- How do you deal with
the rising fake guru
culture here in India?
This video, I'm actually
gonna be revealing to you
the 10 differences between
fake gurus and true mentors
and there's been some
videos going around on this
and I wanted to clarify this
because I am also somebody
who's actually helping a lot of people
become online teachers, online mentors
but I wanna clear the air
and make everyone understand
that there is a clear difference
between these two, okay?
The fake gurus are those
people who wanna really
proclaim themselves, they wanna
start just selling things,
just with a pure intent of making money.
Whereas you have another category
of mentors and influencers
who are truly there to add
value to people's lives
and to really help them get the result
what they're looking for
and all the different dimensions
of life that there is.
So in this particular video,
I'm gonna be breaking the ice,
and I'm gonna be giving you
the hard, straight truths
on the difference between
these two to address
the main issue that many
people will be facing
right now on India, which
is how do you differentiate
between fake gurus and
how to differentiate
between the real mentors, okay?
So please take notes, I'm
gonna go into this in-depth
and I want you to
understand this from a very,
very holistic point of view here, okay?
And the reason I'm doing this
video is for two reasons.
One is to set the standards
really high for people
who are trying to get
into this game of coaching
and teaching online and consulting
and because this is a
booming industry right now,
so I wanna set the standards really high
and the other reason is, I
also want to address the people
who are in the mode of
being pessimistic, okay?
Now, while this is actually growing,
while the education industry
is actually growing,
you cannot be in that mindset
of looking at everything
as a negative thing because
there is a huge positive angle
to this game because the
entire culture of this country
and this nation is moving
towards a learning culture
and whenever there's a learning culture,
there's also going to be a lot of growth
that's going to be happening
and it just depends on
who are you going to be learning from
and in what way are you
gonna learn from them
and whether it's really
gonna benefit you or not.
So this video is gonna be one
of the most important videos
where you will be able to
differentiate between those people
who are just con artists and those people
who truly are adding
value to this world, okay?
So I'm gonna share with
you like a few concepts.
As usual, I love to do mind maps
and I'm gonna go in-depth in this.
I'm gonna share with you three
principles or three concepts
and I'm gonna give you 10
differences between fake gurus
and real mentors and I'll give
you six final thoughts where
it's gonna plant in
that seed or the idea on
in which direction you wanna
take this forward, okay?
So the first concept I
wanna tell you is that
the knowledge economy is rising.
There's no doubts about it.
Now e-learning as an industry
is gonna become a 325,
$350 billion industry by 2025.
Especially after coronavirus,
the COVID-19 situation,
everything is moving online.
Everyone is doing webinars,
everyone is teaching online,
schools are moving online,
education institutions
are moving online, the
traditional institutions
are going bankrupt because students
are not going to go to colleges
and why would they want to pay
money to just learn on Zoom?
See, a lot of fundamental shifts happening
in the education system and the COVID-19
is one of those events in
the history of humanity,
which is clearly bringing
out about the change
in the whole education system itself.
So which means to say
that you are going to see
a rise of the knowledge economy,
you are going to see more
people teaching online,
you're gonna be seeing the
rise of many educators online
and that's actually a very good thing
but here is a second concept.
When quantities increase,
quality can decrease as well, okay?
Let's look at it.
So many people wanted to become MBAs.
The initial batch as MBA was valued
but now if I throw a stone on the street,
it will fall on an MBA,
nothing wrong with being an MBA
but it became a quantity
game and they started to lose
the quality and even the
courses and the institutions
that were teaching MBA
also started to go down.
So this is the transitionary
phase of our industry right now
where while it is growing,
it's also gonna give rise
to a lot of substandard information
which is not world class, okay?
And for me the standard is world class,
it has to be world class and
what do I mean by world class?
It's not just about speaking English.
Some people ask me, Sidd, why
don't you do courses in Hindi?
I'm sorry if I do it in Hindi,
it will be like a big comedy
show, I can't do that, okay?
My market is in English and that's great.
If you're an English, you're
able to connect with me
but the point here is that
when quantities increase,
quality also decreases.
Quality has a lot to do with
the way that you are able
to present information,
you can present information
in whatever language that you want
but if you're able to
give a great experience
for your students, which you
have depth in the knowledge,
which can help those students get results
in whatever topic that you are expert in,
that's what matters, okay?
It is not the high-tech video,
which camera you're using
and what kind of
background you have A roll,
B roll all that stuff,
that's all secondary.
I'm talking here, straight
point shooter style, okay?
So which means that this industry,
we need to start thinking,
it's time for a cleanup.
A cleanup is happening right
now and in any industry
when you see when the
qualities are going down
and the quantity is increasing,
it will automatically take
its course correction
and people will be able
to differentiate between those mentors
who they find truly valuable
and those who they can
clearly see through okay,
this person is just
trying to make some money.
Okay, just trying to sell
something substandard
and the third concept I
wanna mention is there are
two kinds of people that
you will see in this world.
You have a bee and a fly.
A fly, personality is somebody
where everything is good,
everything is looking good.
Like a fly in a beautiful park
where there's lot of flowers
and lot of beautiful
things, this fly will go
and just sit on the poop, it'll go
and sit on the most disgusting
thing over there, okay?
And you have the second category of people
who's like the bee, the bee in
spite of things being wrong,
like a bee even if it's in a junkyard,
even though there's so much junk,
it will go to that
flower pot which is there
and it will go and take
nectar from the flower.
So you need to look at, when
I'm speaking this video,
I know there are some people
who will be in that fly attitude
and some people are in the bee attitude
and I'm here talking.
If you're watching the
video, I know pretty sure
that you are in the bee mindset
because in spite of the
situation being not correct,
you can take the best
out of every situation
and the other thing is you
can position yourself in a way
by which you can be a
true leader, a true mentor
to your audience and not
just be a fake guru, okay?
And when I say a fake guru,
some people overhype this
and they just make it seem
like they are really
really, what do you say?
Right in what they're
saying but in true essence,
they might have not gone
into depth to understanding
what that person is all about, okay?
And here in this particular video,
I am going to be differentiating
between these two categories of people.
So it becomes very clear,
evident on the face and you know
what is the differentiation
between these two.
Okay, let's start with the first one.
Fake gurus, if you look at it,
they are mostly driven by
fame and I don't want to
pick out any names over here
because this is not that
kind of a video where I
want to bash anyone down
because that's not the purpose,
the purpose is to give clarity, okay?
Those who are driven by fame
where they wanna project
themselves to be number one,
now there is some element
that has to be looked over there, okay?
But people who are real mentors,
they are driven by adding value.
One is driven by fame,
they want to be number one,
they want to be visible, they
want to be the celebrity,
whereas here we are looking at somebody
who really wants to add value,
somebody who wants to really
create an impact in the marketplace.
The second difference
you'll see is the fake gurus
usually their marketing is
very flashy and over-hyped
to cater to that segment of
society that gets allured
by that kind of marketing and
it's purely charisma-driven.
They're all charismatic, okay?
They show all kinds of stuff,
getting out of great car.
Being there in a five-star
hotel and showing jet planes,
all that stuff, okay?
Now, if you look at the true mentors,
I mean their marketing
is raw and real marketing
which is purely content-driven.
They may not have even the charisma
but when people listen to
their content in the videos,
they're able to connect with that.
The third you would see is fake gurus
are usually not congruent
in their messaging.
Yep, they may be living a different life
compared to what they actually say
or what they actually
project to the online world
and if you look at the real mentors,
they're very consistent in their message.
It never keeps changing from time to time,
they're very consistent.
So there's a difference between congruence
and not being congruence and consistency
and not being consistent and
you'll be able to see through.
So fake gurus you'll be able
to see that they keep changing
their niches to suit their
pocket, they're all trend riders.
What was the hottest trend right now?
They will start to speak
more about that, okay?
Whatever is the hottest thing
and they will start to build
a business model around
that, which was the hottest?
And they keep changing
from time to time, okay?
But if you look at the true mentors,
what they do is they are
focused on their niche
and they are focused on their
niche to serve the market
not to suit the pocket
but to serve the market
and they are problem solvers, yes?
Yes, trends is a part of the game
but the bigger part of the game is,
what problem are they trying to solve?
And the bigger the
problem that they solve,
the bigger the money
that they can make, okay?
So that's the difference.
If you look at number five, fake gurus,
they use negative tactics
to bash down competition,
because they have a very scarcity mindset.
They feel it's like a zero-sum game,
where there's no room for everyone.
There is only room for one or two people
and they start using words
like I am the number one,
dash, dash, dash mentor in my space
or I'm the number one dash,
dash, dash coach in this space.
I mean, why number one?
Never say that, okay?
But as we look at the true mentors.
I mean, they use positive
methods to uplift their audience
and they're always in
a mindset of abundance
where there's always room for everyone,
there's room for all
and there are actually those five niches.
Either you're into business
growth or career growth
or health and wellness or relationships
or it could be in the make money niche,
whatever niche that you pick,
there's room for everyone
and the key here is to go narrow.
Because if you're just
another affiliate marketer,
if you're just another business coach,
if you're just another health coach,
if you're just another nutrition expert,
if you're just another
relationship expert,
you're gonna be in the
red ocean or sea, right?
You're gonna be dealing with the sharks
but the narrower you go, the
narrower the positioning,
you'll be in a blue
ocean and the blue ocean
is a place where there's
no competition, okay?
You have a unique positioning
for yourself, okay?
Does this make sense?
All of you just type makes
sense in the comment box.
Number six is the fake gurus,
they're only good at communication
but they have very
surface level knowledge.
They are good at presenting knowledge.
They're good at communication skills
and they can take anything,
they can learn anything
very fast and they can really package it
and they can communicate well,
they're good communicators,
you would see some of them
but if you see true mentors,
they are not only good communicators
but they're great, excellent at execution.
They have depth in knowledge.
If they say something, it is not something
that they have just watched
some video and they're saying,
they're actually doing
what they're saying.
There are three elements
to this golden triangle.
This is a golden triangle of success
is to learn, do and teach.
Those people who only learn
and teach, learn and teach.
I would put them into the
category of the fake guru
because if you just learn and teach
without the doing part, what is the use?
And those people who are able to learn,
do and teach at the same time,
they are the true mentors
because they are able to say something
or share their experience
based on the implementation
that they have had, not
just based on cut, copying,
pasting content from all
over the place, okay?
Number seven, if you see the fake gurus,
they use funnels to con customers, yeah?
And funnels are actually very powerful.
When I say funnels like
they'll have a basic product
and intermediate product,
a level-three product,
a level-four product and
for them, selling is more
just for their own self-interest,
how they can maximize their numbers,
how they can maximize their profits,
where every single sale is just a number.
They don't look at them as
a person on the other side.
Their customer is just a
number on their excel sheet
And they use funnels to con customers.
And if you look at real mentors,
they use funnels to drive
customers through a value ladder.
Because funnels are extremely powerful.
It does not mean that funnels are bad.
Funnels are filters, which
help you progress your students
into different levels
and stages, just like how
when you go and study in
a college, in university,
can you ask the university
just to give you
all the classes in one go?
You have to go through first
standard and second standard,
and third standard, if
you're doing engineering
you have to first finish first
semester, second semester,
third semester, fourth semester.
That there's also a funnel if
you look at it and every year
some people will drop
out, some people fail
in first semester, they
have to repeat that year.
So in an education business,
it is very important to have funnels.
You cannot say funnels are
wrong but funnels are filters
to help the students go
through a value ladder
and to go through a journey and
people who are real mentors,
for them selling is a form of service.
Because when they are able
to add value to people,
when people pay money, they pay attention,
when they pay attention, they take action,
when they take action, they get results.
So true mentors who have
substance, they are the ones
who use sales as a form of
service where they can actually
help their students
progress on that journey.
It may seem very similar
but there is a thin line
and people who can see
through the marketing,
who can see through the stuff
will be able to identify that
because intention is everything.
People can see through your intentions.
Number eight is this.
The fake gurus they think
that they know it all
and usually they don't learn.
They don't have mentors themselves.
Once they've established
some kind of influence
in the marketplace, it's
like yes, I am the one, okay?
The spotlight is on them.
Whereas if you look at real mentors,
they continue to have mentors
and they are constantly
learning and they're constantly
investing in themselves.
They also are investing in programs.
They are also upgrading
their knowledge, okay?
And there's also a congruence over here.
It's very important principle here,
like if you as an educator,
if you are not willing to
invest in your own knowledge,
how can you expect your
students to invest in you?
There has to be a
congruence over there, okay?
Now, number nine is this.
The fake gurus they only
show their own results,
I mean, the only results to
show is their own marketing
and they can show all kinds of numbers.
Yeah I've made so much money,
this flash, flash, flash,
flash, flash, okay?
But that's the only results
that they have to show,
which is their own marketing
because they are very
good at communication.
They're really good at marketing
but if you look at the
real mentors they have tons
of results-oriented case
studies of their students.
I'll repeat this, they have
tons of, the buzzword is,
results-oriented, not
just a case study saying,
Oh, I bought the course and
it was a very nice course.
Or oh, I attended this training program,
it was very nice training program, no.
Results-oriented is yes, I
went through this course,
I implemented the results
and this how much money I've made.
Or this is how I became more healthy.
This is how I've grown my business.
This is how I've changed my relationships.
So true mentors, their
spotlight is not on them.
In fact, they won't even
share their results openly
and if you look at the true
mentors, the spotlight is always
on generating results for their students.
That's a clear difference
you will be able to see
and number 10 is if you see that figures
are usually short-term vision.
That means always the me first attitude.
If I do this and if I can
get an instant result,
if it can benefit me first,
I'm going to make that decision right now.
But thanks to my mentors,
I was able to get a very
important principle here.
To have a long-term vision is,
one of my mentors, Blair Singer, he says,
"Mission first, community
second and me third."
If this is the order of your
priority of decision making
in your knowledge-based
business, you can never go wrong.
Because if your mission
is always on the top
and you are the last
priority in your business,
you'll see a whole
different paradigm shift.
So here are the 10 differences
between fake gurus and real mentors.
By the way, if this
really made sense to you,
I would like you to hit the share button
and I would like you to also
tag somebody who you know
is in the knowledge business
and let them watch this.
Whether you're watching
this on my fan page
on my YouTube channel or wherever,
I want you to share this somewhere.
And I want to wrap this
up with six final thoughts
and this is to sum up,
to really substantiate
on this particular topic.
The first thought I wanna
mention is you are born to lead.
All of us as humans, we
are born to lead, okay?
And it is your duty to lead.
It does not matter how
many followers you have.
It doesn't matter how
many students you have
but each and every one of you
are an expert in some area
or the other and even
if you're able to help
five, six, seven, 10, 20, 100,
200, 300, 500, 1,000 people,
it doesn't matter what number
it is, it is your duty to lead
because once you are in
a position of leadership,
you will automatically start
following things what you say.
Or in other words, when you put yourself
in a position of leadership,
your responsibility to live
what you say becomes even higher,
becomes even more important,
so please be a leader.
Don't just watch messages
that pull you down
then you just give up,
you are bound to lead.
So step into that power.
Two is your depth of content
will beat your width of knowledge.
It is not how much you know,
it is how deep that you go
and the other important
thing is the deeper you go,
the more potent your knowledge will be
to help somebody get a result, okay?
So it is not about how
many topics that you know,
you keep jumping from one
topic, it's like picking
that one thing and going
deep and developing a formula
that can solve a problem and
now that's a real mentor.
Fake gurus like they'll
take bits and pieces,
like a khichdi of
everything that is there.
Number three is this.
You got to be unique,
you cannot be a cut, copy, paste copycat.
Now in fact, I did a podcast on this,
you can just go and type copycat syndrome,
Siddharth Rajsekar and
you'll find my blog post.
I want you to go and listen to that
because that is also a big
problem in the industry right now
where everyone is trying
to copy each other
and you're not developing
something unique of their own.
When I say unique, unique
positioning, unique designation,
unique formulas where it
is fresh for your audience,
even though it may be the same topic
but you've used new words,
used new way to present
your information, bringing
out your own unique flavor.
Each one has a unique flavor of presenting
their knowledge and information.
Number four is build
your own personal brand
and I say personal brand, lead with value,
have your own blog, start doing podcasts,
start doing videos,
establish a YouTube channel,
have those basic checkpoints in place.
Because once you start
building your personal brand
and you can connect it
to your other brand.
So some people that prefer
doing their personal brand name,
they would go with their name,
some people would go
with a brand name, okay?
Like we have Khan Academy,
which is one of the leading,
what do you say, educators in the world
who's YouTube channel is huge.
There are so many others,
so many educators that
have come on this space,
where even though they built
a brand around their name
and there are some cases like Udemy
and all these different
platforms, it's a brand.
Udemy is just a platform, okay?
But if you ask me, always good
to build our own platform.
Like I'm using a platform
called teachable.com
where people can, I can
customize it to what I want.
I can add my own courses to it.
I can put whatever pricing
and I built my communities,
building your own wealth.
I wanna tell all of you here,
start building your own wealth.
In fact, I don't have any of
my courses on Udemy, Coursera,
all these different
public domain platforms
because ultimately anyone
who's creating a platform
or a public domain-based approach
again, there is a self-interest
for themselves, okay?
Like they wanna have the numbers,
they're playing the
valuation of the number game.
But I've noticed when you
build your own platform
with open source tools,
like either Teachable,
or Thinkific or Podia and
there are many other platforms,
you'll have better control
over your own products
and you'll be able to
really nurture your audience
based on what the audience wants
and you'll be able to really
control your community
on a much better level
and when I say control,
I say getting the right feedback from them
and actually helping them get the results.
Number five, is aim for
mastery in your topic.
Don't just give shallow information.
You need to be hands-on in your topic.
You cannot just be teaching.
You have to be doing the
doing part and mastery comes
by you doing more and more and
more and more and more, okay?
And finally number six, I
wanna sign out by saying that
when you build and nurture communities,
there's a science to
nurturing communities,
it changes the whole paradigm.
This is not a game of
just selling products.
In fact, my relationship with my customers
begin at the point of sale.
Most people they just
like the sell products
and they just forget
about the customer, okay?
So look at weekly masterminds,
look at daily meetups
that you can do, look at
how you can do monthly
activation sessions and
action-oriented sessions
and then you gamify the whole thing.
Like I have a whole
gamification model in my system
where if they're able
to complete the tasks,
I give them the recognition, okay?
So people need to be rewarded,
they need to be recognized
for the actions that they do.
So you can gamify and
make the whole thing,
that's part of community building.
So what I'm here to share
with you here is this,
just to sum up based on
whatever I've shared with you
is that this game is
constantly evolving, okay?
Yes, there is a rise of the
fake guru culture in India
but I wanted to record this
video basically to really set
the tone that while this
industry is growing,
let us also do it in the right way,
let us course correct ourselves
so that each one of us
are able to build something
that's truly valuable
for the marketplace number one,
and two is that we are also
able to serve the students
who are coming into our community here
and even you as a student
and if you're looking
to pick up courses or to
be a part of communities
and join other programs, please
go and do that by all means
because if you're not
learning, you're dying.
You're not growing, if you're
not growing, you're dying.
It's a quote by T Harv Eker.
You got to always keep learning,
you need to be in the
mindset of lifelong learning
and in some cases, I'll
tell you in my case,
there was a point in my life
where I was only investing
and investing and investing in my learning
and I was not able to see the results.
In fact, I had swiped all my cards
and everything for my learning journey
and it was like the
growth of a bamboo tree.
A bamboo tree for a very long time,
you'll not see anything growing on the top
and for a long time, the
roots are growing deep
and going under but once the
bamboo tree starts to grow
above the ground, it grows
like some 10 times faster
than any other plant that you know,
any other tree that you would have seen.
That is how the bamboo tree is.
So even in your learning journey,
if you're constantly
learning and sometimes
you'll experience this, that
you're learning, learning,
you're investing in yourself,
investing in courses,
but you're not able to
visibly see the results.
You know what?
Be persistent on learning
because one day what will happen
is as your roots are getting stronger
and when you're actually ready,
when you start to build
something of your own,
the growth will happen so far
that you can never ever imagine.
Exactly, that is how the last
two years has been for me
because of the five to six
years of grinding before this
and being in that environment of learning.
Now for some of you it may
take much faster time, okay?
That was my journey.
Each one off your journey is unique.
So I want all of you to
understand that the purpose of me
recording this video is to
really set the record straight
that learning is the most
important thing in this world.
And if you are able to
choose the right mentors
based on the differences that I've gave
and if you're able to see
through and also if we're able to
understand what persona are you?
Not fee sorry, are you a
bee or are you a fly, okay?
Don't be a pessimistic person
and by the way, those people
who are fly mentality,
they will find their own tribe.
So they are vibe will attract their tribe,
those people who are bee
mentality, they will attract bees.
So there's room for again,
everyone in this world.
So I'm just here to tell
you that keep learning,
keep growing, invest in yourself,
invest in your own education
and build something
that's truly valuable and
credible for your marketplace.
Because the current education
system is getting reformed
and you stepping into
this mode of becoming
an online leader, a digital leader,
even online, offline, does not matter.
You becoming a teacher,
you stepping into that mode
of helping people with your knowledge,
that's the best service
that you can do to humanity
and today, we are living
in a digital world,
where leverage can be huge, okay?
So don't let scenarios or situations
in your life pull you down.
In other words, step into your
power and make things happen
for yourself because you, one
person can make a difference
in this world, thank you so much.
Cheers and God bless, bye, bye.
