Energy, nonsense & gullibility

A few years ago, I worked with a client who was all about energy.

He had an obsession about something he called “peak state” which involved eating massive amounts of fruit in the morning (he did this instead of caffeine because fruit sugars were supposed to stimulate the brain), pushups, a thumping EDM playlist, and chugging massive amounts of water.

We weren’t filming a CrossFit training session. We were filming corporate videos about managing money. It was a little bizarre, but I went with it. I try not to judge.

As I continued working with this client, I was exposed to an entirely new world of what I can only describe as professional hustlers. These were gurus who pushed high-pressure sales tactics, questionable marketing strategies, and click funnels: one of the most distasteful forms of marketing I’ve ever seen. And all of this was veiled under the guise of providing valueable content to customers.

Now, whether any of this guru sales nonsense was worth the price of admission (usually $500-1000) is up to the customers to decide. I sure wouldn’t pay it. I wouldn’t pay even a dollar for it, because I can find this sort of crap in an instant by looking for spam in any forum comments section. The further you got in these courses, and the more conferences you attended, and the further up the pyramid scheme you climbed, the more useless anything you were learning was.

It was like a bizarre sort of Masonic salesman culture. Build a click funnel. Generate webinars. Gain high-net-worth consulting clients. Make millions.

My relationship with this client didn’t last long. Oddly, even though his financial consulting website claimed he had garnered a net worth of $5 million by the time he was 28, it didn’t seem like he had enough liquid income to pay for marketing. 

It made me wonder just how gullible people can get…and not just naive, desperate people, but actual middle-class or upper-class professionals with disposable income and vacation homes. For all the value that I assume my client was offering his customers, he was offering a stream of whole life insurance policies and expensive training courses and questionable financial advice. 

It also made me realize that if you’re actually at peak state, and are a high-achieving individual, you won’t eat fruit and listen to Tiësto remixes to get there. 

No billionaire became a billionaire because of a morning ritual.

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