I’ve been around internet marketing communities for a while. There are gurus everywhere, giving away free content, building tribes, and selling courses to teach people how to do what they do. Most of these gurus are good people, genuinely trying to help people, and make a living at the same time.

Inevitably, there’s at least one misanthropic knuckle-dragger sneering at everything and loudly telling everyone who will listen that “This is all a scam! Why would this guy be helping the competition! It doesn’t make any sense!”

Well, it doesn’t make any sense to that guy, because he’s one of those people who genuinely doesn’t understand how business works. Our “educational institutions” taught him that business consists of people sneaking up on other people and hitting them with dogs who are eating other dogs. Or… something that looks a lot like that.

Every hut-dwelling, dirt-floor sweeper in the world understands that business is competition. But only about 4.5% of people understand that all that competition takes place inside an arena of cooperation.

So why do the gurus help people learn to do what they do?

Well, first, it’s because you’re not competition. And I don’t even mean that in the smarmy “You can’t compete with them, you tiny, insignificant little person!” sort of way. (Even though you probably can’t. Not now, anyway.) I mean it in the literal sense. You are likely not going to be a competitor.

Just because a guy like Micheal Cheney is teaching you how to do what he does, doesn’t mean you’ll do it in the same niche. You probably won’t. If you go into the health niche (which is a great niche, by the way) then you both made out. You’re happy because you know how to do what Michael does, and Micheal is happy because you bought his course. You’re not a competitor, because you’re not selling to the same audience.

But what if you do go into the same niche. We’ll use Micheal Cheney as an example again, because he is a very big Australian cheese in the affiliate marketing game, and his courses were the first that really benefited me a lot. Micheal doesn’t care if you go into the same niche, because he knows that if you take his teaching seriously, and you get good at this, and you have an IQ over 60, you’re going to be promoting his stuff. And you will. Because they’re huge sellers, and to not do so would be to leave money on the floor. You’d have to be an idiot. So if you go into the same niche, Michael is still happy, because he’s making money when you’re making money. And you’re obviously happy, because you’re making money.

If Billy-Bob Schmedly is also a big cheese, he’s competing with Micheal for leader boards, and who is richer, and maybe even who has the bigger house. But, at the same time, he’ll fall all over himself for the chance to promote one of Micheal’s launches, and Micheal will do the same for one of his launches. And they’ll both be ecstatic to have the other one promoting for him. Because that kind of cooperation makes both of them mad cash. You can tell because if you’re on the big whigs’ email lists – like I am – you constantly see them promoting each others’ stuff.

The point is, there is really no downside for the gurus to help other people. They benefit at the same time as you. We’re not on a desert island with one apple pie, here. We’re not fighting over the scraps of the last piece of bacon. We’re breeding more capitalist pigs and making more bacon. For everyone. And the more people making bacon, the more bacon there is to go around.

The misanthropic knuckle-dragger mentioned earlier doesn’t understand any of this. He has a fundamental, philosophical misunderstanding of how business works. You should disregard him. Until and unless he changes how he views the world, he will be the guy spending his miserable days on the factory line and spending his miserable evenings moaning about how his life sucks to anyone who will listen. He could be viewing people with pie as potential cooperative alliances in mutually profitable endeavors, but instead, he views everyone who has pie as an adversary who who only got the pie by hitting someone and taking it. This is a guy you need not concern yourself with.

And if you are this guy, you should pay attention to how people around you act. Are they swinging dog-eating dogs around and hitting each other? If they are, you need to find a new place to live. But I really don’t think they are, no matter where you live. Stop being cynical for a moment and look at how business people actually conduct business. It isn’t what you seem to think.

 

 

As always, visit the Resources page to find out about tools and knowledge that you can use to start your independent gig, and sign up for my email list to stay up to date on all the new stuff. Become less dependent on your corporate overlords. Build something. Own something.

We all have that snide, fatalistic brother in law, or friend whose default position is that everything is stupid and destined to fail. We all have that acquaintance who believes that people who succeed at a thing are lucky, privileged people who are nothing like me and you. And don’t bother trying because people like me and you are destined to sit around and complain about our plight. I mean, it’s a lot more enjoyable to loaf around bitching about how we’re being screwed at every turn than to try to do something to change the situation and fail, right? Of course, the failure, in your friends’ estimation, is inevitable. They may not say that, but it’s intrinsic to their mindset. It’s implicit in the way they live.

Are you hanging out with these people? Do you spend your time with these people? I’ve got some bad news, man. That is worse than wasted time. It’s worse than wasted, because it’s destructive.

Successful people and unsuccessful people think differently. They view the world differently. This is nothing novel; I didn’t make this up. It’s not some brilliant discovery that I made. Thousands of successful people have been trying to tell this to millions of unsuccessful people for decades, if not centuries. And, for the most part, the unsuccessful people don’t listen, and they certainly don’t contribute in any way to the success you’re trying to have. Which is why it’s a time waster to hang with them. What makes it worse than a time waster , what makes it destructive, is more complex.

We outsource our sanity. I mean that technically. We psychologically rely on the reactions of the people around us to keep us coloring inside the lines of the sane. That’s why people put in complete isolation, such as solitary confinement, really quickly go all wonky in the noggin. We have a tendency to think our own minds are remarkably stable. I mean, that may happen to that weak-minded amoeba over there, but I have the stone-carved brain of a Greek god. Sorry. Nope. Without the reactions of people around you, you very quickly forget how to act.

What does that mean for more mundane things? It means that with the wrong reactions from people around us, we quickly begin to act wrongly. It means that, even if we don’t know it, we rely on the reactions of people around us to tell us if what we’re doing is socially acceptable, reasonable, and productive. The reactions of the people around us actually do effect how we see, and interact with, the world. So what if we’re hanging around people who don’t believe that trying to succeed, risking failure, and trying to do something better for ourselves are acceptable, reasonable, and productive? What if we’re spending our time with people who believe it’s destiny to be screwed by the world and sit around bitching about it? What if we’re having beers every night with people who believe trying is stupid?

And to make it worse, there are saboteurs among us. Those people who, somewhere deep down, know that their pathetic, fatalistic view of the world is not what it should be, and that if someone they know succeeds it would force them to admit it. Their reaction? To endlessly try to convince you that you should give up, you shouldn’t try, you’re going to fail, you’re not smart enough, regular people like us can never make it, etc. And if you don’t think these people exist, you’re just not paying attention.

What’s the point to all this? Manage your friends list. If your friends are a matter of simple proximity, you should ask yourself why that is. Why are you settling for friends that happen to be your neighbors, your family, your coworkers. If your friends are a simple matter of the fact that you grew up with them, you should ask yourself what kind of sense that makes. You wouldn’t pick a damned cell phone on those criteria, for god’s sake. You wouldn’t walk into a buffet and just pick a plate full of the closest thing to the door. And you wouldn’t pick the same crappy dish just because you’ve been eating it since you were a kid. You don’t have to hang out with that burnt, greasy, childhood eggroll and listen to it whine all day. Skip it; go find the steak bar.

Go find friends who share your outlook, or the outlook you want. Go find friends who share your motivation for doing better. Go find friends whose reaction to your efforts and your motivations are to be excited, encouraging, helpful, and supportive. Go find friends who believe, like you, that it’s good to be self-reliant, that you can do better for yourself, and that it’s good to have an entrepreneurial spirit. Find friends who are doing what you want to do, and believe you can do it to.

This is hard, man, I know. This requires cutting people out. It requires distancing yourself from people you may have known for years. I know how hard it is, but here’s the thing: You cannot climb higher than the lowest people in your life; they won’t let you.

 

 

As always, visit the Resources page to find out about tools and knowledge that you can use to start your independent gig, and sign up for my email list to stay up to date on all the new stuff. Become less dependent on your corporate overlords. Build something. Own something.