The Chaos of Self-Improvement
3 Questions to Orient Yourself in This World Full of ‘Gurus’
During the summer of 2020, I bought my first self-development book “Conquer back your time” by Andrea Giuliodori — unfortunately available only in the Italian language.
After reading this amazing and practical book, I told myself: “why don’t buy another one? At the end of the day I found so many useful suggestions in this book”.
In fact, I’d had some real improvements.
I thought I had discovered some gold mine where all the books were helpful and could be used to improve ourselves.
Then the reality hit me straight on my face: most of the books are just repetitive and not helpful at all.
I remember I read one about assertiveness. I don’t actually recall any suggestions from that book.
Moreover, most of the books/courses/articles just propose these amazing techniques that most of the time don’t work. We actually just swipe, acknowledge and forget (nice!).
“I can’t waste my time like this” — I said.
So, I prepared 3 questions to ask yourself to understand if the guru you’re listening to is worth it to follow.
Is this ‘Guru’ following its own rules?
This is an interesting question. It came to my mind reading the book “Antifragility” by Nassim Taleb.
In this book, he explains that some jobs are antifragile. This means, for example, that if a writer/opinionist/influencer says something and also its own opposite, he takes only the benefits when he is right and he doesn’t take the disadvantages when he is wrong.
For example, if one author publishes a book expressing one opinion and then a second book expressing exactly the opposite, he would take much more benefits for the opinion that it is right.
No one would make him pay something for the wrong opinion.
So, here comes the suggestion:
Only the authors that express one idea and they follow it are worth it to listen to.
Basically, everyone can say whatever he/she wants, but only a few people — who are consistent in their actions to their own opinions — are the ones who take risks and worth it to follow.
Most of the time we see different techniques: one opposite to the other one.
A lot of words, but few people which act.
Think just about how many different opinions there are about sleeping. Of course, it is confusing.
Imagine that someone comes to you and says that you should invest in crypto.
So then you ask: “how do you exactly buy those cryptos, which ones, and why you are buying them?”
“Ahem, well I’m not actually buying anything yet…”. — he answers.
In this case, I would rather avoid his suggestion.
Is the ‘Guru’ proposing a general rule or a tailored method?
In my opinion, general rules based on general context are a bit dangerous.
It is very difficult to believe that there is just one specific method that works for everyone.
Last week I heard the following rule:
“Guys, no one reads anymore. It is only time-consuming. So don’t buy books if you want to learn something”
Yeah, sure.
I mean, this is just a lazy (but accepted) generalization: it might be true that now fewer people are reading than before, but it is actually true that reading can be useful for a lot of people.
It makes more sense when the ‘guru’ says that everyone should find a personalized method for themself than a simple generalized rule.
Basically, you just need to find your own way to learn something.
It can be by using videos, online courses, podcasts or even reading.
Be skeptical about general rules and try to focus more on what works for you.
How much marketing is the ‘Guru’ using?
Marketing is a good thing, we know that.
It helps you to promote a product.
Especially at this time when getting someone’s attention is so difficult, that we can understand its value.
But then if you start to feel it a bit too much, well this is not a good sign.
I had experience with people calling me for selling me books or courses to change my life every week.
It is a very aggressive approach. And you should be skeptical about this person.
It is important to feel that the other person wants mostly to help you, not selling you ‘the next best thing for you’.
I’ve seen people getting lost in buying courses over courses just because of some aggressive marketing approach and not because they actually need those courses.
Conclusion
We can actually wrap the contents up and make a clear distinction: about the people who are trying to sell you everything they can for their own interest; and people who actually care about the other’s improvements.
People who just want to sell the next magic trick, and people who want to give you the best advice they can for helping you.
Use these three questions to discover the fake gurus from the real ones. There is no doubt that the second group is the one that it’s worth following.
