of care for me, the reader. Instead of being about Personal Development For Smart People it became the Personal Development of Steve.
And I’m not all that sure he’s progressing that much – except for his delusions. He can talk and redefine all he wants. When he talks about his fitness, I’m shocked that he can supposedly make leaps and bounds of mental progress with his iron will and belief system, but can’t lose ten pounds or add ten push ups to his max.
Now the whole, “I’m going to have sex with other women thing” it a little insane. Talking about sex outside of marriage like it’s the final frontier makes me sick. Has he totally lost touch with reality? Or whatever he thinks reality is?
Glad that I came across your post. I was his fan for quite sometime but something was not right about his latest path. I guess it is an example of the typical syndrome of weak people who loose their ethics and moral as the kind of become famous.
I just read these comments after making my own long-winded comment on the more recent post that mentions the Steve Pavlina situation. I see a lot of people here being out of touch and throwing around accusations. I agree that there has been a bit of a tone change, but it’s not like he’s gone insane.
I don’t agree that Steve Pavlina holds himself up as a guru, any more than the author of this blog holds himself up as a guru – just because he has a ton of readers doesn’t mean he has a god complex. He sought out to write a blog on personal development, it struck a cord with hundreds of thousands, and he’s wildly successful. Yes, I’m sure he has cute fans that he wants to have sex with – so what. This is unlike the John Edwards thing, cause J.E. did it secretly, while Steve is doing it outright.
Many of the commenters have a shame-based, puritanical view of sex. How can you diagnose him with sex addiction?? Because he is talking publically about the desire to have sex with more than one person?? Does that mean he fixates on sex to the exclusion of his other responsibilities? If he indicated that he masturbated 6 hours a day or spends a significant amount of money on hookers, I would say you’re justified. But to pathologize the desire to have sex with more than one person in a lifetime? I’m glad my mind is open enough to entertain ideas that I don’t endorse without having to poo-poo them or pass judgement.
The writer of this blog missed the joke when Steve did the Remote Diagnosis Disorder thing — he was creating a disorder to show how diagnosing other is absurd. He’s doing it ironically to show how doing what many of the commenters (and the writer of this blog) are doing is absurd. I just skimmed that post, but I got that much.
If nothing else, Steve is showing people areas of their personal discomfort regarding relationships, so that’s good. I happen to think he’s more evolved than most in his approach to a marriage that isn’t entirely satisfying. I don’t think there is anything objectively wrong with sex with multiple people, though of course there are many pitfalls. I certainly don’t think that an ethical life eliminates the potential for more partners, and I know I have the capacity to romantically love more than one woman at the same time — if you don’t have that capacity or inclination, that’s cool.
BTW, I also found the book a bit dry and lacking heart — maybe I’ll pick it up again one day.
I don’t think that he’s really that bad, but he’s just doing whatever he wants to do. Why are you all wasting your energy on someone like Steve if you don’t like what he’s doing? At least he’s being honest about it. You can’t just judge him when you don’t even know him for real. Sure, he has a face he puts on when he blogs and it seems to be very ego-centered, but he’s a human being like the rest of us and deserves to be treated as such. We all desire multiple sex partners as men. It is in our biology. Men are supposed to spread their seed. It’s more natural than the institution of marriage, which almost completely severs a man’s rights 80% of the time if there is a divorce.
The poster of this entry said that Steve is only trying to avoid a messy divorce by telling Erin about this. I disagree, but I’m sure he still loves her, but he’s not sexually attracted to her because she is overweight. I was shocked myself when I first saw a picture of Erin, thinking that Steve could do a lot better. Unless, of course, Erin got it together and lost weight. I’m not saying she has to be 110 lbs., but someone like Steve who talk endlessly about nutrition and working out must not be too happy with Erin’s current predicament.
I’ve been reading Erin’s blog and she can’t seem to lose weight. And she’s overweight. I was 6′1″ and 180 lbs. and within 2 months of healthy eating, I lost 10 lbs. just by cutting out sugar. And I didn’t even have much weight to lose. She’s got at least 40-50 lbs. to lose and she can’t even lose one pound. Something tells me that she’s sneaking french fries and doughnuts when Steve is off in his polyamory adventures. But that’s beside the point.
I never thought divorce was fair. A man loses half of what he owns, even if he is responsible for much more than half? It’s not like Erin cannot support herself. She charges over $500 a reading now and Steve has hundreds of thousands of dollars. They work for the same “company,” Pavlina, LLC. Most of the money is in the corporation, according to Steve, so I don’t think there’s any incentive for either of them to get divorced. What’s so wrong about him being with other women anyway? What kind of world of black and white are you living in? Either deal with an unattractive wife for the rest of your life or lose half your wealth because she won’t get her act together? This is way too black and white and he can do whatever he wants because it is his life. So don’t sit here from the Peanut Gallery and judge him just because he’s doing something you don’t approve of. At least he told you about it. He could be like Tony Robbins and just cheat on his wife continuously without so much as telling her. At least he’s being honest. Give him that much chredit.
Ha ha! I love how the last poster Andrew, says “don’t judge Steve” but then consequently goes onto bash Erin and how overweight she is and how Steve is not sexually attracted to her because she is overweight. Wow Andrew, you can read minds like Erin!
Awesome post. Anything to disspell the Pavlina myth is much appreciated. I was a fan of Steve’s but like a lot of ppl lost interest when he did the raw food thing. His shadow side seems to be control freak, overanalytical, rationalizing everything to justify his ends. I use the term shadow because I do think the Pavlina’s offer interesting viewpoints that are worth reading occasionally.
On a personal note, what totally ended my admiration for Steve was when he mentioned that he wasn’t voting for the last presidential election, basically saying both Obama and McCain operated at such low levels of consciousness that voting was a pointless and ineffectual way for changing the world for the better. What?! That was such a ridiculous concept to me. He thought he was above voting! Like democracy itself was beneath him, or witnessing the first African-American to be elected President. That was enough proof that this dude lives in a bubble and is totally clueless about other ways of life.
One more thing, for all this lightworker business what the hell is charging 700 for a psychic reading?? I got a reading from Erin a while back and it was very negative. she said in her own way that my guides didn’t want me with my bf at the time. Well I went to another psychic and he told me the OPPOSITE. So I decided to never go to psychics again. My bf and I have been together this whole time and are happy and in love. So for whoever pays 700 for Erin, beware!
Thanks for writing in, Auk.
I forgot all about that Presidential election post!! Thanks for reminding us…I was annoyed by that as well for the similar reasons.
Can’t argue with you there, either. Been to a couple of psychics/tarot card readers, and although it’s exciting and self-indulgent at the time, 9 times out of 10 whatever is said doesn’t manifest or it’s too general to make any sense.
This post and its cousins have been a veritable feast for me, because I have had the most ‘enlightening’ 3 weeks of my life recently after finding out my g/f had been having a 1 year affair with a friend of hers who became a mutual friend over that time, without me knowing.
So to synchronistically come across this post via another one put a smile on my dial and the range of comments (so many amazing comments, intelligence, well thought out and wise) have been even more interesting. Both sides of the coin and me thinking yes, no, yes, no, almost taking sides too with everyone including Steve who’s posts I have basically read but not completely.
From me its all perspective. We live in a world (from my POV) where my ‘aisle in the supermarket’ is not the same as yours even though it looks very similar.
I have loved Steve’s works for years before he became well known, I loved his reality creation stuff, wow it was like I was back with Seth Speaks and all that stuff. Then over the years the Y road opened up and I felt a shift for me from Steve’s direction, ie I wasn’t so into where he was coming from anymore (raw food, polyphasic sleep, etc). Something changed for both of us I guess.
So I left his blog. And now to come back to him again through this avenue and makes me realise we all press each other’s buttons if we think and experience differently and that can be ouchie for all of us. I totally relate to it at the moment, finding that my soul mate had been shagging and loving someone else for a year, devastation, shock, horror and YET in part it was created because we had talked about having an open rship which only happened on my partner’s side coz I didn’t need or want another person’s body or soul. Call it martyrish, codependent or the fact I had a lot more life/sexual experience than my partner and she wanted to sow her wild oats!
What a can of worms it opened, only because it was done behind my back even though we agreed on total honesty. Whilst at this very present time I don’t want an open rship I am always amazed when people can open themselves to things outside the norm esp if it pushes the buttons of others and heck speak about it even. R/ships are the ultimate test of all of us.
I’m always amused at myself when something like this article presses my buttons because you know I can see everyone’s POV right now even though I am totally biased against people ****ing around with people’s feelings and hearts.
Sorry just raving but am grateful that I came across Monkey Mind coz I really enjoy this place and have rss’d myself. I realise I actually don’t have a strong opinion either way and that surprises me coz I am in repair mode with my partner: we are seeing an Imago Therapist to work on stuff, trust, the whole shebang. The adventure (I am feeling good tonight, you haven’t seen the half of it!) lies ahead for both of us.
Hopefully Steve & Erin can work through it all without pain or compliance or sufference and experience things with total honesty and if in fact Erin doesn’t want this she can truthfully say to him I don’t want this, let’s work on things or I would love to try and let’s give it a go and see what happens.
Super stuff, thank you!
Being new to the Pavlina world, I stumbled upon this site in my attempt to find out about the guy. Based on what I read here Pavlina has/had a lot of good things to say about personal development and then got a little weird and turned a lot of people off.
My question is this: Does anyone dispute his body of work, lets say, prior to the whole raw good experiment? Did what he had to say and what he wrote on his blog help people? Did he have a solid message that was authentically transformational? I am asking because I don’t want to waste my time diving into his blog if it’s a pile of mumbo jumbo that is ultimately meaningless. Any comments on early blog literature is appreciated.
I can honestly say his past articles have helped me immensely. My life is so much different from say two years ago and I know it was down to steve’s articles. I was such a stress head and depressed all the time, now I am a completely different person. I hardly stress anymore about life, my career is great etc. I had 26 years of the same worries and thought patterns and over a few years my way of thinking has completely changed for the better. I had a lightbulb moment the other day and asked why this was? And basically it’s because Steve taught me how to be selfish. I was always a people pleaser when naturally I don’t enjoy pleasing people that don’t deserve being pleased. So Steve who is more geared towards the selfish spectrum, has helped me become a bit more like him – ha ha!
But as I menetioned in my blog… I did not deny he has helped me. But now that I have become more selfish I don’t want to hang around people that are really selfish – he he!
I’ve been pushed by a number of people in the direction of Steve Pavlina’s blog and I have a friend who has had a number of readings from Erin. Since I have been a self-help fanatic since childhood, you would think that he would be a natural for me. I do admit to having done the “Life Purpose” thing from which I did have some kind of result but I’ll darned if I remember what it was which is in of itself, ironic…
Beyond that exercise though, I could never quite “warm up” to him. He seemed pretty obsessive right out of the gate. Not that that’s ever stopped me before. Perhaps it was something at gut level, that created a kind of aversion for me.
After reading this blog entry about his (and maybe Erin’s?) experiment in disloyalty, I feel somehow vindicated in my earlier judgment. Thanks for that – it surely doesn’t happen every day. I am also terribly saddened for their children. Ironically it was an insecure and dysfunctional childhood that set me on the self-help path.
thanks for writing this. i have to admit i was a frequent reader of steve pavlina but i stopped abruptly when his polyamorous post came out cos i was so disgusted. i’d have more respect for him if he cheated on his wife, at least that would be normal. this cheating on her out-in-the-open (and in front of the whole world!) is much worse and makes me think he’s a freak
Maybe he’s pioneering a whole new trend–serial polygamy.
Hello to the monkey!
Thank you for this enlightening posting. I too am one of the people that became attached to what Steve Pavlina once wrote on his homepage. In fact, I am new to his messages and read through both past and present articles. While I am amazed by his style of writing (he really is talented), the content of his writing has become increasingly out of sync with how I perceive reality and the virtues he himself once proclaimed.
I bought his book “Personal Development for Smart People” after reading several articles on his page and am of the opinion that – for the most part – is book is an outstanding work on rationally analyzing the true nature of reality – which is a major endeavour he is undertaking (and destined to fail, as the human mind is too limited to understand divine creation). The virtues he is describing throughout the book are a good compass for setting the right direction in life. I feel that he has created his own masterpiece in writing this book and has now the problem that most artists face after releasing a seminal piece of work – there simply is nothing more to say and they struggle with low-quality works thereafter.
I feel that Steve should have called the personal development experiement to a close quite some time ago. He has said everything of importance already and his legacy would have been a wonderful one.
In fact, different things happened. His book was a great success – as anticipated – and the legions of followers increased further. This is the turning point in the history of Steve Pavlina’s personal development endeavour. If you give a man enough power and riches, he will eventually become corrupt. This old saying holds true for Steve Pavlina as well. He has disconnected from his core values and is now led astray by his ego. Unfortunately, there is no one bringing him back down to face reality – there simply are too many people still praising him, regardless of what he is saying. Steve Pavlina and his fellowship have become a cult and by doing so, he has shed shadows on his awareness – by the power of ignorance he has succumb to.
It is true that most of the great masters were celibate but it is not neccesary to be celibate to be a true master. There is a point in the throught that sexuality is a great force, taking control over the conscious mind. A true master can control this force and use it for a collectively better world. This is achieved by channeling this force in to positive action beyond sexual intercourse.
What holds true for all great masters is that they were humble in nature. Humility is the core virtue of a true master. Giving up on your ego is the logical next step after having mastered conscious acting. Steve had progressed very far but he missed out on this challenge. The higher you rise, the deeper you fall.
Best wishes, Steve, for a soft landing. You better not be alone at this point.
In love for life
Simon
One of his latest posts: egg-eaters are Nazis.
Yes, Nazis.
I believe steve has a so big ego that he is somehow blinded following HIS UNIQUE SUPER COOL OPEN MINDED SELF CONCIOUS way of live a life.
obviously he has an obssesion of being better that others, saying all the time how much money he is making, and how cool and open minded is his life.
his life style is a well manage marketing tactic as i can see. i write articles that the most important thing is me, ( i am doing it right i am very cool), and you are bullshit that reading my articles point by point MAIBE you can approach to perfection, lets say for example ME.
i am perfection, just try to be like me, i have an awesome work that is saying you how to be perfect like me.
is EGOTASTIC!!!!!
so lets see if i have understand steve,
so you admit in this world there are smart people and stupid people, smart people do work only in cool things and fuck with other people not for sex just for love no, and of course smart people have to it raw vegetables to have boosts of energy? really? are you sure?
eating raw food is the truth i can see it..
and the stupid people work for others, and have sex only with one person at a time and eat meat and cooked food. wow! how can i love my girl and eat juicy meat.. mmmmmm beeeffffff…
i must commit suicide tomorrow for my stupid way of life tomorrow. or maibe i make a barbecue in my home with my girl after sleeping 10 hours.
eating raw food is the truth i can see it..
seriously, i am not blaming vegetarians (maibe yes) about their decision of “protecting” the animals, but for me, raw food is unhealthy and insane and is full of bullshit. the polyamorous is an elegant way to say, i want to fuck other people, his blog is a cyrcus of extravagants ideas just for money, no open minded shit.
sorry for my mistakes in writting in english, i am native spanish,
don´t get crazy with pavlina, he is a psycopat.
yours,
Rafael,
if you want to answer me privatelly: Ek_degol@hotmail.com
After spending two minutes on Pavlina’s Forum I realized what a snake oil salesmen he was. And it is sad to see so many sheep following this con man.
Steve is likes top ten list, I have one of my own for him.
Top Ten reasons Steve Pavlina won’t answer a legitimate question on his own Forum.
10) Erin won’t let Steve near the keyboard until he admits she has more
psychic ability then him.
9) His magic eight ball keeps telling him to “ask again later”.
L. Ron Hubbard.
7) The theory of 100 Monkeys typing for 365 days isn’t working out so well.
6) Confused Blogging God with actual God, tried to smite his keyboard for type-O
5) Caught reflection of himself on computer monitor, couldn’t look away long enough to type answer.
4) Got in a debate with himself about the eleventh reason not to have actual job,….Kicked his own ass.
3) Nazi arm band keeps slipping off whenever he hits the cap lock.
2) Colonel Sanders Chicken makes fingers to greasy to type fast dammit.
And the number one reason Steve Pavlina won’t answer a legitimate question on his own Forum.
1) Who cares……
Steve going poly had me posting on his forum directly as I just couldn’t see their side. I posted his next stop is to become a porno star – he even said porno people as a group are great for poly connections. I also posted that society tried open love in the sixes but it didn’t stick. And why did Rome fall? Because they were having orgies all the time!
He has this argument that going poly is a great way to help you learn how to relate or be better at communication etc… and, I’d say, that would be because it is far more difficult to balance all the different desires of multiple partners.
But – having a poly lifestyle for the sake of personal development for those reasons is not a sound message and I think many followers (I saw some posting) were considering that going poly would help them be better at relating. Or that not being able to go about being a poly is not as good as monogamy in that Steve is promoting a poly life style as a growth opportunity to love everybody in the new agey oneness way.
It’s a bit like thinking to get better at swimming I should swim in the ocean when they close the beach when a hurricane comes through. Well, I can’t come up with a great analogy. Just something not jiving with the reasoning to go poly as a stimulating path to get better at communicating because you are putting yourself in a more difficult position to deal with. As if, if you can handle the heat you are better at communicating or something(?)
Anyway – enjoyed this blog thread!
Thanks for reading.
Yeah – like you want to get better at swimming so you jump in the ocean in the middle of hurricane because it well test and hone your swimming skills better than swimming in a pool or a lake like everybody else.
The Monkey
Thanks for the hot tip. That guy kills me! What a character Mr. Pavlina is. I just don’t know what else to say.
I just wasted 20 minutes and read that post just now. Very angry, judgmental, righteous, and frankly immature tone distracts from a very good point. The entire food industry is doing a lot of disgusting things right now and Americans should be educated as to how industrial farms treat animals which is horrific and every bit as despicable as what the Nazis did to their victims.
There is a way to pass on this information, however, that doesn’t make us all feel like criminals. I tried it myself in the very first post on this site: Making Mike Vick Wrong, Or Why I’m A Vegetarian.
Thanks for writing.
What I want to know is, how does his blog make money? Since he got rid of the ads he’s just endorsing products–do they sell that well? I’m sure he’s making money off the book. But it seems that one of his main businesses is promoting Erin and her $700 readings (the price not based on her talent as a psychic, though perhaps she is talented, but rather on her name). They seem like scammers to me, though I do like a lot of his articles. I wonder if polyamory hurts his brand?
I agree with you on everything but the part about polyphasic sleep. This was not his invention (or repackaging). I’m a polyphasic sleeper for years and it is the only way I can function.
That’s hilarious, Brickman. Thanks for your input!
Fascinating questions you ask. I can’t understand how any reading could possibly be worth $700. I can’t conceive of how that price reflects an exchange of equal value.
I don’t recall asserting that he invented polyphasic sleep itself, but if I did, it’s my mistake. If it works for you, great. I just can’t understand how family members would tolerate living with a person who could only function under such tightly managed periods of awakeness/sleep. I could never do it with the two small children that I have at home.
The whole discussion went into that direction… yes it is hard especially when your girl wants to sleep together. That’s why I go to bed with her, but when she falls asleep I get up and continue with my schedule…
I guess taking care of a baby would be easier on polyphasic but that is still to be determined…
OK, guys, Steve and Erin are divorcing. It’s on his blog (front page right now). Sounds like reality hit. He’s saying it’s a positive thing and for growth’s sake and all that. I’m glad to see him state that the idea of open marriage is a contradiction. He’s taking their bigger house alone.
Sad for the kids but it’s better than the alternative (not to judge the polyamorous, but I agree with this blog that the problem was Steve’s defensiveness about it).
I read his “How to Be a Man” I got more perspective on his outlook. He says a true man doesn’t devote himself to a small group of people such as his wife and children. That he’s there for them but he’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
Steve is a rampant narcissist who seems to be getting more out of control by the minute and traveling in messiah complex country, and Erin is an enabling co-dependent who’s deep in denial. It won’t end well.
Steve and Erin are divorcing.
Both of them have written new blog entries about it.
I respect Steve’s decision to “expand his circle of love”. What I wonder though is if he would include men also in his expanded circle of love?
Now they are getting a divorce. Big surprise!
I completely agree with this post. And, I think it is pretty evident how things went for Steve & Erin now that they are divorcing. They’re both charlatans.
This comment is slightly off topic, but it speaks to the question of his honesty (or lack thereof):
Steve speaks often of his workout routine. So why (in video and photos) does he look like he has zero lean muscle mass? In fact his muscles look downright flaccid/non-existant. Don’t men (and some women) bulk up if they do even a moderate amount of lifting at the gym? Why, then, does he appear to have no muscle mass at all? Does he even work out at all, as he states frequently? Does an all raw food diet impede one’s ability to build muscle? (I seriously want to know. I am not asking this flippantly. I just don’t know much about weight lifting or raw food diets and how the two might interact in the human body.)
@Myself:
Raw food diet and muscle building are perfectly agreeable. Muscle tissue needs protein to grow and the body needs fats for fuel and carbohydrates for the anabolic stimulus. However, raw foods do not help if your workout is unable to produce good results.
Steve seems to me like a naturally lean person. He probably has a hard time packing on some lean muscle mass – and he certainly does not prioritize this issue in his life.
So if you’re naturally lean and stick to submaximal efforts in all your workouts, you are probably going to end up where Steve is now. He seems to work out, but not efficiently.