Personal Development
Oi You – Are You a GURU?
Feb 10th
Oi You – Are You A GURU?
By Keith Everett…
I decided to write this brief article after listening to some comments over the last few weeks, about so called Guru’s.
It seems all the rage these days to BASH Guru’s… as we are bombarded with headlines like “The Killer Traffic Secrets, The Guru’s Don’t Want You To Know” etc, etc (who are these Guru’s that DON’T want you to know all these things?) – and more recently on Facebook where the term “Guru” was being used to comment on a well known Internet Marketer apparently becoming “more Guru like in the last couple of weeks”…. INSULT or PRAISE???
YOU Decide…
So exactly who (or what) is a Guru, how did they get this badge of honour (or shame) and does it all really matter?
Here are some web definitions of the word Guru.
1) A recognized leader in some field, or of some movement
2) A Hindu or Buddhist religious leader and spiritual teacher
The Guru – Chori Chori
There are other definitions but these are the two main ones - The word originates in sanskrit and is formed by the syllables gu and ru. Gu indicates darkness, and ru indicates destruction. Thus, when translated directly, guru means ‘dispeller of darkness.
OK, so for those of us in Business, Online or Offline, it would pretty much be 1) a recognized leader in some field, or of some movement.
So, how do you get to be a Guru in the first place and what are the implications of becoming a Guru (apart from being hated for being one).?
I would love to hear your thoughts on this… here are mine.
It seems people become Guru’s by being successful in their chosen field. They then have a large following of people, students etc who look to them for guidance & continuous tuition, growth, realisation etc..
By now, the Guru’s following is so large, he/she now has to automate the very things that endeared him/her to their audience in the beginning, hence undoing some of the great work they did in the first place to get this great following.
Let’s take this a step further. Most of us know about social branding, we create these recognisable images of ourselves to create a following. We network through social networks to gain friends & contacts. We want to be considered a “brand” to be trusted and we produce excellent services and products to meet the expectation of the “brand”..
We then become SUCCESSFUL!!! (this can mean different things to different people)… our following is growing DAILY by hundreds, if not thousands..
We are so EXPERT!!… even the Experts, call on us and want to PARTNER up with us… We are fast becoming a LEGEND… a GURU of ALMIGHTY proportions.
Then what happens?
AUTOMATION….. that’s what happens…
Being someone with so many followers, it gets to be virtually IMPOSSIBLE to sustain personal contact with so many people and you all get automated… gone are the email replies, the personal replies on Facebook etc.. it all gets automated to customer services, and customer service assistants.
Hence, the slippery slope to Guruism (is that a word?)
I think one of the negative sides to our culture in the WEST is to build people up into heroes and then BASH them back down to earth when they are seemingly successful.
It seems you are allowed to get SO FAR in life, but if you are seen to be going beyond that point – you are then seen to be breaking some unwritten law, hence you shall be KNOCKED off your perch and PUNISHED..
I think, once a person of the PEOPLE, starts to become, in their eyes – a GURU – this is how or why I think RESENTMENT starts to set in.
So what can we do about it?
From a Guru’s point of view:
1) Don’t forget the very people who put you up there. You got where you are through personal contact, not customer services
2) People are the life blood of any business, shake a few hands every now and then and take two minutes out of your day to thank someone on your list personally for sticking with you.
3) Give your personal assistants & customers service reps a day off and get back to re-connecting with your customers every now and again
From a Customer/Student’s point of view
1) Don’t take it personally, most Guru’s are not really Guru’s at all, they are just busy people who are victims of their own Success, most of their time is spent creating great products and services to bring you.
2) Enjoy what you have learnt from these people and move on if necessary, tell them what you like by all means but DO tell them what’s NOT working for you, if they don’t know what’s wrong, they can’t fix it.. and if they know, but don’t fix it – move on..
Personally, I don’t really think Guru’s exist apart from in people’s minds.. Sure if you bump someone up enough and keep telling them how fabulous they are all the time, some might just start acting like ROCK STARS and believe they are some sort of SUPER GOD! but WE put them there in the first place so surely, if they behave that badly, why not just STOP buying their stuff!
Isn’t a Guru just someone we love to follow because they teach us GREAT things ?
Guru’s – people we give great power to, just so we can BASH them every now and again! lol
Keith
P.S Come on, you just have to comment on this one! I’m DYING to hear from you… don’t let me down
The Meaning Of Life – As We Think We Know It….
Jan 14th
The Meaning Of Life – As We Think We Know It….
Time is up right there with Oxygen, valuable beyond belief. Without it your life will run out and head straight for the buffers.
You can’t buy time, you can only spend it, it’s irreplaceable. Have you ever asked yourself this question, “Where did my life go”? maybe you are hitting 40, 50 or maybe even 60 and beyond and you feel that you are moving into the Autumn or even the Winter years of your life, but you haven’t really achieved much.
Do you feel alone, stuck in a rut, detached from the rest of the world, believe me – you are not alone. Most people are carrying some sort fear around with them, 10 Years ago probably seemed like only yesterday, time is ticking away faster than a speeding train, your life is running on and on, your story is CLOSING…
Or is it ?
Perhaps this is just the BEGINNING of your story. We are programmed to believe that we live in a “one size fits all” society, You’re over the hill at 40, fast running out of steam at 50, at 60 you should be pensioned off and at 70… “What the hell are you still doing here?” you should be pushing up daisies.. !!!
I thnk one of the major reasons people ask that question “Where did my life go” is because they themsleves have mentally started to “give up”, In this cynical world we are prepped, prepared and almost pushed into conforming to the “average”… Most people never question the RULES… they just go along with them.
You see, if you don’t listen to all the HYPE BS that surrounds you everyday, it really IS a pretty equal life, with an equal playing field, full of ENDLESS opportunities… You got to this point in your life by being YOU… if you are not fast becoming the YOU, you really want to be – then change PLANET You! NOW..
You are the sum total of all your thoughts & actions (including your decisions), that’s how you got to this stage in the first place, It’s easy to start beating yourself up and wishing you could have done things differently, but even if you had made different decisions, you DON’T actually know for sure that they would have ended up being BETTER decisions.
It’s up to US to decide where we want to go from here. It’s not the government, our friends, our partner or anybody else’s fault as to what happens to us, from now on, It is simply, how we SEE ourselves. Whilst we have breath in our body and legs to carry us, most things can be achieved.
I have a theory – some people only act their age because they actually KNOW how old they really are. TRULY.. as CRAZY as it may sound, I’m convinced if you were 45 but you truly believed you were only 30, maybe you had lived on a desert island and you had NO way of tracking your age at all, you would probably age more slowly and act and think more like a 30 year old than a 45 year old. Some people age faster than others because they think themselves OLD..
People give age too much POWER, and our society as a whole seems obsessed with it.
The main influence on our lives is not society itself although this is a contributing factor, but it’s US and WHO we really think we really are. We decide as we think, our story is written for us by our thoughts. If it’s doable and we REALLY think we can do it, make a plan and DO IT.. it’s not our age that prevents us from achieving things, it’s our expectations of US.
Whilst we keep living up to expectation and believe what society tells us, we will always be moving slowly forward wearing lead boots. It’s only when we question what is expected of us and realise that the life we were prepared for in school and thought of as the ultimate goal perhaps is not the ultimate goal at all but often the booby prize.
We’re all a long time dead, we fought heaven and earth to get into this life, why cruise through it at a sedate 20 Miles and hour when you can BLAST through it like a HURRICANE.. Life owes us nothing but WE owe us EVERYTHING..
Rock ON!..
Keith
P.S Comments welcome..
