The inherent worth & value of my lived experience doesn't make me an authority on anyone else's life.

Contrary to the popular “authority marketing” refrain in the self-help community of, “If I did it, so can you—Let me show you how!” 

Just because something worked for me, doesn’t mean it will, or even can, work for someone else.

I’m free to share my experience about my life, of course; I’m just not free to claim that my lived experience confers any sort of authority to claim—or, horror of horrors, guarantee—that my way will also work for you.

What I am free to disclaim is that:

• I share my experience because we intersectional misfits benefit from each others’ experiences, however
• You are 100% responsible and accountable for any decisions or actions that you understake as the result of learning about my experience.

In the very broad, diverse and opaque domain of life and the self:

• There is no way anyone can guarantee solutions, much less outcomes, because
• There is no way anyway can control the decisions, actions and circumstances of another person’s life.

Not only is it misleading for the truly vulnerable, it also subtly encourages folks to defer the authority for the unavoidable risk of trying something into someone else’s hands. 

The lucky ones are those who find out fast. It’s those for whom this delusion works, and works well initially that are most at risk.