Self Help Books and Gurus Are Great but They Don’t Teach You Everything You Need to Know. Here Are 15 Such Things.
Hello Aluxers and welcome back to this week’s Sunday Motivational article! Today we’re calling everything out.
Don’t get us wrong, we’ve learned a whole skill set from self help books and have been inspired by some incredible people, but there are some things nobody can teach you… not even us.
And then… Well, let’s say there are some things these gurus DON’T WANT TO TELL YOU.
We plan on fixing that today. If we deliver on this promise, we encourage you to subscribe to our channel.
As usual, here is the video version of this article:
Let’s get to it. Here are 15 things self-help gurus and books won’t teach you:
1
How to Tell When Someone Is Bullshitting You
Why would they tell you that when they’re most likely the ones doing it.
Life isn’t as complicated as many would like you to make you believe it to be. They hide behind fancy words, technical mumbo-jumbo that could be explained in easier terms.
That’s one of the reasons we believe you guys like what we do so much.
Your BS radar should evolve as you grow. You learn from experience.
A good rule of thumb is: Rather find out than not know at all!
Same way you learn as a child to not put your hand over fire, that’s how your BS meter becomes more complex. Always look for the hidden motive and who has more to win from what’s about to happen. This is an important self help skill.
2
Cutting Expenses Won’t Make You Rich
Have you noticed that every old literature in the realm of self help teaches you the skill of saving pennies and not buying that latte, putting it all in the stock market and waiting 40 years in order for you to find financial freedom?
This might be the most boring way to get there, not to mention that it used to work under a very specific set of circumstances, circumstances under which we no longer find ourselves today.
Here’s the thing:
Saving money is for losers!
Every time you save more by cutting expenses 2 things happen:
- Your life becomes more miserable – for obvious reasons &
- You are putting your faith in cash – that’s like holding an ice-cube in your hand and expecting it to last you until retirement.
Every government around the world is printing cash like crazy, effectively robbing you of the wealth you delusionally are putting in the Nike shoe box.
Rich people get rich by increasing their income and then investing the excess capital!
3
Incompetent People Can Earn a Lot of Money If They Aren’t Insecure
This is one of those truths most people don’t want to believe.
We live in a society that rewards those willing to step through the door. More often than not, the more qualified individuals are so insecure that they are not willing to take the risk.
That’s why your boss is paid more money than you and is doing less work than you are.
We all want to speculate on people who are in control. If these aren’t around, we might as well bet on those who are willing to give it a go.
In order to have a chance at winning the game, one should be at least playing the game!
There are plenty of competent people that will never be successful in life because they’re too insecure to play the game.
4
To Realise You’re Good Enough to Start
Gurus make their money by selling you unnecessary tools that they make you believe you need in order to start. That’s why you think you need expensive equipment to start anything.
The truth is you have more than enough to start but you’re just too scared of failure.
We are strong believers in taking the leap. The saying is: Jump and build the parachute as you’re falling towards the ground.
We also hate the parachute metaphor, because if you do that in real life you’ll die. Business, health, anything based on progress isn’t the same as with the parachute.
Everytime you try you get better. If you’re consistent at practice and learning new things about your craft it’s just a matter of time until you get good at it and people notice.
Start now! Whatever it is you want to do. In 12 months you’ll get to a point where you’re no longer embarrassed about your work.
5
Things Aren’t as Complicated as They Make It Seem
We touched about this a bit earlier, but it’s the truth.
Everyone wants to coin a new term, to be part of history, to somehow achieve relevance by crafting something new and tying their legacy to it, even if it’s just fugazi.
People associate sounding smart with fancy words that they barely understand. “Ohh.. this person uses big words that I don’t know so he must be smarter than me”
Everyone wants to sell you a solution in 3,5,10 easy steps, when in reality they’re just selling you the dream.
There’s some truth to the saying:
The only way to get rich from a self-help book is to write one.
When learning a self-help skill gets too complicated, it becomes just a different form of entertainment.
You lie to yourself that you’re learning something, but in reality you’re just wasting time.
6
You’re Actually Searching for What You Already Know You Should Be Doing
Everyone knows exactly what they should be doing. You really do! Take a moment to think about what’s the 1 thing that if you did by the end of the day your life would improve ever so slightly… then do that!
We all know where we need to focus our time and effort, but we don’t want to do the hard things, so we procrastinate by thinking we’re making a different kind of progress.
George Carlin said it best: If you’re looking for self-help, why would you read a book by someone else?
It’s about self… it’s about you helping yourself to be better.
You know what you have to do and you even know how to do it. It’s just a matter of calling yourself out on the bullshit you tell yourself.
7
You Can Be Late to a Party and Still Get Cake
The media praises the innovators, the explorers, the ones who are first in the comment section..
We praise them as well, but being the number 1 is a zero sum game. There can only be 1 number 1.
There’s this belief that unless you’re the absolute best you will end up miserable. Life isn’t a competitive sport in the sense that only the top 3 get a trophy.
Life is about you! Your life is about what you do and expect from it.
Even if you’re late to the party, as long as you’re in the room you can still get your piece of cake.
You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room, you don’t have to be the loudest person in the room, you just have to be in the room.
As long as you remember this one incredibly valuable lesson, you will do alright in life.
8
How to Go with Your Gut
We are instinct based creatures. Sometimes things don’t feel right.. Or the exact opposite, you feel like this is it, the moment you were waiting for.
Nobody can teach you how to go with your gut. You have to train yourself for this self help skill by making as many decisions as possible.
In time you develop mental models and you end up making choices quickly because they “feel” right.
Gut feelings are just your wisdom manifesting itself!
9
Charisma & Being Liked by Others Is One of the Highest Value Skills
We’re super shocked that nobody is talking about just how important Charisma is. In a social world, charisma and the ability to make yourself liked by those around you is a massive super power.
It’s one of those competitive advantages that allow you to multiply the rewards you receive in life without increasing the amount of effort.
Charisma is a magic spell that gets people to pay attention!
And we’re living in an attention based economy.
If you want to become more likeable, stop doing the things we mentioned in, 15 Everyday Things That Make You Less Likeable.
10
How to Figure Out What Your Life Needs
Nobody can teach you the self help skill of “How to win at your game” because you’re the only want playing you as a character – or at least that’s how it should be.
Stop expecting other people to tell you where your life needs to go, what to measure your success by and so on..
Instead of looking outwards, look inwards… look in yourself for those answers. You know damn well what you want from life… and if you don’t already, just try a bunch of things until some of them start to feel right.
You don’t need to read the Alchemist 20 times to get to this conclusion.
Play the hand that you’ve been dealt, make the most out of it because as far as anyone knows, this is the only life you’re getting, everything else is belief. If that belief turns out to be true.. Good for you, but why would you even take that chance?!
11
How to Not Give Up
The biggest differentiator between success and failure is that those who end up successful didn’t give up when everyone else did. That’s all there is to it. It is the biggest self help skill to master.
If you’re headed in the right direction and you keep at it, learning, practicing, making progress, it’s just a matter of keep putting one foot in front of the other until you get to your destination.
The problem is, you feel it’s hard and progress is slow. You feel demoralized and you need people to pump you up, to keep you motivated. That’s one of the reasons you’re here today!
In reality all you need to remember is why you started! If this is the life you chose for yourself, how are you willing to quit this early? Why would you quit after 1 year.. 2 years.. 3 years or more?! Isn’t this what you wanted? Isn’t this going to take you where you NEED to go if you just keep pushing at it?
12
How to See Where the Puck Is Going
Every self help book or guru talks in retrospect. That’s basically our main problem with everyone telling you the tactics of getting rich.
What worked for them won’t work for you! They’re giving you last week’s lottery numbers.
The only way to talk about anything is in terms of the fundamentals. That’s what we’ve always tried to do here at ALUX.
The one who masters the fundamentals, masters the future!
For in the future, only the fundamentals remain the same!
Once you have your fundamentals covered it’s up to you to see the world as what it could be, not for what it is.
The people who win are those who close this very specific gap. They make it their mission to alter reality in a way where the present changes to fit their vision of the future.
Nobody can teach you how to look into your future, you’re the only one who can do it!
13
How to Have and Develop Empathy
At most, books can make you feel something… -truth be told, self help books are some of the most emotionless pieces of writing in existence- but they can’t teach you the skill of how to feel, how to evolve your emotions, how to feel what other people are feeling.
And before you jump at it, yes, we’ve also read Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence..
You might not realise this, but the opposite of being angry isn’t being calm.. It’s actually empathy.
As much as we’d like it to be that way, you can’t learn how to be kind from a book. You can get good at being empathic by practicing it. That’s the only way to do it.
14
How to Find Your Gift and Exploit It
We’re all super busy at being ourselves.. Why do you expect someone to know more about who you are, how you grew up, what your dreams are and what the future holds for you… more than you do about yourself?
You find your gift by testing yourself. Try your hand at many things before finding the things you seem to be good at. What do you like to do in your free time? What do you take pleasure in doing? If there was no monetary system in place, what would you LIKE to do for the rest of your life?
Once you identify it, just look around at people who do that thing for a living. You don’t need to pay anyone for this advice. Here, take it for free and run with it.
Find a way to reap the benefits for your own talent and hard work.
Here’s the thing: If you don’t exploit your own gift, someone will figure out a way to exploit it for themselves!
15
How to Make More Money Than They Made from Selling You the Book
Be careful of those who make their fortunes by teaching others how to make money. We waited to become millionaires before giving any form of financial advice and even to this day our investments and technology company, earns more for us than we do here on YouTube.
A good rule of thumb for this is:
If they wrote it to make money, don’t read it!
Our goal is to give you everything they give you for free, no matter where you are in the world. Our mission is for this kind of real-talk financial advice to reach 1 billion people. Education is what allowed us to escape poverty and this is our way of spreading that know-how with everyone who has ears to listen.
By being here, by watching our videos, subscribing to our channel, you are contributing to that mission.
We want all of you Aluxers to be rich and develop your communities in the process, because that’s what Aluxers do.
The money we make here on YouTube pays for everything we’re building and we can’t wait to let you know what we’ve been secretly working on behind the scenes.
Question:
With a title like this, it’s fair to ask the following question: What is something you’ve learned for yourself that you didn’t find in a book?
We know how smart you guys are and can’t wait to see what kind of gems you’ll share with the community!
