Growth – Avoid The Bulls***ting Guru

In a world awash with self-proclaimed experts and Instagram-perfect entrepreneurs, it’s a real challenge to separate genuine substance from slick spin. Many can talk a good game, sporting the right clothes and car, but scratch the surface and the depth simply isn't there. They might know all the business clichés and initially motivate you, but often falter when real problems arise. This episode of the Stay Hungry Podcast tackles how to see past these superficial displays. The hosts aim to help you identify those who only talk the talk.

Joel and Martha delve into the tactics used by "business gurus" who often rely on polished branding and carefully constructed, sometimes exaggerated, sob stories to gain trust. They discuss how to spot "performative vulnerability," where emotional displays feel inauthentic, and vague advice shrouded in buzzwords like "alignment" or "my truth". The episode also scrutinises flashy success claims, such as ambiguously defined "seven figure launches," which often don't stand up to closer inspection. Ultimately, it’s about equipping you with the insight to recognise red flags and trust your own judgement in a crowded market.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

🚩 How to spot vague, recycled advice that lacks real value.

🎭 The truth behind “performative vulnerability” and emotional manipulation.

📉 Why many of these gurus avoid specifics and metrics like the plague, and what that really tells you.

💸 What a big price tag definitely doesn’t guarantee.

🔑 How to stay grounded and trust your own judgement in a very noisy market.

🎧 Listen now. Link in bio.

#stayhungry

Links:

Website: https://www.codebreak.co.uk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codebreakcrew/
Facebook: https://facebook.com/codebreakcrew/

Joel's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joelstoneofficial/
Joel's Facebook: https://facebook.com/joelstoneofficial/

Free Marketing Budget Calculator: https://codebreak.outgrow.us/knowyournumbers

Arrange a call with Codebreak: https://form.jotform.com/241272835208051

Transcript

0:13

Hey Marv, let's cut through the crap. Avoid the bullshit. Yeah, so today we're talking about avoiding bullshit and gurus. The reason I've brought this up is, well, I think historically we've had a couple of clients that might fall into this category, which is maybe a bit naughty to say, but when it comes down to it, are they walking the walk or are they just talking the talk? And I've been in some masterminds, I've been in some coaching programmes where I've sat around a table with some of these people and they can say all the right things, wear the right clothes, show up in the right car, travel on the right train, but when you scratch the surface, the substance isn't there. They've bought all the books, but have they actually read them? Like, do they know all the business cliches? Do they know all the things to say? But actually, and to be honest, like they could work with you and probably get you a result to start with, because they could say a few things that get you G'd up, like that first six weeks of motivation gets you a little bit of a buzz, but then when you get into it and a real problem occurs or you hit a plateau, they're full of fire. Yeah, have you got someone in mind that you're specifically thinking about? Loads of them. I find it difficult. It's not just coaches, I see it with business owners, see it with family members, and ultimately, it has to happen because if everyone that was in these programmes was successful, there wouldn't be enough to go around, but it's like the note-taker who writes furious amounts of notes and then that notebook never comes out of their bag, or like- It's people taking pictures of this slideshow, and you're like, I just know you're never, ever gonna look at that again. Oh yeah, that's really weird, isn't it, where it's like the presenter says, don't worry, I'll give you the slides, and certain people insist on taking a photo of every slide. The last one I went to, they actually said, I'm not giving you the slides, and so it forced people to be more engaged, take notes, and also, I think they didn't want people stealing their slides. Really, the leadership training. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were like, I'll be honest, it's because I was pissed off that I saw somebody reuse my slides in their own presentation, so I will not be sending you the slides, but you're welcome to take pictures, you've got your workbook, you can take as many notes as you want, but I will not be sending you. I think, actually, when they say, I'll send you the slides, you automatically are like, oh, it doesn't matter if I miss a few. Let's pay attention now. I'm pissing about a bit. I think that's actually a bit of a power move. My slides would be useless to anyone, because there's fuck all on them. They exist as prompts for me. That's how it should be, right? Yeah, like a little tiny bit of information, a prompt, and an image, just to pull people back in when you click the button. It blows my mind when it's like a fucking war and peace on a slide. I can see why it would be there, because if you're nervous about presenting, and so you want all your information on there. If you haven't practiced enough, I'd say. Get yourself on a better stage. Like, some of the stages I speak on, has a teleprompter. Not even a stage. There's that, yeah, but the good ones have a teleprompter in front of you. And time counting down, that looks stressful. It is, I quite like it. Three seconds. I quite like it, because I know how many slides I've got, so if it's 30 minutes and I've got 10 slides, I'll spend three minutes a slide. Yeah, my brain would not work like that. Yeah, that is literally how my brain works, so it's perfect for me. I'd be like, ignoring the time, ignoring the time. The last talk I did, and it was for Ben Knight, who we mentioned on the last part, he had a legacy event, where he was talking about building a legacy. And I was giving a talk about how business owners struggle to think about things they'd love to do, outside of their business. And I pretty much winged it, because the slides were on point. I knew what the content was. I'd talked about it in so many different ways, on different podcasts, that because of the timer in front of me, I just structured my way through the slides. But, what these gurus do, is they'll be like, they'll say like, performative vulnerabilities on stage. So, it's like where, like a good example would be like, oh, I was just about to launch my business, and then I got pregnant. It's like, it's nine months. Yeah. Yeah, like it's like, well, you can get pregnant by accident. I totally appreciate that. But there's an element of choice. And, what you've done is you've made a sob story around something that wasn't really related to your decision to start a business. Whereas like, I've also met people who've stood on stage and said, cash flow was terrible, and I thought about killing myself. Well, that's genuine vulnerability. That's like fucking hell. So, you do have to be aware of this like, performative vulnerability, where people are like, oh, I used to get bullied at school. And then you can be like, oh, tell me about when you got bullied at school. And it's like, oh, the kids always used to make me sit at the front. Hang on. There's bullied and there's bullied. And so, just like, dig a little bit deeper, there's a guy at the moment called Gary Stevenson, who says he was the best trader in the world. And now he thinks that we need to redistribute wealth. And I don't disagree with some of that, that I think some of the rich are only getting richer and it's making the poor poorer. But his argument is too simple. And he claims that he was the best trader in the world and that one year he made 3 million pound at Citibank. And now my brain straight away went, okay, here's a guru who's platforming himself with this story. He's got a best-selling, you know, Sunday Times best-selling book. I was like, 3 million pound as a trader doesn't sound like the best trader in the world. Like, I don't think traders on the trading floor of HSBC would be shitting themselves at 3 million pound. And also, in that context, aren't you just trading someone else's money? Well, you could be trading all sorts. Foreign exchange could be stocks and shares. Isn't the profit based on how much you put on though? I don't know. I don't know. But 3 million pound in the scheme of global trading doesn't sound like a big number to me. I don't think that makes you the best trader in the world. So then I dug a little bit deeper and you start to peel away some of the story. Chachapiti. Yeah. Who was the best trader in the world? I've got like deep research on Chachapiti. I've seen it with other people, people who've got stories from their childhoods that are like the anchor of every talk they ever do on stage. And like, there's one in particular, I can't say who it was because they were very recently a client. But they've got a very specific story about something that happened to them when they were a kid that I was like, well, the local media would have definitely reported on that. So I'm gonna research because I'm pissed off. I can't find anything to verify it, nothing. And if something that dramatic happened to you, that in a public space that involves multiple hospitals and multiple responses, there would be a trace of it happening. So I'm like cautious of this like performative vulnerability especially when my own vulnerability and some of the things that have happened to me it's taken me a long time to be able to talk about them. And so. when a 22-year-old guru stands on stage and says how they've been like beaten up for 37 years. I'm like, hang on, you said you were 22. Maybe they just have great Botox. Yeah. But perception is reality, right? And so nothing terrible might have happened to you, but then I guess you just don't. Who tells, who is the, like, who gives the framework for like, say something, I guess, but you can say something sensational that it doesn't have to relate to. Yeah, relatability, isn't it? Like, if you're struggling and you're looking for a coach who's gonna help you not struggle, it's more likely you're gonna buy from someone who's been through the struggle. Yeah. And that's fine. Like, my coach has been through some serious fucking struggle. That's why I relate to him and like him. It's real, it's not performative. Whereas like- There's nothing about him that isn't real. Yeah, well, we did that episode the other day about the CEO of Fuck All and these people who claim to have done seven-figure launches. And again, if you do your research, there are very few people in the world who've done a seven-figure pounds launch. So what do they mean by seven-figure launch? Do they mean Durham? Yeah. Do they mean Groats? Do they mean the lifetime value of all of those customers they brought in from that launch came to over seven figures? What do they mean? Yeah, is it net? It's performative again, yeah. And like, they have buzzwords, these people. They'll say things like alignment and my truth and holding my space and the power within. And I'm like, hang on, what the fuck? Like, I don't give a shit about your truth. What about my truth? Yeah. And so I'm just getting agitated because I've seen after COVID that there's this massive boom of not just coaches and consultants, but business owners that are like talking about their truth. Well, there's no such thing as your truth. There's only one truth. Yeah. The truth. So it might be your opinion. Your opinion is not truth. And so I get very, and then they will back at you with like, well, you can't trust everything scientists tell you. Yeah, I agree. If they prove something to me, I trust it. Yeah. And there's that thing, isn't there, that's like, there's my story, your story, and the truth. Yes. Because your opinion will affect how you see the truth happen. Yeah, and you have to be self-aware enough to know that your perspective is not the truth, which I think there's a real egocentric thing when you say the phrase, my truth. What do you mean, your truth? It doesn't even make sense. Yeah, if I came in tomorrow and said to you guys, my truth is that, I don't know what I'd fucking say, that ice cream isn't cold. You'd all be like, what the fuck? It's just not cold to me. Cold to me is minus 40, and ice cream's only minus three. So my truth is ice cream's not cold. Fuck off, Joel. Like, what are you talking about? Or like, I don't feel very aligned with you guys at the moment because you're staff and I'm the boss. So I'm not coming to the company drinks tomorrow. What? What's a faster way to feel less aligned? And so, and I'm- Are you driving tomorrow? Yeah, I don't really drink anyway. You do, yeah. But I don't want people to get this wrong and think that I'm ranting about people who are performative because some of the best speakers I've ever seen are performative. There's energy and they tell a story really well and it's engaging. It's the ones that are performative and full of themselves, but when you look at the scoreboard, it's empty. And there's too many of them at the moment. Too many of these, like, fucking hype merchants. Do you think, though, to be a, not a good coach, but a successful coach, monetary-wise, you have to be a good performer? Because you have to be able to attract. No. I guess you could rely on testimonials. Reputation, yeah. So some do have to be a good performer to attract because they have to make enough noise to cut through the shit. But I've met some coaches of, like, literally high-level CEOs who you'd have never heard of other than their reputation precedes them. And so you only get to work with them by invite. That's quite cool as well. And I've also met some coaches who are really fucking good, but only work with five people at a time. So they're not in it for volume. They're in it for quality. And same with, like, there's a lot of consultants out there that naturally are not performative or loud. They're just like, once they were really fucking good at IT, and now they can come in and solve your cybersecurity issues. I can guarantee you their websites are gonna be quite dry. Their YouTube content's gonna be boring. If they have any. But if you've got a cybersecurity specialist coming into your business, and they're performative, and they're loud, and they're clowning around, I'm not sure that's gonna be a very good cybersecurity specialist. I was literally, we were talking about this the other day, but about, like, somebody that I'm working with. And I was like, I don't want them to be, I don't want them to be the person I wanna speak to in the pub. I want them to be calm and methodical and boring. I wanna be bored. You go to the GP, and they start telling you all their relatable stories. Shut the fuck up. The doctor knows me. When I had gout, fuck off. I've got 15 minutes. I dealt with 15 people in my career who had gout as severe as this, and let me tell, fuck off. So, yeah, I think it's that, like, knowing what's the right thing to be. And I've met marketers who are shrinking violets. They're quiet, and they're non-assuming characters. But they're very intellectual, and they're very data-driven, and they're very good at their job, and they're very good at making other people make a lot of noise. Fine. I like to think I'm quite good at some of those things, but I'm also quite loud and performative. But not always, though. You haven't always been. I've always, like, loved a song and a dance. I love being in a school play and stuff. And you always wanted to get on stage. Never worried about talking in front of people. Always hate talking in small groups. Yeah, that's interesting. Because I've always, rightly or wrongly, had confidence in my opinion, and confidence in being able to justify my opinion. I've learned over time that it doesn't matter as much as I think it does, and I really enjoy hearing other people's opinions now. Like, my barber, for example, has a lot of different opinions to me, but I really enjoy our chats. Yeah, I do. Me and Ben, again, God, we just love Ben on this podcast, have very different opinions on things. But I love the debate. I'm gonna shake hands at the end. Yeah, exactly. It's that, and I think there's an element of maturity to that. It's a lost skill in society to be able to, like, enjoy different opinions. It's the ego thing again, isn't it? now of like not being right, it's so hard I think. I love having my opinion changed actually because I don't know enough about a lot of things. Tell me. Go into the fucking jungle with Dora the Explorer. Oh, is that a rhinoceros hornbill? No, Joel, that's a helmeted hornbill. Oh, I'm ever so sorry. Back in my book. Is that a crocodile? No, oh, okay, it's a log. Did you see any crocs? Yeah, salties, yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, big ones. What do they have in Florida? Alligators. And crocs, no? Well, only if they've escaped to alligators in Florida. Oh, is it just like on the- They have lots of escaped pythons. Yay. What's the more dangerous, alligators or crocodiles? Crocodiles. In war, well, on land as well, they're faster. Both, yeah. You'd very rarely hear of people dying from alligator attacks. Do they kill for fun or is that not programmed into- No, it's just apex predators. So if they're hungry or threatened, dead? Yeah, I don't know. What am I, fucking Steve Irwin? I don't know, let's get Hannah on. We'll never get her on. Not even if it was to talk about- Why do you want to know so much about crocodiles? Just interested. Do you know who Christopher Crocodile is? No. Do you know what his favourite food was? People. No. Ice cream. There's a cartoon when I was a kid, Christopher Crocodile. Peanut butter. And his favourite food is your least favourite food. Custard. Yeah. The alliteration. Oh yeah, that's what it is, yeah. And never even registered. I can't remember what the name of the town was that he lived in, but tremendous cartoon. It would be like Carlsville, wouldn't it, surely? Go with the sea. Find out after. Stay tuned for the next episode where we tell you where did Christopher Crocodile live. So- Anyway, back to bullshitters. Yeah. They'll talk about becoming and being rather than doing. So it's almost fake it to make it, but like, oh, and then I became the best version of myself. Have you ever accidentally brought into somebody like that and what effect did it have on the biz? Yeah, fucking loads of people. That's why I'm so bitter. Yeah. Did you have good experience and bad, or was it all bad? Yeah, no. I don't think there's no experience in life that doesn't have positives, which is a hard thing to say, but you have to find the positives. So I worked with a coach who was very like, become this, access this, be this. What do you actually want me to fucking do? What made you move towards them? Did it, was it not that to start with? They had all the tricks in the book. Or did you want to change? No, they had humour, they were performative, they had vulnerability, they- Nice shoes. Outcomes, they did have nice shoes. They had outcomes that whether they were true or not, I don't know now, and you get drawn in. And they price it in a way that makes you think, well, to charge that much, it must be fucking good. Yeah, that's the thing about pricing. If it's too low, you're like, must be shit. And then you start, you pull on the threads and it starts to unravel, and you're like, oh, they rent their house, which, don't get me wrong, there's a big argument that renting is a good thing, but oh, they rent their house, oh, they don't own their car. Oh, a lot of the stuff where they've said they've spoken on stage is actually them just standing on the stage in the break and getting a photo. Oh, they've put this testimony from me that I never said. And then, like, oh- What else is on there? And then, like, oh, they've gone through their next 30 clients without retaining any of them, and you start to think, oh, there's something not right here. And, like- What negative impact and then positive impact did that have on- Negative, it was an expensive lesson. Did it make you work harder to get that back, though? No, I think the thing I found most negative was you start to get drawn into, that's the correct way to do business. Like the deceitful- And it's not quite snake oil sales, because snake oil sales is selling something that completely doesn't work, it's just bollocks. Most of these coaches do have one or two things that do work, that they can cling to. And sometimes, the placebo of the hype is enough to get you a result. But, ultimately, commercial business is selling someone something that then they can use to sell their thing for more. So, if we sell marketing to so and so, it positions their business that they can sell more of their widget, or they can sell their widget for more money, or they can enter a new country with their widget. If you go to the accountant, they shave off some of the costs in your business. They help you get on top of your numbers so you can see where the profit margins are, which, in turn, means you can make better business decisions and make more money. Be compliant. Be compliant, yeah, not get in trouble, not lose money, exactly. Some of these hype gurus, it's Rent-A-Mate. You're paying to spend time with someone who's claiming to be a celebrity, and then you're buzzing off the dopamine hit. Now, if you're doing that with your eyes open, and it's like, look, I've spent 10 grand, 20 grand, 30 grand to hang out with this person because they make me feel good, and that's the outcome you want, fine, fine, who's to put a price on that? Yeah, it'd be like, I spent 10 grand to go on holiday because it makes me feel good. Yeah, if you've said, if they've said, oh, I guarantee if you invest 10 grand in me, I'll double your money or give you your money back, well, they better fucking double your money, and most of them don't, so. Or offer guarantees. Yeah, yeah, a lot of the guarantees of these characters are impossible. Oh, like you have to do 10 setups? Yeah, you've got to attend every call, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, for 37 weeks, but when it's a blue moon on the 5th of February, if you don't do a cartwheel, this guarantee's invalid, and I just think you've got to be really careful, where if you're masterminding with these kind of people, if you're in networking situations with these kind of people, just be aware that because they're full of hype doesn't mean they're full of success, and that it doesn't diminish what you're trying to do and how you're trying to do it, and that sometimes you've got to be careful not to follow people who aren't willing to do the hard yards, because there's a limit to what they can achieve with that method, and actually, like, the successful business owners in inverted commas, successful, have done the hard yards, they've got the cuts and the bruises and the grazes to show. And success looks different, like, to different people, right? Doesn't it? Like, you might respect one business owner because they're successful in their business, runs a lot of them, and they get to spend a lot of time doing X, Y, and Z. It might be the monetary. you see like, oh, they're really successful in that way. It may be the influence, or the results they've got for the people, but they might not be actually making any money. But that is still a very successful, like success is, it's subjective, isn't it? But what draws you now towards people? Like what draws me towards people? Yeah, like what, how do you like, look at like, bullshit, I'm aligned with you. Values, I'm not that asked about the case studies, the results, the promises they make on the stage, or in a book, or on telly, is how do they operate as a human? How do they talk to the waitress when she brings a drink to the table? How do they talk to one of my team when my team answer the phone? What do they send me in the post to like, remind me of them? How do they- Are you trying to get more GIFs through the post? Yeah, yeah, more swords, please. But like, if someone, I think it's kindness. I think if someone lacks kindness and empathy, I get alarm bells. And usually, their lack of kindness and empathy comes through an element of self-involvement. They normally have main character energy, which we've talked about before. So if they're like, if they talk a lot about my and I, and about how difficult everything's ever been for them, I take a step back now, where if they're like, inclusive, and they've got like, friendship vibes, really. I used to avoid friendship vibes in business because I used to think it was a bit like- You want to keep it separate? I've got my friends separate. And then I realised, no, I only want to work with people I like. And sometimes you have to have difficult conversations, don't you, with like, you know, one of Jason's best, one of our best friends, Jason and my partner, is also like, they work, they do a lot of business together. And sometimes he's like, like, he's really annoying me today. I'm not speaking to him. And then it'll be like, but it's just business. Like, let's go for dinner, or whatever. Yeah, yeah. But that's hard, like, to be able to, to make that separation. Yeah. But as long as there's no malice involved, it's fine. Like, if there's no, if it's just a difference of opinion within business, that's fine, isn't it? And like, yeah, I used to, when I started in business, you'd say, would I go for a pint with this person? If the answer was no, I'm not employing them, working with them, having them as a supplier. And I've kind of abandoned that for growth. And I've come back around to it now. Like, I probably think I could go through our entire client list now, and quite happily go for a drink with any of them. Would you? I mean, there's people I respect, but I probably wouldn't go for a drink with them. On our client list? Yeah. Oh, they wouldn't go for a drink with you, must. No, they probably wouldn't. No, but yeah, it's that, yeah, mutual respect is the other, yeah. It's either like, clearly a good match, you get on, or you've got mutual respect. Where respect doesn't exist is where the problems lie. And maybe there'll be people that listen to this that disagree with me and be like, you've called out some stuff that I think is really valuable. Well, that's fine. You probably don't respect my opinion on that. And so maybe we aren't a match, and that's okay. Because I probably don't respect your opinion on it. And I like to think I respect most people's opinion when they can justify it. And so maybe there's a conversation to be had, where it's like, actually, I worked with what you would call a guru, and they said things about alignment and vibrations, and actually, my entire life has been transformed by them, and they're a really good person, and they give all of their profits to charity. So fuck you, Joel. And I'd have to be like. Fair enough. Yeah, fair play. And that's okay too. But it doesn't mean that I would work with that person. But I do think you should be cautious of being in those rooms where these hype merchants are banging on about how much they've done and how much they've achieved, and yet they haven't. And yeah, and I think for me, it would be like feeling like less of a successful person, because I haven't done that, or I'm following this, but I haven't managed to do it. So I sort of wrote down some warning signs. So like, to rattle them off, they've read 100 books, but they couldn't quote you a single lesson from any of those books. They attend everything but produce nothing. They default to fluffy language when you press them on evidence. That's a good one. Their advice is vague, broad, and often copied. They wear busyness, as in being busy, like a badge, but they don't have the results to demonstrate why they've been so busy. And they avoid metrics and specificity like the plague. And I think when you're in those networking environments, a good way to sort the wheat from the chaff is to be like, what did you do last week that moved your business forward? And see what they say. Yeah, that's a good one. So yeah, just be aware of these gurus. If you feel like you might have been caught up by one, I'm always open to a chat. I think- DM me the name. Yeah, DM me the name of the guru and we'll get them. And I'll send you a selfie of a smiley face or a crying face. But I think the important thing when you're in these environments is to be a doer, to do the work and then see if you get the result, not just sit and hope.