Confessions of a Fake Guru — Part III
Diary of a rogue marketer
I.
Dude.
Man.
Bro.
Wow.
Like.
Dude.
Man.
Bro.
II.
How can this supposedly ‘enlightened’ fella JB be so damn unenlightened?
How can I know so deeply in my heart that THIS IS IT NOW and that we can absolutely Trust God…
And yet still have all these oh-so-human layers that totally don’t trust and continuously search for fulfillment everywhere except NOW?
How can I know in my heart that I am enough and everyone is enough and that there is a basic inviolable completeness in all things…
And yet still have all these oh-so-human layers that totally don’t feel like enough and continually grasp after more, more, more?
It’s funny, man.
It’s odd.
It’s paradoxical.
Earth is weird.
Chalk it up to God’s wonky-wacky-mysterious sense of humor. You crazy fa dis one, Pops!
III.
I just read this piece on ‘Non-Coercive Marketing’ by Rob Hardy and it hit me like a ton of rocks.
I literally started crying in the sauna while reading it.
(Yes, I was reading on my phone in the sauna because I simply could not put the phone down and stop reading this essay.)
Indispensable reading for anyone who has ever thought of selling anything on the internet. Wow.
Like, man, that guy nailed it.
I discovered his site today by pure synchronicity and it was exactly what I needed to read.
I’m excited to read his manifesto and more of his stuff.
His piece ‘The perils of niching down’ is also fuego.
His core thesis seems to be that traditional marketing is broken, built on distrustful coercion, and is sucking the soul out of the internet.
It felt like a sacred sigh of relief to read his words.
I’ve never been particularly good at traditional marketing.
I’ve always had a hard time fitting myself in a ‘niche’ and staying ‘on brand.’
When I’ve experimented over the years with (subtly) coercive tactics that traditional marketers encourage, something has always felt yucky about it.
That’s not to say that there is nothing to learn from the traditional marketing playbook.
As with many disciplines, I think there’s wisdom in the idea that you need to “study the rules before you can break them.”
If you don’t study traditional marketing / business / sales at all, it’s unlikely that you’re ever going to earn a living in (online) business.
But you gotta be careful, lest you get swallowed up by the soul-sucking ideology of ‘growth at all costs.’
IV.
Recently I’ve been feeling insecure about money again.
Even after all the progress I’ve made to become debt-free and build up a solid nest egg…
There’s still fear.
Recently part of my income fell away, and some unexpected expenses appear to be coming down the pipeline.
As a result, I’m now back in a position of ~just barely making enough to cover monthly expenses, if that.
I notice that this triggers me.
It triggers a sense of frantic urgency to ‘make things happen.’
My financial ‘spidey sense’ is more tingly than it used to be.
After the ‘financial implosion’ I went through in 2022, it seems I am now much more cautious (and probably a little PTSD-paranoid) about the possibility of slipping back into a place of greater financial struggle.
A huge part of me really, really doesn’t want that.
So as soon as I’m flirting with the possibility of breaking the golden rule of “spend less than you earn”…
I’m on edge.
Feeling a sense of scarcity.
“No, no, no. Fuck no. I do not want that. Must do whatever I can to avoid that,” some part of me says.
So there’s this giant avoidance.
On one level it seems useful to be more sensitive to changing financial tides.
On another level, though, I’m clearly doing that thing the Buddha warned about: Resisting reality, grasping, pushing things away.
And it hurts. It doesn’t feel good.
Also, the irony is that ‘scarcity mode’ can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
‘Scarcity mode’—and the primal, survival-level fear that comes with it—cuts me off from my heart and deeper intuition—the source of true wisdom, aliveness, and inner knowing.
I get hijacked by more fear-based parts of myself and start taking action from a place of desperation to try to ‘solve the problem.’
But that energy of scarcity and desperation is felt in the field. Business—especially any form of spiritual or transformational business—doesn’t flow well when you’re coming from scarcity. People can feel that you’re seeing them (partially) as mere ‘dollar signs,’ and this energy is repellant. Scarcity begets scarcity.
Furthermore, in a profound sense, ‘scarcity mode’ actually instantly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because your feelings about life instantly become non-abundant when you’re in that mode.
When scarcity strikes, your experience of life instantly narrows and feels tense, tight, and grim. The world instantly looks more like a hostile, hard-to-navigate labyrinth. “As within, so without.”
“We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.”
V.
So, yeah, despite being blessed beyond measure, having zero debt, a solid nest egg of savings/investments, and living in a wonderful home with my beloved family in the wealthiest civilization in recorded human history…
I’ve been feeling a sense of scarcity.
Funny how that works, eh?
And as a result of that, I’ve been doubling down on my ongoing studies of business.
I’ve been tearing through books and podcasts in an effort to ‘level up’ my understanding of business.
Looking for that ever-elusive ‘magic key’ that will allow everything to click into place…
So that those never-ending ‘$10k months’ can simply cascade forth with Nile-like vigor and consistency…
In my studies of business, naturally I’ve been absorbing plenty of more ‘traditional’ marketing and business stuff.
And again, I think there’s a lot of good stuff there.
But again, reading Rob’s piece on ‘non-coercive marketing’ today was just such a breath of fresh mountain air.
It felt like a truly important permission slip for me. One that seemed to say:
“No, no, no. Don’t listen to all these marketing gurus.
Listen to your own soul.
You did not waste the last 12 years of being an online creator just because you never really ‘found your niche.’
You were not wrong to abide Nietzsche’s words. Those words that 26-year-old JB tattooed on his shoulder in 2017. Those words that say, ‘become what you are.’
It was not a mistake to be honest and authentic and un-pin-down-able and everything-at-once and let people see your full peacock’s tail of feathers.
It’s okay that you never chose 1-2 ‘brand archetypes’ and adhered religiously to those, opting instead to be more like a trans-archetypal all-the-archetypes-at-once (and none of them and far beyond) kinda cat.
It’s okay that you did not choose 3-5 ‘content pillars’ and simply repeat the same ‘messaging’ over and over in 8,000 different ways.
In fact, it’s more than okay. It’s awesome that your soul couldn’t bring itself to be boxed in. That’s art. That’s the future. Radical authenticity and openness are the future of marketing.
It’s all okay. Trust the process.
Trust.
Phew.
Man.
What a relief.
I really, really needed to read that today.
I needed that mirror held up to show me how un-trusting of God and Life and my own heart I’ve allowed myself to be lately.
VI.
So, where does that leave me?
Well, right where I am.
With a renewed sense of trust in the process.
And a renewed appreciation for this moment exactly as it is.
I don’t know what the future holds.
Maybe I will just go back and get a job at some point.
(Haven’t had one since 2015 so I’m kinda rusty! Wild to think I’ve kept the business boat afloat for nearly a decade now.)
Often it sounds easier to get a job than to keep riding this unpredictable entrepreneurial rollercoaster.
I definitely want to keep learning about business, though.
And I don’t think I’ll ever stop being an entrepreneur, even if I take a job for periods of time.
It’s just in my blood and bones, man.
I love being my own boss.
I love setting my own hours, having no alarm clocks, no dress codes, no commutes.
I love the freedom that entrepreneurship affords me.
(I’m an INFP, y’know. We move to our own rhythms.)
I love that there is no ceiling to entrepreneurship.
The possibilities are uncapped.
If you stick with it and keep getting better at it, ‘sky’s the limit.’
I find that exciting and inspiring.
VII.
I do still have goals as an entrepreneur.
For example, I don’t see any reason why I would not be able to earn at least $100k/year doing what I do.
That’s a goal I’d like to hit within the next few years.
On average I’ve made about $35-40k USD per year since 2016.
And I’ve made it work.
Some years it was more like $60k.
Some more like $25k.
I’m proud of what I do.
I’m good at it and I continuously get better at it, striving toward mastery.
I never foresaw myself becoming a coach-facilitator-teacher-writer-rapper-artist guy.
I was a ‘gifted child’ who got straight A’s and always scored in the 99th percentile on all the standardized tests. I had the luxury of choosing between several full-ride academic scholarship offers when I went to university.
I was smart as a whip. Great in every subject. Could have gone into virtually any field and done well.
Only God knows why I chose to major in English Literature with an emphasis in Creative Writing (plus a couple good ol’ minors in Philosophy and Spanish).
Or why I basically dropped out of society, moved to Asia at age 22, and spent a decade traveling the world.
The mental program telling me what I was “supposed to do” simply could not override my soul’s indefatigable longing for freedom, truth, and aliveness.
A longing for something real.
Raised in a fake society, my soul sought naked honesty.
And he found it.
Oh, did he ever.
And I’m glad I did, man…
I’m crying again now.
These tears are my friends.
They testify to the Real.
Despite what my ‘rational’ mind and ego sometimes push me to do…
I was never able to sell my heart and soul to the Machine.
I couldn’t bring myself to sacrifice my innocent inner child to Moloch.
Child JB…
He’s alive and well.
(And still patiently asking me to be even more present with him.)
Meanwhile, Life continues to ask me to become a man.
And so it is.
The subtle dance.
The final art.
Becoming a man while also remaining a child.
Christ invites us to learn.
Love,
J
“Oh, Mercy, fall on me like a warm blanket
On my cold, cold heart
[…]
Put in me what I cannot buy with gold
Put in me, oh God, come restore my broken soul
Put in me what I cannot give myself
Put in me a clean heart”— Waterdeep, Put In Me
Hell yeah!
I'm also an INFP who majored in English with a creative writing specialization.
I needed this today. Thanks for the wonderful timing!