How deep does this "FAKE GURU" market actually go?

[MitchC]

This is a sign of bad writing, not high intelligence. I tried reading his 12 rules and gave up, tired of his unreadable writing style and constant rambling about unrelated things.

As an author I'm very curious why his book is so popular despite being so bad. Perhaps it's purely because of his persona, in the same way that books "written" by celebrities become bestsellers no matter how bad they are. I always find it sad that some really good books don't get discovered just because their authors aren't willing to pimp themselves everywhere. But well, that's how marketing largely works today.

I’m listening to it so it’s not as bad as reading but I agree. At the start of it he mentions how long and how many people edited it and all I could think was wow how was this entire random tangent not edited out. However the content was much deeper than just reading a summary of the chapter titles like “stand up straight”.

 

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[david3000]

Hi everyone,

I never spend a cent on any gurus or any SH books : everything is free on Youtube if you want to watch any of them: There are so many videos on Youtube that it's like free seminars. I found many good advices, I take only what is useful for me. About books, I listen to the free resume of books on Youtube: there are great and I save a lot of time: in 5 minutes I get all the ideas included in the book. Haha.

Just my two cents : Don't spend too much time on it, it's always the same advises.
Just do your work very well, and the more customers appreciate your work, the more money you make.
No need to pay expensive seminar for that. ^^

 

[NuclearPuma]

Hi everyone,

I never spend a cent on any gurus or any SH books : everything is free on Youtube if you want to watch any of them: There are so many videos on Youtube that it's like free seminars. I found many good advices, I take only what is useful for me. About books, I listen to the free resume of books on Youtube: there are great and I save a lot of time: in 5 minutes I get all the ideas included in the book. Haha.

Just my two cents : Don't spend too much time on it, it's always the same advises.
Just do your work very well, and the more customers appreciate your work, the more money you make.
No need to pay expensive seminar for that. ^^

Sometimes you need to go deeper than summaries to get the ideas cemented into memory and eventual belief system (if you want to).

My experience has been if I want to learn about a topic, I get way more out of a well structured book than anything I can find online.

Books I think are way underrated and the typically superficial nature of internet content is often not conducive to deeper learning.

Almost all internet content is designed to continually hold your attention and carry it from one thing to the next.

In contrast, books are focused, and don't have a dozen links to pull your mind to unrelated topics.
Most web pages are designed for attention jumping which is very counterproductive.

You are right though, at some point you have to stop the information absorbing phase in move into the try something and get feedback phase.

 

[david3000]

I totally agree, books are treasure. And they are available for free in libraries.
Many people should borrow them for free instead spend too much money in SH books.

There are many Self Help and financial books in libraries and it's totally free, so I never bought one.
Youtube contains millions of valable free content for who wants to learn seriously.
I've learned 3 languages on Youtube without paying any teacher.
The videos are free, high quality and available 24/7.

Before to spent your money on books, seminar and other stuff, use librairies and Youtube guys.

Million of books for free in libraries. It was the first internet before internet... ^^

The are treasures there.

 

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[JG17]

I'm not going deep down into his stuff on this forum, since he is a political figure.....

Very interesting. Thanks for backing up your claim with a really good and insightful post.

 

[TreyAllDay]

 

[DonTriumph]

In my opinion, it's all about "trial-and-error" and really a matter of trust.

What do I mean by trial-and-error?

Once you began looking for answers online, you'll definitely stumble across fake gurus. And maybe, you'll bite into their "wisdom" at one point.

These gurus are usually famous, thanks to their feel-good teachings + conventional wisdom + mainstream media attention.

So how would you know them? In my experience it's when you begin smelling something wrong in their teachings. You'll sense that their strategies simply doesn't work. You'll sense that saving to become rich doesn't make any sense. Or dollar-averaging in stock market. Or keeping a job and becoming frugal to become rich. They don't make sense.

Once you get that sense, be open and curious. Ask yourself the tough questions and be prepared to encounter the unconventional wisdom. Be prepared to learn that there is an other way aside from what is taught to you.

In the process of searching more, you'll meet "gurus" or teachers who tells you the real-deal, the truth. These people will simply click to you. These people, although few and relatively infamous, make more sense than those gurus featured in national television.

 

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[miraman]

But wait. Aren't the honest gurus the ones that say that their course is not a get rich quick course and you have to put the work in?

 

[Matt Dassel]

I think an explosion of these gurus just comes down to the fact that, If you want success and you come from a middle class family, you can't start up on a high budget and you must make the most of what you believe that you know.

Now many people can go too far with this idea. If you have confidence on what you have learned I believe you should as well be patient over the years just to wait for your success to come.

I feel like there isn't any secret (after you developed skill) and just a matter of focus now. The true hard part to be honest. To stop worrying about appearances, getting off the internet, stop getting distracted and so on. This can do a lot more after being skilled.

 

[softwareRules]

All with a grain of salt. There is some tremendous content out there, there is much more that is absolute garbage.

The message in Unscripted I think you’re referring to is whether these “gurus” are wealthy from what they publicly preach or covertly practice.

I respect MJ because he accomplished first and then wrote about it. I respect Daymond John because he was a grinder and made it happen first before his writing.

My personal philosophy is to stick to reading books. If the book is good and they’ve ACTUALLY done what they are writing about then I’m interested in other content. Much easier to put up content online and portray success than it is to sell millions of books.

I find it's easier to trust the ones whose actions you can see. Ramit Sethi for example publishes a few books, makes a ton of cash giving okay financial advice to slowlaners/sidewalkers, and uses that cash to build courses and hire content writers and whatever else he needs to create products that fulfill needs. He recommends it to his audience, but knows most people will be lucky enough to break a few bad habits and just save more and invest a little more.

And then there are a lot of people who publish open/transparent income reports. They may not include all the information but they're far easier to trust because you can see the numbers. Even if the numbers are not completely accurate, you can at least ballpark it. For example, seeing that one blogger spent $10k in one month on freelancers to web design and content production but made $50k gives them more credibility because I can do the same thing. I can definitely see myself spending a few thousand on content production and I can see how selling a course for $200 could net $50k.

TL;DR: the fake gurus make up numbers if they show the numbers at all. The real gurus are teachers first and transparent and open.

 

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