Beware The Bedazzled Chainsaw

Level 4: Serious Player

Your job today is to cut down a tree.

You need to cut down this tree quickly, and efficiently, for there are a LOT more trees to cut down. And the more trees you cut down, the more efficiently you cut them down, the more you will make and the better off you will be.

You go out to the forest.

And you've been handed a chainsaw.

It's a VERY nice chainsaw.

You examine the chainsaw. While it looks pristine, it also feels like it's just going to work in your hands. You can tell, looking at it, that this chainsaw is going to cut through that tree like butter.

You’ve seen this chainsaw cut down a lot of other trees in other people’s hands.

You’re ready to do it for yourself.

You can see all the other trees around you as well.

You count them.

1, 2, 12, 30 ... you imagine there are probably hundreds.

Just waiting.

Waiting for you to rip that chainsaw alive and slice through them all like butter.

You're practically salivating when you get started.

BZZZZTTTTT

CRACK BOOMMMMMM

One tree down.

It went like nothing. This is really working. Your chainsaw is amazing. You're gonna win everything.

You cut another.

And another.

And another.

Left and right the entire forest is falling before your eyes.

"HEY!!!!"

The shout cuts through the buzzing, and you realize you've been hearing it for awhile.

You shut off the chainsaw,

It's quiet now as you turn around, except for the stomping of feet and huffing and puffing.

"HEY!!!!!!"

The man running up to you shouts.

You put down the chainsaw, and he stops before you catching his breath.

"WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?????"

He finally shouts at you.

"Uh ... cutting down trees, what does it look like?"

He looks dumbfounded. "This is MY forest, what in the world are you thinking???"

You look around.

You realize, you don't know this place.

This isn't the forest you're supposed to be cutting down.

What happened?

Learning and The Guru Problem

Here's the dynamic I believe sets us up for exploitation and failure.

We WANT something.

We want a sexier body, we want more money, we want more freedom, we want more happiness. We want to be able to lift more weight, to make more sales with paid advertising, to get clients with less stress and headache.

At some point, we realize we need to learn something new to get that something.

Most commonly, we find someone who looks like they know what we want to know and is offering to teach us what we want to know.

Our modern age of connectedness and information makes this very easy.

You'd think with all the information available to us, all the ways we are connected, it would be easier to find someone who truthfully can help you. But along with our ability to find things, has also grown our ability to present ourselves as experts.

The tools available make it very easy to look like you know more than someone else.

And we're highly susceptible to believe that someone who knows more than us, is smarter than us, and more capable than us, and therefore someone we should learn from.

Even someone who simply convincingly demonstrates that they have accomplished what we wish to accomplish will get our attention and our belief.

And why not.

They've done the thing we want to do better, easier, and faster than anyone else.

All we have to do to be like them, is do what they tell us. Take their chainsaw. Cut down their trees.

Only, most of the time, they aren't teaching us what we think they are teaching us.

The "I did this you can too" Problem

Here's a barebones framework of how the exploitation happens.

"I've gotten this outcome you desire."

"Here's how I got the outcome you desire."

"I can teach you how to do the same thing, to get the outcome you desire."

The thing about this is, often times there's no malice behind this. In the situations where the teacher has positive intent, I've seen two common dynamics.