Why would most people would rather chase high titles and not make as much, than work hard to make more money?

Unlike most answers on Clarity, where the experts share their grizzled, hard-earned experience, and seek to guide others to success... I'm not sure there are many of us with the experience to guide or advise you in such a personally challenging and difficult cultural environment. That said, we may not be able to guide, we can seek to inspire! The answer you seek is right there, in your own question, your own words. The opportunity to change the world that you're looking for is right in front of you. The words I mean are these... "My friends/acquaintances have been subject to similar experiences as well." It's clear to me that though you may feel down and defeated, you are already in a great place to effect change - With those friends and acquaintances you mentioned. You're already in communication with those people, you have a shared bond of common experience, and you want to make a difference. From such small seeds of determination, great change can be affected. There is a quote, which I am heavily paraphrasing and I cannot attribute properly, that I want to share... "Great leaders create a space for others to succeed" I want you to focus on one idea... "Creating a possibility space for others" What I mean by this is to imagine, discover and create ways for the people around you to feel better about life, to create spaces and opportunities for them to contribute to each other. This might mean organizing people so they can walk around together (assuming safety in numbers, and not an increased risk of harassment). Or a way for people to get together to share meals, or resources in some way. You might seek out experienced members of your community, who can help teach others to be safer, more secure and self-reliant. And you can help to teach others to do what you're doing and make the world a better place for each other. I don't know the individual challenges you and your community face, but I know who can fix them... You. And if you want to make a difference in the world as a whole, to inspire and illuminate others? Do everything I just suggested, and write about it. Anonymously if needs be. I for one would love to read a blog about how you're implementing change in such a challenging and hostile political climate. The world has enough productivity startups, mobile agencies and clever apps for first-world problems - We need something real, to remind us there is more to life than the latest Apple product, or viral video. You can do it. For yourself, for your community, and for the rest of us who might often take our lives for granted.

Having worked in this area, both as a client and as a consultant, customer understanding is a key to differentiating yourself from your competition. First a personal belief: surveys are the worst tool to uncover any insights. They are best used to quantify how many do X. There are a couple of ways we look for insights into customer behavior, and they are both related by fact that you learn by observation. First is to have your customer demonstrate how they use your product/service, or the product you want to replace, in their normal situation. Ideally you let them run through once just observing what they are doing while taking notes. Then ask them to go through it again where you ask them open-ended questions as they go along. No judgement, just watch and learn. The second way is to engage them in a serious game, something like the ones we use from Conteneo.co. These are frameworks designed to have the customer create things like the Product Box which encapsulates the key features, benefits, etc. that they are looking for in an ideal product/service like your. The reason these techniques work well is that the customer is comfortable, they are not being interrogated, and you are cast in the role of the observer, so you're not selling! Let us know if there's something we can do to help you with this, because it's an important question.

Best way? Figure out a process to get consistent referrals from other professionals. I made a video about this situation, in the video blog here: http://www.jasonkanigan.org/your-confusing-title/ Second-best way? Narrow your ideal customer definition, and go get them. Who values uncovering their unconscious behavior and changing them to conscious decisions? Who values that? Not many people, IMO. But I do know one niche that does: some high level executives. They know mindset is #1 in determining their results. The good news here? They know the value of doing so, and will pay for it. Unlike the regular public, who love 'free' and struggle to pay for anything because they don't have any money nor a belief that investing in themselves is important, your executives will 'get it'. In fact, I'd niche down even more, to executives in a certain industry who are making so much a year. Talk less about you and more about the situation your ideal customer is in. That's your marketing. Most sellers do it completely backwards.

Absolutely. But not everyone’s healing comes through traditional therapy. Sometimes the real growth comes through experience, spiritual wisdom, and learning how to sit with your truth without judgment. I’ve learned to improve my life through God-led insight, emotional awareness, and communication that meets people where they are — not where a textbook says they should be. If therapy helps you, great. But if you’re someone who just needs a real conversation, a safe space, or someone to talk to who’s been through it and can guide you forward, I’m here for that too. 💬 Feel free to reach out — I’ll be honored to walk with you.

The best way is to lean how to ask great questions and to physically spend time with your users watching them work. I don't have all the killer questions, but my favourite to help understand product roadmap opportunities is "What do you do 3 minutes before, and after you use our product?". That helps me understand where the opportunity lies to build a solid solution end-to-end. Also, finding a set of users that feel comfortable having you hangout and work with them, taking notes and asking questions is invaluable. Just to understand their environment, the way they organize their work, and how they might communicate around the problems your solution is/could help with is incredible. Every time I'm at an event and someone ask me what I do, I always ask them if I can "show them" and if they say yes, I have them find / download / signup and explore our app. Then I ask them questions about how they might see someone using it, who they think might be the best customer, etc. It's not about not knowing, it's about continuously learning and testing different perspectives. As for tools I use: www.usertesting.com / especially new mobile tests!