Fake gurus. Snake oil salesmen. And even non-expert financial advice. No, that’s now what we’re doing. That’s what we’re calling out. And in this Friday Fury, my last film of the year, I wanted it to be unique.

So I enlisted a good friend, who I met on LinkedIn, Adrian Oprea, to join us as we wave farewell to the charlatans of 2021.

Hi, I'm Kia

I'm a Tech Minimalist and founder of MacJunky. I work remotely while travelling in a classic Chevy K5 Blazer with my dog Woof! and sharing the journey.

Transcript

This is going to be a great episode. I'm speaking with Adrian. I met Adrian on LinkedIn. I do believe, and we're constantly talking on LinkedIn about specific topics and we're going to go through it in these. So just try to watch as much as you can. It's a long video. It's about an hour long, but we basically go through talking about fake gurus.

Now there will be swearing. Uh, there's going to be grownup language. If you're not a grownup and you don't like swearing and don't bother watching this, it is a Friday fury episode and I really hope you enjoy it. His outcome session, you know, I'm getting to that stage. Um, you know, I want, you know, I've been thinking about this for a while.

I've kind of wanted to be myself more and I am when I am with my clients and stuff. And I think. Um, you know, we're talking about marketing and fake gurus and stuff that, that, they're all, it's all synthetic. There's no real people anymore. And I woke up this morning knowing that I was going to do this recording with you.

And I thought, I want to get rid of people that post inspirational hustle, porn type stuff, which is what we've been talking about recently. And I did, and I got rid of quite a few. I don't follow that many people anyway on Twitter. This is, and I got rid of about seven of them and I'm already, even this morning, I'm feeling, huh, this is actually quite nice, you know, and I want to get back into following real people with their real, with that realness.

And when I started doing my video, Originally, I didn't want it to be produced or anything. I just wanted it to be me in front of the camera. Right. And the whole black and white thing came. We talked about this last time. Right? So listeners who are listening in, we recorded this last week and the app that we were using a welder I'm not naming and shaming.

It was just shit. And it fucked up my. And it fucked up the transcription. So just letting you know, that's why we're doing this again. So

yeah, it's, it's, it's a matter actually we're going medic is we're we're recording about the recording. We're recording

the recording. Yeah. Or that, that really irritated me, but yeah, I want to, I wanted to follow normal people when I did my, um, videos.

I didn't want it to be produced and stuff. So, um, I just wanted to be me and do the ums and the AHS and stuff. Not too much. I mean, if you do it too much, then it's, it sounds silly. You got to, you still got to be presentable in a way, but I wanted to be me, my dog walks in now and again, you know, or he walks down the stairs and I'm like, oh, sorry, wait, he's walking down the street.

I mean, why not? Because that's. Right.

Yeah. It's, uh, it's actually funny. I actually kicked my cat out of here because cats are different, like a dog. Doesn't just jump on the table, but the cat does it. Then you're going to see her like wagging her tail, like going around over here, like what you got here. Uh, but, um, the funny thing is that, so you mentioned that you were doing some, uh, like feed pruning, which is actually a topic that I have in base camp.

So it's already like scheduled for recording, uh, for my podcast, which is like the how to make your feeds a little bit more, uh, valuable for yourself. And I actually saw your tweet, but what I wanted to tell you was that. Uh, yesterday evening, I was with my daughter at my computer and I was showing her one of the, like the latest videos that I've made the, the latest episodes of the podcast.

Yeah. And, um, she was, um, asking me like, uh, since, when are you doing this? Cause she's like, she wasn't like very into what I was doing. And I'm like, since you were about four, like I've done videos, uh, when you were four and she's like, show me and I show her the video and she's like, you look younger, you have more hair, you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then we get into this talk and she's like almost nine. Yeah. Um, and she's a perfectionist and, uh, I don't like that. And I don't like that because she remembers. Me a lot in them, but the perfectionism that she, well, I wouldn't say suffered from, but like, th that I see in her is the type of, um, what, what is usually called toxic perfectionism.

So, because she can't do something perfectly, she won't even try. And I keep telling her like, You got a try because otherwise, if you don't do, you're not going to get good at something. And then I, I showed her actual footage, like, see this 15 minute video that you liked. Here's an hour of me, like sweating and puffing and huffing.

And, and we laughed and she was like looking at them and she was going like, oh, so you took one hour to record this 10 minute, nine minute video. And I'm like, yeah. And I was sweating and swearing like, hell, I tried to jump, skip over the swear words. Cause like, I'm going to wait until she's like 15, 16 to like enrich her vocabulary.

But, but, uh, yeah, you could, um, you, you, you like native English speakers would say that. Uh, I definitely demonstrated the diversity of the word. Fuck. Right. Brilliant. Yeah, no, it's do you know the boondock saints? The movie? Yeah. So do you know the scene where like they go into the hotel room where Rocco, the like the long hair guy was supposed to like kill some mafia guys and like made,

they gave him, oh no.

It's with these two Irish brothers that they're like some sort of, uh, you know, um, what do they call them? Like event? Uh, not Avengers, vigilante type of stuff, you know? Yeah, yeah. Right. And so they have this friend who's kind of in the mafia, but he's like a package boy. And he gets sent by his boss to, um, um, kill some guys that were having a meeting in this hotel room.

And these guys go to kill the same bad guys and they entered a room. They kill everyone. And then Rocco. This career guy was at the door pretending to be serviced room service, you know, to enter and kill them. And they decide to play a prank on him. And, you know, like Dave rough ruffle him up a little bit and then look at the gun and realize that they sent him the, the, his boss sent him with a gun with four bullets to kill six guys.

So when everything chills, yeah. When everything chills, the guy goes, what the fucking fuck. And he keeps going and going and going. And then one of the guys go that certainly illustrates the diversity of the word. Fuck. And so, yeah,

I was thinking of something else. I gotta, I gotta go and check that out, but yeah, it's, it's not easy making these, these videos really when I first started, uh, yeah.

I w I am a perfectionist as well, but I gave it a go and I remember the first video I made it. It's still there. It was actually by accident. It was. Conversation. I was having with someone and then I thought, wait, if I cut this up, this is what tech minimalism is. And that was my first video. It was like, uh, I think it was a 45 minute conversation, which I just recorded myself.

I, uh, obviously I was recording me, not the guy. So I just cut out what, uh, when he was talking and just carried on with me. And that was it. And I thought this will be good idea, but it took forever to fricking edits. It took forever. Right? And then after that I thought, you know, let me be the Casey Neistat, let me go and do the videos.

And, and, you know, and it took me forever. So I was making a video a month and it was taking forever. But being the tech minimalist, I am, I was like, I've got to hone this down now again, because of I've done so many videos from the time of the idea to the time of actually posting it's about 34. 40 minutes max, and that's including everything.

Because again, I don't, I, there was a short period ago, short time ago, I was told to stop posting everywhere and I did so at the time took a bit longer, but usually I only post to a couple of places and edit. I mean, I don't really edit, I don't, um, color grade, cause it's black and white basically. So it makes it a lot easier.

Um, but yeah, if you don't start, you, ain't going to get good, which is basically the.

That's precisely that's precisely at, uh, cause like to, and like to, to close the loop, I showed her that video and then how long it took me to make the video, how, how, how many takes I had to, to, to go through. And then, uh, we went back to my latest two podcasts episodes and she's like, but you don't seem to be cutting here.

And I'm like, because I didn't, I have 30 seconds to a minute of me, like, uh, sitting around, getting into the mood before I started speaking. And then there's the end where I have to put like a little bit of music and like music and cut before. Like I turned my face away from the screen and look somewhere else, you know?

And that's it like it's continuous. And she was like, you did it in one fell swoop. And we're like, yeah, yeah, Talked, but what about the ums and AHS? Cause she's like, you seem to be interrupting at some point and like what she can understand. Cause she's, she doesn't speak English or right now she understands parts of the discourse.

She has a vocabulary, but she's not an English speaker. And she's like, I can tell you're stuttering and you're interrupting yourself and you don't, isn't that bothersome. And I'm like to, who is interested to, to, to the people who are interested in the information that I'm giving? No, that's not. They're just going to skip it.

Yeah, it's true. I mean, that's what I was going to come to. It's it. It's got to sound good. The audio quality's got to be good, but. At the next tier down is the content, the actual story, the, the information, and if that's good, then the ums and ours don't matter too much. There is a guy on YouTube. I watch a lot of van life videos as a guy on YouTube and he makes great videos, great content, great ideas.

But I can't watch him because he goes, um, all the time. Um,

you know, who has a hat like that? Someone like Graham from Y Combinator, he has this hum hum. He does this like frequently and it's, it's distracting, but it's actually beneficial to one point because if you go like you drift off and he goes like, come, you just come back.

Cause it's just like the cycle, you know?

Like it's weird because as I said with this guy, I like the content, but I just can't watch it because of that. And two people who are listening, don't worry about your. I'm not going to, I'm going to call it mannerisms. It's not just mannerisms. It's just the way you speak the way you are.

Because just because someone wouldn't like it, there's other people who will, he's got thousands of followers. Right. So people do like it. So, um, whoever's listening, just get on with it and do it. Don't worry about what people say, because you're making it for yourself and giving the information out there.

And if people don't like it, they'll just do something else. If they troll, you don't even bother listening to it because what's the point I got trolled once or twice, but it was like nothing, not many people, you know, worry about that kind of stuff.

I guess it depends on, on, on how you take trolling. Like, I was also.

Talking to someone. And, uh, he asked me, um, why are you doing these? I saw, you know, he said, I saw you're trying to become a content creator. So you might watch this and that and that. And I'm like, no, man, I'm not trying to become a content creator. Cause he don't see me going like, Hey guys, welcome to my end.

Then, you know, the S the clapping and the fist bumping and the, uh, pub, no snapping, the fingers, the, all those ticks that, uh, uh, you to content creators have. Right. Uh, I'm not doing it for that. I'm doing. Uh, to serve as a personal historian so that when I do have to make up my success story, I won't, I mean, I'm going to have the, you know, the historian tell me like, no, no, no, you were, that was the lucky guess you were stupid over there.

This is what you did wrong. You just kind of stumbled and filled into it half, you know, halfway through. And I don't end up like inventing some heroes story for people, you know, I've always knew.

Yeah, no, exactly what, this is the thing you, I, why do I do it? I do it for, it was to start with content. It was kind of content marketing.

It was like being top of mind making videos, but then I realized quickly that I've got a lot more to say. So they kind of morphed into something else into kind of ideas of simplicity. Simplifying. Well, you're not being a tech guy, simplifying your tech stuff and things like that. And I think in 2022 is going to be morphed into something else, but we all have stories.

We all have ideas that we could share. And especially for people like you and I who work on our own, I mean, it's a bit different with you because you have a family. This people around there are a lot of people like me, who there are no one around, other than the dog. Right? So getting my information out, it's more to do with getting it out of my head and hoping someone else will listen to it than anything else.

Because when you work on your own, you still need people to bounce off ideas. And that's what social media in a way is grateful. So circling back to what we were saying at the beginning, kind of organize your feed in such a way where it's beneficial. And, um, that's kind of working for me as well, actually in that way.

So I'm really happy with it. I mean, these fake gurus and stuff, we've been talking about this for a few weeks now, to be honest, online, and they just irritate the Jesus out. I mean, I mean that thing that I posted on linked. I didn't tag him or anything. It's like, fuck this, this people see who he is, you know, I just took a picture of it.

And it's like, what are you actually saying? What are you like,

oh, I sent you the screenshot from the PDF book, the book, the thing like these people are literally, um, following the same influencers, the same thought leaders, right? With big air quotes here. And, uh, they're probably some of them end up spending hundreds of dollars, if not more, um, on the special courses, workshops, three-day events, whatever, uh, the, the, the gurus and the influencers put together.

And then they start parroting out the same things. I actually made a video. While, like I filmed the screen of the computer with your post open with that, but I only posted it. Yeah. I only posted it on Instagram because that's, that's really not something you want to put on Twitter. Cause it was more of a, it was not making fun of I'm going to send it to you.

You're going to, you're going to see it and probably have a laugh, but, uh, you know, with doing voices and all that, um, that's not, not appropriate for, for LinkedIn and by any stretch of the imagination, it's more suited than like the motivational bullshit that we see over there. But still, I, I thought it wasn't for that platform, but you said something very interesting, um, about one of your reasons for sharing what you know, and it is to get out of your mind and get.

Out of your mind and into the basically it's a way for you to communicate, to disperse some of your ideas and knowledge and maybe to collect some feedback and some information about the knowledge. Um, and there are two quotes that I remember from a reading. I believe Jordan Peterson's book. I don't know if you know who Jordan Peterson.

Okay. So in 12, I think in 12 rules for life, I've met both of those quotes, which is one of them. It takes a village to organize a mind and a, the topic of the chapter where I found this, uh, quote was, uh, probably about like, you know, having, uh, a family, a tightly knit group around you and stuff like that.

And how, if you're alone, by the time you get to your fifties, it's going to be harder for you. If you don't have like a really close friend, like alone in the sense of not having a family and a. The other quote, which ties into, um, to, to the first one, very, very well is the shoe. The faintest pencil is better than the sharpest of minds, which is, uh, something, uh, that's.

More or less telling you to write stuff down, you know, like this is why I keep stuff like this laying around and, you know, keep putting stuff down.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I started doing that a bit more. I have an app called day one, which I love I've been using it since 2014. I love it. It's great. And I've been using it on and off.

I'm not a writer. I can't write I'm useless at it, but I can type and I can type quite well. And I'm very good at very short form stuff. So just getting ideas out, quotes and stuff. I have it in my dog on the phone and also on the Mac keyboard shortcut. And then I just put stuff there and it's great. So that helps me get ideas for my videos that helps me get ideas for where I want to go and things like that.

So writing stuff down is absolutely a great thing. The video thing is kind of, Hmm. Uh, an updated version of that in a way, because it's like, yes, I've written this quote down, but there's a, there's a feeling and an idea behind it. Hence why I make the videos. Videos are amazing. In fact, I ju I posted something about video.

I love video. I just really do love video and I always have, but I've never really done it up. And, uh, I started it like two years ago kind of thing. And I think the reason why it works well for me, all right. You know, carried on doing it in that way, uh, is because I really enjoyed the idea of video in the past.

I've had so many different types of cameras and stuff. Um, so I've always really liked video. And what I usually do, if someone emails me a question, or if I have a question, a support request or a bug or whatever, this is what happens with, I found the bug in, Hey, actually, the really stupid bug, which accomplished no one else has that.

She mentioned it, but, um, You can create a note, but I didn't want the note. So I deleted it. Um, it was deleted. I refresh the prep page and the note was still there and I couldn't understand it. So I made a video and explained it and I was like, is this a bug or a feature? Because sometimes they come back with, it's a feature, which is really stupid.

So I made the video, sent the video and they fixed it within two emails. He said, oh, we never knew about this, blah, blah, blah. And it's now fixed. We pushed to fix. And it's now fixed because they saw the video, which is great because I, they said they actually said it and I screenshotted it and posted it really liked the video.

It was great. Bulba so video for me is it's really, um, it really helps me communicate what I want to

say.

Did you want to know why. Because it's video. Just this just the same as writing things down, uh, on a whiteboard, for example, respect the principle of show. Don't tell. Yes. Yeah. I love that. Like I, I learned it back in 2009.

I believe I found 2010, I think there's whatever, back in the stone ages. Um, so when I read a book called the back of the napkin by Dan Rome, which is a book about, uh, visual notation, And the concept was there. Show don't tell, and then it got strengthened when, um, I was following some tutorials on this, um, web development tutorials website called can I name them?

Can I egg had the.io, which is a great platform having used it for years, but they had pretty decent courses. And in their, um, article for authors, if you're a course author, they would give you like, this is the hardware you need. This is how you set it up. Like their whole onboarding was an article. Right.

And when they would tell you about the videos, how to structure them, this was the most important part to show don't tell. So this means that you have the code written and then you talk about the code. You explain after. You show after you reveal the code or after you write it. Right. And you summarize at the end always, and you don't start every video with, Hey guys, today, we're going to learn about the blah, blah, blah.

No, get straight into it. Yeah. I love that. If you can, if you're interested in that, although like your video, your style video is pretty, no BS, no fluff. So yeah, it

is no clue. And you know, there's a, there's a hip hop artist and I've got to find it. Um, I've got to find it. I've got the 12 inch and I got to find it.

And, uh, back in the late eighties, it came out this record, I put the needle on and it just came into the music. It just beat. There was no intro. There was no pads, nothing beat. And I was like, damn, this is good. And whenever I make my videos, it reminds me of how I start my videos like that, because I literally just get into it because the thing is, when you, you know what, sometimes when you listen to podcasts, there's like 10 minutes of fluff of who are you?

Where are your links, Bella, whatever it is. And although the links go at the end, it's like fluff, who fuck is listening to the shit. I mean, you, there's no reason for. Th the point is to get your point across, to have that conversation. And hopefully someone likes part of that conversation and they carry on with it and carry on listening to it.

But to go through that fluff, it's just,

they're

using, of course it is, but everything now sounds the same

every

yeah, but this is the thing wants to be, but then no one like him, because he also just gets into it. It's only at the beginning way, Joe Rogan boat podcast, blah, blah music. Hey, how you doing?

It's it's straight in. There's no bullshit with him. And it's always been like that with him. Right? So the point is to have a conversation. People like it, what's the point of giving all this crap. It's like webinars. We've spoken about webinars in the past. You get an hour webinar, 45 minute webinar. And that's like 40 minutes of absolute, pure utter shit.

And then five minutes. You got to buy my core. So you got to buy this. It's like, why am I here? You know? So I stopped looking at, uh, I just basically I'm stopping with all that crap. And I think everyone should,

I guess this is why we're bothered about this. It's very positive recipes. So I don't know where I found this, but authenticity itself is not beneficial.

I mean, if you're your authentic self, is that of an asshole? Oh yeah. Right. Don't be authentic. Right, right, right. So, I mean, it has to be pawn, uh, upon. No pondering is like being in decisive, right? Yeah. It

has to be

thought, fought through. Right. You got to put a balance over there, but at the same time, you got a little, little bit of yourself out because turning back to what I said, this is what bothers us.

It's recipes. So podcast, right? For podcasts, you have like intro talk about, uh, what the episode is about what you're going to get. And then you're going to leave a hook, but like for the end, so that people stick in and then you get into the meat of the problem. Then you reiterate the problem. You just talked about the topic and then you go links, like share, subscribe, social media, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Right. Same with these not, not workshops. And we're going to go into the fake gurus stuff. But like with self-development stuff you get on the website, uh, you get the pop, you want to click exit, you know, there are these exit pop-ups that people need to know. Some of those pop-ups some of them are just when you scroll and then you get like subscribe to newsletter, but others are called exit pop-ups.

So when you go towards the, uh,

yeah, please, I'm going to keep on rolling.

Okay. Uh, I'm gonna wait for you actually. Uh, or, uh, do you want me to like go through, um, yeah, we're just gonna wait for, uh, for the director to come back into his high chair.

So unfortunately there's no, do not disturb on the, on the, you know, you get a parcel in the pockets.

I, I think you do have a, do not disturb. It's called a dog. You put it

it's there. Just waiting. Uh, wow. Sorry about that. Yeah, you were saying, yeah.

Yes. So, uh, I was saying that, um, with, uh, even with like, self-develop. Like same thing with recipes. I was explaining about, uh, some of the types of pop-ups you might see on a website and leading into the way they collect your email and how you get into a funnel.

So some of those pop-ups are made to appear when you go to the exit, like, if you want to go to top right top left to like close the window or close the tab, that's when they pop up. And so they ask for your email, right? So give us your email and we'll send you this free PDF. You give them the email, they send you the free PDF.

Then they enroll you in the five day email drip campaign course with like workflows. And then they invite you to the webinar in the webinar. They do what you said, talk 45 minutes of bullshit, and then trying to sell you on their, uh, course, for example. Right. And okay. Like, I'm going to be the devil's advocate here.

The purpose of a webinar, usually. Is to help you decide whether you, one of the purposes is to help you decide whether the whatever is being sold is suitable for you or not. But if you ship 45 minutes of what we say shit under pressure, you know, like this shit trucks, that's not like don't do it, but then they sell you on the course.

You go buy the course, you join the course. Um, you go through with it. If you fail, it's your fault, of course, because you did not, you did not push hard enough. You weren't dedicated enough. Then you buy the book, then you buy the, uh, private and like the, uh, conference ticket private island event, and then private mentorship group with guru and.

At the end of this, all, all of, all of this, you are in depth. Yes, absolutely. Most people, some people go in debt for

this. There's a guy I don't, you may know him on YouTube. He's got a massive following. And I really like his content called coffee Zilla. It's amazing. You've watched it right. You've seen it.

I've

seen him. I haven't watched him for like three months, I guess

it was amazing. There's another court guy called Spencer Cornelia. He talks a bit fast, but he hasn't really good contact, but coffee, Zilla. Um, but he, he exposes all these fake gurus and stuff. What I want to do with my Friday fury episodes, which is what this episode is going to be.

Actually, this is going to be the last video on Friday, uh, of the year. Yay. Yay. And, um, what I, what I want to do with my fake, uh, sorry with my Friday, fury is kind of turn it into. A cause right now it's basically what, you know, what tech annoys me, what annoys me with tech? What SAS companies, me, why have they done it in this way?

And I want to expand on that basically. I really want to expand on that and I want to bring in this whole fake. Bullshit that being sold out there because sometimes they don't always call it webinars. They call it workshops. But in fact, it's actually just a fucking webinar. They're not really learning anything, right.

Or you're learning the most stupid, basic fucking shittery on their clubhouses is another form of webinar basically, uh, which I just stopped using because you get call, you make contact with people, they call you and they just want to find out who you are and what you do. They're not buying anything, which is fine.

You're not always there to sell anything, but just the way in the manner that they try to speak to you. Oh, I'll be good for you. You know, if you, if you come into the clique that we're in and maybe we can get like, get the fuck out of here. And I've had a few of those kinds of calls and it's like, Oh, it just pisses me off.

No end that these fake motherfucking asshole, sorry, cunts. Just tend to want to gather all these fucking people, but not actually do any fucking work themselves. Do you see how irritated I am?

No, I know. I know you can call it instead of calling it clubhouse, you can call it clap house. Cause what they do is they want to clap your cheeks financially.

Yeah. Right. There's another thing that annoys me online. This is, this is, this is a rent episode I think is this whole, um, they're there, they call it build in public. This is your wheelhouse in a way. There's a difference between build in public meaning you're showing. Uh, you're helping people. This is how I do it.

Did I get it wrong? You know, that's a bit different to when they say build in public and then they posting figures and numbers and stuff. How fucking, exactly, right? Yeah. So obnoxious. And it's like, why are you even bothering doing this? Why

for cloud cloud or followers, because people are people aren't going, or I don't know how to put

it, not to sound like,

no, but I, I don't want to make it sound like a generalization, but like at the end of the day, generalizations start conversation.

So let me say it like a lot of people. Go into a business. And by that, I mean, even like start a side hustle. Yeah. Only from the judgment of, uh, how much am I going to make? Uh, how much are others making? So if you say I'm building in public and you're publishing your numbers, what you're, what you're doing is you're gathering the flies who want to have a bite of that pile of shit.

Right. So, uh, it's, it's, that's what it is on one side on the other, on, on, on, on a different note. Um, you do have guys like the guy who built a remote okay. Nomad list and all that stuff. Uh, Peter level's, I guess it's his name? That name, actually, this guy has been public with absolutely everything he's built.

He's had graph charts, whatever, everything. Right. He is kind of doing it to help you out. Like he's putting everything out there. Step even statuses of like a Cron jobs that are running in sending emails. And I don't know, submitting new job postings to directories everything is out there, but yeah, that's why I think a lot of them are doing it.

And, um, uh, I think it's, uh, a trend, um, that I observed by listening to podcasts on like indie hackers, which is podcasts for indie hackers. Uh, and there were a couple of other ones as well. Um, Everybody who starts building in public, if not with the current project, with the next one, they're going to like stop showing numbers and stuff like that.

Because when, like, there is competition over there and it's easy to clone anything nowadays, if I want a website like yours, I'll have it by the end of the day and it will be up and with ads running. Right? Yeah. So, um, that's why you learn right with the first one you build in plot in public, but then you kind of learn to hide the numbers.

You start talking in like calm as in zeroes and that's it. Yeah,

exactly. Okay. But the thing is there, as you said, that I think there are two different reasons why they're building a public one is to show off in clown to get numbers. And I think that happens way more than I'm here to teach you. Of course, right.

Way more. And that, I think that's the bullshittery that's got to stop. Who's going to stop it because basically they're making money, what I think and what I feel. And I may be the minority here is that being ethical on the internet will get you nowhere. That's how I feel. I'm not saying, I mean, again, it's the generalization thing we're talking about, right?

So if you look at what's going on the internet, the people who are shouting loudest to the people who are being complete, utter fucking fuckwits and ourselves are always making money. Look at Jake. Paul for instance, is the absolute fucking bellend, but he's making money. He's, they're making bank look at all this NFT stuff.

Seriously, look, all the, you know, I'm not saying all crypto, but you know, look at the crypto space, for instance, the people who are shouting the loudest, but there are people in there that are doing well are doing, um, You know, but the, but the problem is the people who are shouting louder and, um, making these God awful videos are making the clout, the following the money, way more than the others.

That's correct. And you won't be able to put a stop to this. I was having a conversation with, uh, I wouldn't say a friend, uh, she's like, uh, an acquaintance and she was reposting something from a financial education, uh, Instagram, uh, account, like, uh, that's gained popularity here in Romania. And what I wanted to say is that this is not going to stop, uh, Unless this is this, like, it's going to go on until people get smart enough to realize that we can't all be rich and famous and they're going to spend their money on the shortcuts and on the, on cutting corners and on the secret and the recipe and whatever to no end.

And they'll still be poor. And I was telling this person like, uh, do you like this account? And she's like, yeah, I love it. It's very valuable. It's very, and I'm like, I know the chick who's behind this account. She's a fucking web designer. She's not an investor. She's telling you how to split your stocks.

Are you dumb? She's a designer. And she grew like, to her point. She grew an account to like over a hundred thousand followers, I think, or something like that. I'm just going to look right now to, just to, but this, but

this is, this goes back to what I was saying in our original conversation is that what's ruined the internet is advertising money.

That is pure and simple because look at Google that they, they don't give a shit. What kind of stuff you post? I mean, you've watched the coffee Zeller stuff because these people a hundred thousand followers and stuff, they're making loads and loads of money with the ads that are being now, if they, if she's doing financial stuff, right?

Those finance, um, uh, people, crypto people are spending loads of money on ads and they get a portion of the course. Well, there is that as well, but that's, that's the side hustle, right? The, the hustle is let me get loads of, um, collects and loads of views on my YouTube channel. I correct. So that's my, that's my point.

So I truly believe advertising is basically fucked up the internet and fucked up what we sh what's real. And what's not like this woman, this girl you're talking about. Um, who's a web designer making what investment advice, what the fuck.

Investment in financial advice and, uh, selling a course on that crazy.

Like I told you, 1,300, uh, I'm sorry, 135,000 followers right now to that account started last year. I know the account. I know it's since it had like four or 500 followers, I'm not jealous or anything, but like, it's like me, we keep saying like, listen to the specialists, look at the doctors about the vaccines and about this and that and the other.

But then at the same time, like the same person yelling to me, like, uh, don't use your brain in your opinions. Listen to the specialists then goes to a designer and buys a fucking financial advice course. And starts investing and I'm like, you dumb, stupid.

It happens all the time. Again, the, you know, the video is a powerful thing in both sides.

I mean, this person's making videos. So then you become, you get to know the person because you think, you know, the person, because you've seen them in a video. Right. Because you're seeing them every day. They don't know you, but you know that because you see them every single day or whatever. So then when they say I'll go and do this because it's great.

You're like, well, I know this subconsciously, I know this person let's go.

She doesn't even have a face. She only does the Instagram posts. The course, I think is somehow hidden, you know, like DM for the course or stuff like that. So there's not a photo of her face or a mention of, there are a couple of names mentioned, but

like, who do we blame?

Do we blame the people making these videos or the stupid fucks actually going after these videos falling for him?

Both. Well, both, but I don't know. Like if you're a communist, you blame the people who, or socialists you blame. Who's making the, the person who would make the video. But if you're, there's at least a capitalist vein in you, you're going to blame the people who are buying it.

Right. Cause like, as a business person, you want to try and sell something. Right. So w what. Chop blame, uh, the creator of the course end of the day, the account for would be like unethical behavior. Exactly. And if you don't have like, disclaimers that this is not financial advice, this is just for fun opinion, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The small print over there, you know, at the bottom of the page, uh, then of course you can like press legal charges if

it's still scummy, because I've seen people who say, you know, that they say, I mean, um, coffees, Ella did a thing about this, about, um, this isn't financial advice and they bury it in, in amongst so much text.

So when they have gone to court, they say, what is in the text? Right. And it's literally buried it's one line, one line, one sentence in amongst all this other shit. It's crazy. Honestly, the internet has got into such a clique. Craziness bullshit. And I do blame advertisers. I really do, because without that, these people wouldn't be making that much money and it wouldn't go to.

You can draw a parallel here, even with like religion, Christianity, like any religion, like listen to me. So we went on crusades, we went on and said, like those fuckers over there, we got to take their land and make them repent because their sin sinners. Right? Where, where in the books? It is sad. Like if you see someone that's not of your religion, kill him, his family, his kids, his wife, whatever, make them repent and take their land.

It's the, it's the people. Interpretation of that, you know, like you get the moral code from religion, you get a set of rules of conduct, how to behave in a society. And there are understandable even like to the lowest level of intelligence. Yeah. That's why they, they, they, they're so popular. Like if you wanna look at marketing, you gotta look at Jesus.

And if you want to look at the best marketing book ever written, get it, read the Bible, but it's the same thing. Like even with advertising, it's what we, what we make with it. That's wrong, not advertising and advertisers. You know,

I understand that. I understand that. But if I'm purely talking about YouTube here, um, if you think about the incentive that they've given to the content creators and the way they've done it, that's why I'm saying I blame the ad.

Yeah, because, because they've made it so easy for people to make money. And again, that's a great thing. Cause there are a lot of people on YouTube that are doing great content and it's good that they're getting paid for it. The thing is in all walks of life, in all businesses and everything, there's always assholes that come in and ruin it basically.

And that's the problem. I'm not saying get rid of advertising because that's stupid because you need, you know, people need to make money in that fight, but they gotta be some, they gotta to be curtailed in some way. But the advert, the, the middleman in this case, YouTube, Google, or whatever, alpha, whatever you want to call them, they're the middlemen in between the content creator and the advertiser.

Right. And they don't want to fuck up the amount of money they're making because they're making a good 40 or 60%. So if these content creators are making, I don't know, um, 30 grand per video, because some of them are with millions and millions of followers. Yeah. You think Google is going to go? Nah, no, of course, shit.

So that, in that essence, I'm saying that that's where, you know, the, the marketing and not marketing, but advertising has ruined the internet because people are on the internet to make money. So they make any kind of bullshit to clickbait to make the money. And that, and that's my problem with it.

It's uh, you would, you too.

And the internet itself has enabled is, um, an era where people with no experience whatsoever. In a given topic can teach you how to make money and become an expert at that topic. Yeah. They're called content creators. They just spend their time on the trending page. They look at the trending stuff and they just do the same thing.

There's loads and loads of videos. They're exactly the same down to the, I mean, again, going back to the coffee's dealer stuff, he he's actually shown, you know, four or five different videos. Exactly. The same thumbnails. Exactly the same content. Exactly. I mean, just exactly fucking the same, but again, what's enabling that they're making money.

Exactly. And, and that's the thing. So, uh, it, it just irritates me. This whole fake. And when we say, when I say fake guru, I'm putting pretty much everyone into that category who are complete fuckers on the internet, uh, whether you're posting an inspirational kind of thing. Like I, you know, which what, um, the thing that I clipped and posted yesterday from that guy is like, from those people to people on YouTube and make selling courses to the woman that you're talking about, who selling courses on a subject that she knows absolutely nothing about.

And I think a few weeks ago, I even posted something about, uh, especially in this happens a lot on clubhouse, especially with LinkedIn influencers and stuff, LinkedIn experts, they read the, there are two types of experts. There's an expert who's done his fucking job for 30 years, knows what he's doing.

People ask him a question and he can blurt it out and that's an expert, right? And so if you're an expert in that field, you can become a coach. You can become a consultant because you're a fucking expert in that field, in that content, in that, um, subject in that topic, what the internet has enabled. And, and, uh, I've noticed a lot on clubhouse is when they call themselves an expert, because they've read the, um, uh, the, um, press release from LinkedIn.

So they know what's happening and then they have a LinkedIn account and then just put LinkedIn expert. So whenever someone asks them a question, because they don't know, rather than pointing them to the actual article, they will say, I'm the expert because I've read this and come and hire me. That to me is a charlatan.

That's not a fucking expert. You just know more than the next. It doesn't mean you're a fucking expert. You just means that, you know, more than the next person an expert is a coach. A proper coach has been through the whole rigmarole of, um, his business, his or her business, and knows what they're talking about.

It's not just reading one or two fucking articles that using a fucking product and then saying, I'm an expert, just irritates them. But Jesus, out of me that does really go,

you know, you know, what's the thing. So. I I've, I'm not the, like the sharpest tool in the, in the shed right now, the brightest bulb in the chandelier, we all are not.

So,

so, um, I kind of went back in 2011. I went through like a self-development over consumption phase and I read a lot of like the book, the things that I consider right now to be like the bullshit staple, like the, the staple books of self-development, you know, like the, the think and grow rich, the Dale Carnegie shit, all of that.

I've read that. Right. And I couldn't, I could not stomach it. Like, man, I'm going to just get up and show you something, go for it. So I have this book, right? So 5:00 AM.

Dude. I tried to read it twice. I bought it and I said, um, I'm gonna read it. Right. But when I listen, when I, when I read the billionaire story with his apprentices and how the billionaire is teaching him shit, man, you just sound like you're lengthening this fucking story to make the book thicker. And I tried twice, right.

I threw up in my mouth and then I also made the mistake of actually reading a book on sleep, which is like why we sleep by Matthew Walker? And I tried, like I said, I said to myself, cause like in this winter vape break, so to speak, I said, I'm going to read some of the books that I have, like behind me over there.

And like I have, if you see, I have two stacks, one with the one with the statue, those are done. This one is that done because I need to burn it. That's like in progress. I can't read just one book. Right. But I said, I'm going to read this. I'm going to give it a chance. Fuck the, the, like, I don't want to limit myself.

Right. I'm going to be open-hearted I couldn't get past page 20 something. And I'm like, no, fuck this. I'm going to burn it or gift it to someone. Like, if you're into BS, I'm not saying what's here is irrelevant. I'm just saying that the story for rubs me the wrong way, like very, very badly. Right. So I cannot stomach this.

And I was seeing that I went through this whole. Uh, w bullshit stories, you know, about self development. This over-consumption phase back in 2011. And at that time I read some books related to like consulting and developing your own business and stuff like that, because I've done freelancing since 2008, and then I stopped and then I got to like an actual job within a company, but I was also, I wanted to like go back to being a business myself, you know, and I read things like, um, million dollar consulting by Alan Weiss.

I've read a book yourself solid,

but why, why are you reading these books? What was the reasoning behind them?

I wanted to understand. What is consulting actually, besides what I knew to be like, just contracting and being like an extension for a team or an implementer. Right. And with book yourself solid, I wanted to know it was very popular within like the dev circles at the time.

Um, and I wanted to learn how to like build a pipeline of clients and stuff like that because I wasn't very experienced. I knew I was lacking and it was just like the starting point for me. Right. If you just read them. Uh, a through and through and take everything. Literally you're dumb because like there's a little bit of talk of the Bentley and a little bit of talk of the whatever.

And some of those people, cause this is where I'm getting with my over-consumption of self-development. Some of the people you mentioned that are, um, well selling snake oil, basically they just read these books. They spent, uh, 1500 euros on a webinar that teaches you the secret. And, uh, they still haven't learned the secret.

So they're paired, parroting out, whatever they got in, in, in that webinar. And since people, others, you know, are looking for the same, get rich quick, um, lose weight fast to give me a pill, but let me eat whatever, no sacrifice methods. They have to sell it to, this is the whole thing. If it's too good to be true, it is.

And it always is because running a business and not a startup, it's a fucking business. It's not a startup. We had this conversation. Last time is hard. Running a business is fricking hard. I've worked for myself for as long as I can remember. And trust me, I've made money and I've lost money many, many times, right.

Many times. And if you don't go through that, you don't learn anything. You really don't learn anything. So failing is a good thing. So just fucking do shit and fail, but going through and reading all of these books like you say, and agreeing, and then trying to implement every single part of these books just makes no sense to me.

I've never read any of those books, any of those type of books at all, because I know most of it is bullshit. Bullshit to me. Because it doesn't work the way I work. I work in a different, this particular way. You work in a particular way. So you're getting, um, things from these books. That's fine. I personally, it doesn't work for me and I've never sorry.

You don't resonate with no, not at all. And so it does, it just does, it wouldn't work for me. And to me, I, uh, for instance, um, I went through a messy divorce. Everyone said I was, I was depressed. I didn't think as myself as being depressed, I was just pissed off because of this, that and the other. Um, and everyone's saying to me, go and see a therapist.

I'm like, no, because I just don't believe in that stuff. I, don't not interested. I don't believe in it. And that to me is the same as reading those kinds of books. Cause I don't believe that. Right. And if I don't believe in it, this, it was no way. My stepmother many years ago was a hypnotist and she used to do fashion-y sometimes.

And she hypnotized people in front of me. I actually saw her do it. It was no bullshit, but it would never work on me because I wouldn't believe, I couldn't believe in it. She didn't believe in it, believe in it. Exactly. So with these type of self-help books, self-help in it, that, that, that phrase in itself, To me.

It's so cringy that I just don't understand why it exists. Right. Um, so, but, so when people are saying, you know, wake up at four o'clock, five o'clock or four o'clock in the morning and get everything done. When the fuck did these people go to sleep, they ain't going to sleep at 10, 11 o'clock at night.

They're probably going to sleep at five, six o'clock. So what's the difference between shifting the fucking clock the other way? I mean, it makes no, it makes no sense. So then there's these hoards of complete fucking ass sweats that wake up at four or five in the morning, thinking I'm going to be a millionaire and they do fuck all because it, it's not the fact of getting up five o'clock in the morning is the fact of getting shit done during the day I wake up 10 o'clock in the morning.

Sometimes I'll wake up at seven o'clock and I do not get out of bed until about 10. Does that mean I get nothing done? No, I have a successful fucking. Right and ha have done for many years. So it just really depends on how you, uh, your pace of life, your way of life, what's your rhythm. Like, what's your, how do you work?

That's the thing someone said to me, Elizabeth, she might be listening to this. She's, she's a marketeer and stuff. And she has a membership site going, and I was thinking of doing it as well. And I did it failed because I didn't really put any effort into it. And she, before, before I did it, she actually said something that stuck in my mind.

She said, you've got to create a membership site that works. Uh, I can't remember the exact words she said, but basically works with your rhythm with your way of working. And I realized membership site would never work with them for me because my rhythm is so erratic because I get, I want to work when I want to work.

And if I have a membership site, that means I have to constantly. And that's not me right. In, in, uh, work on the membership site. I mean, I'm always working, but, um, so it just wouldn't work. Hence why it failed. So you have to work in your rhythm. You have to stop listening to other people, get some information from other people, even the bullshit that I sell or you sell whatever half of it.

Isn't relative to that one particular person reading it, watching it, consuming it. So again, no body is going to create the content or the information, um, as a whole for you to copy it. Just, ain't going to work tailored for you that it's just not going to work.

Bespoke know exactly what the hell's going on here.

I don't know what's happening. What's the hell's going on here? I have no idea what's going on.

Uh, you muted me at one point, sorry. I pressed the button and it went all crazy. Sorry, Rebecca. Don't press the button. Don't press the button. Yeah. Um,

yeah, you were saying, do I go, do you go, no, go, go for it. Uh, so we, we were saying that I was saying that nobody's going to create content for you, like tailored 100%.

So you got to take what's good for you and leave out just like with this podcast, like people are not going to be listening to this and go like, oh, I love the whole thing, but they might find that one nugget. So as long as you're the type of content and delivery that you have is easily digestible, you don't like, um, make people ill while they're listening to you.

They're going to stomach through it and just go like, oh, a minute 34. They said this and they were talking about this. And, uh, uh, it was.

Exactly. Yeah, but we'll leave it there. Um, again, this is the last video of the year. I've made a video for a while now, and this was a good one. Um, so yeah, I'll see you next time.

Yes, sir. We'll meet next year and maybe we'll do some more of this. Oh, I'd love to because our minds kind of connect in a way, so I really liked that. So yeah, definitely.

Got it. Okay. So how do we have. You just say, have a great day fucked

it up, but it doesn't matter. I'll cut it before that.

Cool man. Okay.

No worries.

Well, um, yeah, no, thanks for that. I really appreciate that to doing it again. I'll have to cut a few bits out. Maybe

I might have let's rerecord. Do you want to re re re record? This is a good start for the, like, if you want to do some editing, you just take this. Do you want to rerecord? And you put it at the start and the beginning you lead into it.

I think I might

do that. I'm like, oh, I can't wait. I'm gonna, I'm gonna like, uh, wait for you to publish this.

I'm going to try to do it for tomorrow around about three o'clock, something like that. Um, okay. Didn't want to do too much editing, but I I'm going to have to edit the ending in the beginning, but I'm going to leave.

The door and stuff. So fuck it.

And the book

have a great day, have a good new year, by the way. Hello to family or sir, enough to the family and all that. And, um, enjoy it.

Cool. Thanks a lot, man.

Chow later