"Gurus" that are worth listening to?

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I'm anti-guru by nature but just because someone gets a huge following it doesn't always mean they're full of it. Here are a few guys that I've gotten some really useful ideas and view points from ...

  • Gary Vaynerchuk (I understand why he rubs people the wrong way though.)
  • Seth Godin (Been following him for a long time)
  • Andrew Warner (I don't always agree with him but anytime one of his guests says something where I'm like "huh", he does a good job of probing them.)
  • Tim Ferriss (Again, I don't always agree with him, but he's been getting some GREAT guests on his show.)

I like to listen to people who have done what I'm trying to do. I don't want to put myself in the spotlight like these guys but I'm wondering who else I could be following besides these "usual suspects". Are any of them members here?

In other words who do you look up to in this industry?
 
I don't understand why people keep calling somewhat or fully successful people gurus when it's god damn misleading. Just as cloud servers are, when they're not (digitalocean, vultr are simple vm-s, not cloud servers).

This isn't personal, but this tendency to call successful people gurus is so American, that it needs to stop. Carlin puts a good example of it:
 
@qwianghomingh I'm specifically referring to people who put themselves in a position of authority on a topic and speak from that position, not just people who are successful.

There are plenty of people who are successful that don't pivot towards giving out advice, this post isn't about them.

PS Carlin is one of my idols, RIP.
 
LOL at Gurus...

Dan_Pena.jpg


People waste more time following Gurus then actually doing real work. Like what the fuck can a Guru tell you about YOUR business and help you achieve? How can someone else motivate YOU to get out of fucking bed and give your absolute best at whatever endeavor you want? How?

"People think that reading books is part of the action plan, it's not. It's an excuse so you don't have to pull the trigger to take action" - Dan Peña

"I've never seen a "part-time" super successful, high performance person." - Dan Peña

"We only make changes for two reasons, desperation or inspiration." - Dan Peña

Good luck bros...
 
FFS I even used quotes around it haha, let's not get hung up on the terminology I used.
 
Check out Tai Lopez, he has a lambo in his garage but, more importantly, he has a bookshelf filled with 1,000 he just bought. The bookshelf was new, as he needed something to hold the 1,000 books.

Other than that, I have no idea how that dude qualifies for anything. He clearly states that he dropped out of college, has no degree, and made money from entrepreneurship.

Its obvious that him, and other gurus, are out to lead on the foolish while pocketing as much money as possible.

Here's some cool advice for anyone whose reading: I've attended coach training and similar programs as well as have friends who are in guru positions. Want to know their secret? They're nothing different than you or me. They just wrote/spoke about their journey. That's all.

Listening to their "advice" is just another form of spinning your wheels. If you need help in an area of business, it's best to refer to a textbook, book, or encyclopedia. It'll give you a better understanding of the field as well as references where you can learn more. You'll gain a deeper understanding of it too compared to following prescribed advice.
 
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Philip J. Fry said:
Check out Tai Lopez
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That guy posted pics of "his" Ferrari with dealer plates on it.. :wonder:

Look at his other Instagram photos and you can see the inside of his home in the background, it's super basic/poverty.

....

Even, Tim Ferriss and his 4 hour work week. If you believe that even for a moment you are incredibly gullible.

And we can talk about how these gurus made their money...

But I'll stop there.

CC speaks the truth above.
 
contract said:
Even, Tim Ferriss and his 4 hour work week. If you believe that even for a moment you are incredibly gullible.
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I feel like people who say this haven't read the book. Yet it gets perpetuated everywhere, and I suppose that was part of the marketing plan. It's not even a misleading title, people just assume it means one thing when it means the other.

In the book, he talks about busting ass 60-70-80 hours a week to BUILD his business, then he talks about creating systems that allow his employees, virtual assistants to do work without needing his intervention, and then applying automation everywhere. Once you build and own a business and hire the right people and create the right systems, you can step back and only look at it for 4 hours a week.

That's the point of the book.

If I franchised a Burger King and hired someone to manage and operate it, I wouldn't ever deal with it. I'd let the manager and operator do it. I could scale this to 100 Burger Kings and still never spend more than 4 hours a week. I could hire a manager to manage the managers.

But you have to get to that point first. That's 99% of the book and the crucial part everyone who didn't read the book missed.

++++++

Other comments:

I did enjoy Tim Ferriss' first book. The rest were just riding the wave and not of much value.
Dan Peña is hilarious.

I don't follow any gurus but I have downloaded some audiobooks to listen to at the gym. Grant Cardone's Ten X Rule gets me fired up like crazy.

Chin-Ning Chu's Thick Face, Black Heart is fantastic, shout out to @CCarter for introducing me to it. There's a lot of other Chinese strategy books that I've enjoyed but never bothered to memorize the author's name.

Of course, my all time favorite business book is The Millionaire Fastlane by M.J. DeMarco.

I don't do all of the podcasts and whatnot. But the books were good. That's as close to following gurus as I've gotten.


contract said:
And we can talk about how these gurus made their money...
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Yes. 99% are frauds who didn't make their money in the methods they are teaching you. They made the money by teaching the methods they didnt' use. Like Robert Kiyosaki, huge fraud.

I always think about Pat Flynn, the internet marketer. He's in no way a fraud or a liar or a guru. He's just a dude who started a blog and talked about his success of building a site up to $2,000 a month in profit. Now he makes about $100,000 a month talking about the $2,000 a month site. It's incredible, and I'll state again that he's not a fraud. Gurudom was thrusted upon him. People want an outline and push button procedure to magic money. That's all it boils down to.
 
The first clue is that, most successful people don't tend to put a whole lot of time into following successful people... Some likely don't even do it at all. They're too busy doing.

Don't take that the wrong way. Nothing wrong with seeking inspiration and insight from time to time, but doing so at the expense of action and forward progress is just wasting time. Show me a person that's filling a significant percentage of their time (I'll say 10% or more) seeking that inspiration, and I'll show you a procrastinator (I speak from personal experience).

tumblr_npwq9fRJmt1tuall8o1_500_zpsglunkxv3.gif
 
turbin3 said:
on't take that the wrong way. Nothing wrong with seeking inspiration and insight from time to time, but doing so at the expense of action and forward progress is just wasting time.
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Agree completely! I really didn't do myself any favors ITT but that's okay :tongue:

I'm not sitting around all day listening to other people talk about succeeding. I'm doing well, I'm just naturally very humble and I like to keep my ears open. I've learned some valuable lessons from everyone I mentioned, and I've learned some valuable lessons from newbies too.

Lemme just add to the discussion that it's important to be able to separate the hype from the meat, and even if someone is more into promoting themselves or selling books... that doesn't mean they don't have anything useful to say or any valuable experiences. It's important to be able to set ego aside and learn what you can from people that have walked your path before you.

@Ryuzaki Pat's a good dude. And good point about 4HWW because I see that get brought up a lot too. People like to romanticize the whole "IM A GRINDING HUSTLER I WORK 25 HOURS A DAY AND TIM IS FULL OF SHIT" but I don't think they read the book.

Anyways...

<3
 
You're going to learn more by doing something than listening to people talk about random stuff.

K if you're starting PPC for the first time go read some posts about PPC sure but just listening to grown-ass men talking about how they did stuff how is that going to help you unless you're trying to do that specific thing? And even then just do it.

IDK man.
 
I feel like I'm seeing a false dichotomy here where it's like there's two choices:
  • Learn from Gurus
OR​
  • Take your own Action
You can do both at the same time. I love to listen to these types of self-improvement, business hype, and tons of other lectures and audiobooks because they keep me excited and immersed in MY WORLD. I do this in the car, at the gym, etc. I'm not at the whim of whatever's on the radio.

I'm rejecting 70% of the crap I hear, but it keeps me on my toes, keeps me focused, keeps me energized, and keeps me involved in the world I'm creating for myself because I love to be immersed in it.

There's that level of paying attention to Gurus. Who else is pumping out the audio content? You run out of options.

I'm saying that you can take it as infotainment instead of advice.

I straight up listened to David Wilcock the other day talk about being a part of a secret space program where some spiritual "Solar Warden" is allowing a Blue Sphere Alliance of UFO's enter the galaxy which is manned by a race of humanoid blue avian creatures.

I don't give a fuck. Just blow my mind and entertain me. I don't believe every fiction show I watch on TV nor do I believe every lie some guru tells. But I do like to be entertained while I go through my life.
 
I'm not saying that learning history makes you a better business person, but it makes more sense to me. I don't like the self help niche in general, it's more productive to read/discuss things on developing particular skills.

For history one of my favorite periods is early 1900's in USA (which I used to think was boring). That's where we saw JP Morgan, Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc. All interesting people who are still relevant today with their effect over USA.

If you love mob/gangster movies like me too the early 1900's was it. We're talking the development of USA's mafia with Murder Incorporated. We saw corruption go so high that the president's underlings were involved in bootlegging (suspected Andrew Mellon). This is when crime went organized and big business.
 
Some time ago, a young man decided he should find a guru and follow his teachings.

The aspiring disciple started wandering, looking for the guru;
he endured hunger and misery, got robbed thousand times, scammed two thousand times or so...
But did not surrender.

After 9 years of searching, one morning, he woke up in the middle of a forest;
first thing he saw was a old man, seated on a big rock, his eyes closed.

The old man EXUDED serenity.
The youngster could not believe his quest was over.
Then the old man opened his eyes, looked at him, and said:
"What are you doing here, young man?"

The youngster, with humble movements, approached the old man
and answered:
"I've been travelling for nine years now,
just looking to find my guru
and living at his feet,"

Old man looked at him and told the youngster:
"So you want to learn about feet?
I can understand this, feet are a marvelous thing to study.
But you don't need a guru,
you'll better look for a pedicurist."
 
Actually I have learned a lot from gurus, all those big names in this industry and other ones also. Even from Robert Kiyosaki despite the fact that he isn't clear about his business and past. In fact his history is a very interesting one. Before he bought any real estate (if he bought at all), he entered MLM niche (Amway) where he sold tons of stuff to those crowds, and he made good $.

I've learned a bit from each of them, but this is just a bonus that might help some day. Here is the guy that many of you knows (more or less), he is not a guru but he is talking about some important stuff, very important stuff like working 24h straight for example. Or eating dinner in restaurant while working on his laptop (who cares what others think about you if you have goals to accomplish right?).

I've seen this in CCarter's skype last time. If I was new to all of this I would start with this...

http://eventualmillionaire.com/jasonbrown/

Valuable and straight to the point stuff, no BS just reality.
Thank you Jason for sharing your brain with us.
 
I personally don't follow any "guru" in particular, but I have found various bits of helpful information here and there as I am an avid reader.

The main thing is to make sure that whatever it is you're interested in can be applied to your own business personally. What works for some may not work for someone else as everyone is different.

On a closing note, my 2 favorite business books are The Million Fastlane by MJ DeMarco and Work The System by Sam Carpenter.

Those first book helped me develop a whole new outlook on my business and goals, and the second helps me develop my own systems for automating my business.
 
My gurus are people like:
  • Charlie Munger
  • Ben Franklin
  • Charles Darwin
  • Richard Feynman
  • Any scientist during the Scientific Revolution
Etc. All people who have explained how the world actually works. Then there are softer science people like:
  • Robert Cialdini
  • B.F. Skinner
  • Benjamin Graham
The best part? These gurus teach you for free. Just go to the library and pick up their life's work. I guarantee it'll hold a lot more value 20+ years down the line compared to any book about business, entrepreneurship and motivation that's come out in the past 10.
 
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TL;DR version = More Michael Jordan's, less Kiyosaki's

Why not cut out the "middle man" and go straight to the source? Seek inspiration from winners that WON so well, particularly with the things you seek to do, and then learned to convey the "how". In lieu of the availability of those types of SMEs in your particular niche, you can often look in other similar niches or professions where you can still draw meaningful correlations that are still of value for your particular endeavors.

That first-hand insight into the application of that knowledge is far more valuable, in my opinion, than someone who's simply a wordsmith and/or charismatic orator, that may or may not have any appreciable degree of experience in the application of which they speak of.
 
So much bullshit in this thread.

Q. What's the fundamental difference between
  • A) Reading a super substantive business case study on an IM forum by a pseudo-anonymous entrepreneur, digesting some effective tactics and ideas from it, and putting them into action. And --
  • B) Reading a book or listening to a podcast by an established self-promoting guru, distilling the substantive material, digesting some effective tactics and ideas from it, and putting them into action?
A: Nothing.

The identity and status of a content producer is irrelevant; the usefulness of his content to YOUR PROJECTS and your ability to make it actionable and efficacious are the only important variables.

The real question people should be asking is:

"What writer has a great track record of producing content that has helped many people fulfill entrepreneurial goals similar to mine?"

Who gives a fuck if they're popular and overhyped or not.
 
Capital said:
Q. What's the fundamental difference between
  • A) Reading a super substantive business case study on an IM forum by a pseudo-anonymous entrepreneur, digesting some effective tactics and ideas from it, and putting them into action. And --
  • B) Reading a book or listening to a podcast by an established self-promoting guru, distilling the substantive material, digesting some effective tactics and ideas from it, and putting them into action?
Who gives a fuck if they're popular and overhyped or not.
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100% this.

Your own analytical mind will make or break you.

I have learned so much from falling down the BuSo rabbit hole to read every thread I can get my hands on about REAL people and their real businesses and struggles... and I've been lucky enough to have knowledge bombs dropped on me here by some world class, anonymous internet handles I'll never even meet with specific advice about what works best for my situation. The celebrity name does not matter, and a lot of times it may actually hold more merit when it's raw and unfiltered... not perfectly packaged, one size fits all to maximize someone's profit share. It all lies in your own ability to consume, analyze, discern what is worthy of implementing... and then actually take that action to implement it.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is BuSo is my guru.

So, if you see someone hitting "like" on your posts from years ago... It's just me.
Just chillin in the archives.
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None of them, all of them are scammers trying to take a buck out of unethically, avoid them as much as you can all their advices are garbage they put a some sprinkles on them.
 
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