| An upstart motivational speaker wants to reform his profession—while also rising to the top.  Photograph by Lucia Buricelli for The New Yorker Men will literally climb the equivalent elevation of Mt. Everest in a single day instead of going to therapy. In a funny and probing piece from this week’s issue, Tad Friend explores the growing self-improvement empire of Jesse Itzler, a former rapper and current husband of the billionaire inventor of Spanx, whose various ventures include 29029 Everesting, in which clients pay for the privilege of scaling a bit more than twenty-nine thousand feet. “Time is undefeated,” Itzler tells an assembled group, the night before a climb. “The only way you can have a fistfight with time is to do things you’ve always wanted to do. Do something that lasts forever.” Part influencer, part guru, part adult child, Itzler is part of a growing field of (mostly male) self-help entrepreneurs, who are attracting paid followers as much for the life style they project as for the lessons they impart. Friend connects the rise of this kind of macho bootstrapping with long-standing American ideas about happiness and winning. “Where therapy leads to self-knowledge, and religion offers grace, motivation valorizes success,” he writes. “Its foundational premise is that life has a secret plan for you, and the motivator has acquired a copy.” The only downside? “If persistence guarantees success, then when you fail it’s entirely on you. You flunked life.” Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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