Trent RhodesWarning: If you’re offended by alternative viewpoints and take challenges to your paradigm personally, you’re highly encouraged to read this. It’s going to light your fire.
Despite the filtered horrors we see in the media each day (you do realize they’re real events but filtered through a tiny channel, almost like a thin water pipe that allows a certain amount of the total river to flow), this is a time where we have the most opportunity to create lives for ourselves. And the scales of accomplishment can begin at any level, from the person born of a well-groomed family who seeks to continue elevating her heritage, to someone who just happens to receive an intuitive spark at a 9-5 and goes to follow that dream, to someone with a less-privileged background, perhaps no parents or financial support, but endowed with the drive to redefine her direction. We can all do it and there are very little if any excuses as to why we can’t take on a more creative path.
And this leaves the creative floodgates open for both the authentic value creators and the self-described gurus.
The old-fashioned guru can be perceived as owning a long beard, white hair, large belly, wearing a robe and sitting in front of an immense crowd expounding upon high-minded topics. An Aristotle imposter. The audience is enthralled by the guru’s power. Fast-forward today and we have gurus of this nature, except they don’t have to wear robes or own beards. Some wear suits. Others flood the gym. Present gurus can be as tech-savvy as any newborn millennial and just as persuasive as their predecessors. The same technology that allows us to build our mission of You, Inc. and design a platform without being under the mercy of a bureaucratic career system is the same resource modern-day gurus use to sway people under their spell.
Can you discern the guru from the true value creator?
I’ve taken a personal interest in this difference as I work to build my own platform. The MasterLearn and iSuperThink.com mission is to put the power of self-education, that is self-mastery, back in the hands of people. When you learn how to learn, you become empowered to take on anything in your life. I don’t want you to be addicted to me, which is why right now you’ll see very few personal pictures and a massive avalanche of content and creations before I even start creating videos. I want you to be addicted to the idea that my brands share with you, which is to become addicted to your own ability to learn and think.
When you idolize the person over the idea, you then are placed into a mind prison. You cannot detach from the guru because you haven’t gained anything independent of him. An authentic value creator, a real entrepreneur has no need for you to live as if you cannot do without him personally. The value stems from the creations of the entrepreneur and by extension the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur’s vision is what provides the energetic signature that’s given to the value, it becomes a talisman, people love the product/service/message and that tool is what society benefits from. If the entrepreneur decides to disappear, people can still benefit because the entrepreneur leaves the tool with the people and it empowers them to grow on their own.
 2 Signs of a Guru
Manipulative Catch Phrases. When you hear statements like, “You’re not going to get this secret from anyone else!” or “If you miss out on this chance you’ll never be near success at this level again!” or “Only with me will you be getting the best!” you have a budding guru. Walk the aisles of a bookstore’s personal development section and you’ll see different authors describing how they have the secret to something. Not only the secret, but they’re the only ones with the true secret. If only 1 has the true secret and there are 500 authors saying that, someone’s lying right? 499 of them would be lying.
I understand taking the same message and delivering one’s personal view on it, but the language urges the audience to action with the feeling they’ll lose on life if they don’t. A true value creator actually doesn’t have to tell people statements like this because the value will speak for itself. If it’s truly the best, or if it’s sub-par, the clients/customers will decide and provide feedback using this language.
The Guru’s face is excessively shown everywhere the message is shown. This one may offend people who utilize this tactic but it’s part of the trend. The face is everywhere because the guru cannot separate himself from the value. This technique has even more magnetic power today due to the software we can use to enhance features, environments and create a deceptive aura around a person. People do this plenty on social media without trying to be gurus. This may or may not even be intentional or it may be an inability to detach from the message. Therefore the audience will never separate the guru from the message. This creates fear of loss of the message should the guru leave the industry or the earth (pass on). Combine this with the persuasive catch phrases and you have a system that can attract people without giving them value they can grow independently with. This is cult strategy.
A real value creator puts the value in front while staying focused on perfecting it on the back-end. Why? Because it’s about the mission and the value and not being glamorized. The reward comes when the people experience the value and open their minds (or wallets) with appreciation.
Whether you approach this topic as a client/customer or a creator, be wary of the temptation to indulge the guru within or out there.
