We have discussed the Amazon appeal for competence, and here is an alternative: How to become unhooked.
Pema Chodron provides 21 lectures or 9.5 hours of content in how to become unstuck and unhooked from what we do habitually. For $67 you can find out how to do something different.
One notes that Pema is talking from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, something that has had cross cultural appeal since the early 70s. I knew bankers that were “into it”. The Dalai Lama has standing in worldwide culture, so clearly there’s appeal. They very well might know the “happiness thing”…as whenever I was around (decades ago) Tibetan Monks from Tibet, they were laughing and giggling, and liked to play with bubbles…you know the kind with the bottle and the wand you use to make them.
Needless to say, this apparently “no worry, never mind” approach appealed to certain counter cultural types at the time, although to actually “do it” required a real commitment and discipline and various hard to do practices.
One of the notable TB popularization books was by Chögyam Trungpa called “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism”…which paraphrasing said we get too “hung up” on forms, when we should be going for essence. This emphasis on practical results might well be part of the appeal to Americans, who would otherwise seemingly not be able to relate to all the other strange aspects of this very old religion.
Maybe in a way similar to “competency based learning”? The problem with using religious motivation for learning, is that religions have a lot more going on than just motivation, and in some cases can be harmful to learning. TB is no different in this regard, but Americans, like with Yoga, are always trying to strip away the spiritual materialism, and just get down to the real nitty gritty.
With some notable success, especially in the last few years; Yoga seems very mainstream, and not esoteric, and meditation is promoted by enterprises.
Udemy uses a lot of coupons, and for me it wanted $167 without one.