This Is Why People Hate Course Creators

Why do people hate course creators, Neil?

People hate course creators because they claim they have all these businesses and the success in the background and they made so much money from all these other things. But when you look at everything they do, they just sell courses. Yeah.

And so I think there's nothing wrong with courses. I think what is wrong is when you make these outsized claims. And the reality is when you start to peel the onion, there isn't much there, right? And so I mentioned to you, we're not going to name names here, but—

No, I got a great example.

Okay, go for it.

There was this social channel where this guy goes— I'm not going to mention the name of the guy, but he asks people how much money they make. So this guy goes on social media, he says he made, you know, best year he made $100 million.

Oh yes.

Or more than $100 million. School of Hard Knocks. No comment. Okay. And then I know the guy's past companies and I know there's no way they sold for that much. And I know what they did. And then you look at their YouTube channel and just like, okay, you're telling me you deal with founders of tech companies, but yet everything you're doing is selling courses. And if you look at all your content, it's all motivational. You may be getting millions of views a month.

Yep.

It's all motivational. You may have pictures on your social media of you going into a jet. Dude, your last startups did not do well. You made all your money selling courses. And to be clear on this, I actually have no issue. I like the person. I've hung out with them and done multiple dinners. I consider them a colleague, not a colleague, I consider them acquaintance. And the reason I point this out is like, they're chill. I can hang out with them and drink a beer even though I don't drink. But the issue that you end up having is like, cool, you provide courses or mastermind or mentorship and people get value from that. That's what you are. Don't tell people you make $100 million or you've made more than $100 million in a year and you run all these kind of businesses and you're super successful. And I'm not saying, You're not successful, but not $100 million successful. And this is like, there's no point in trying to paint a different picture than what's reality. Like showcasing jets and freedom and all this kind of stuff. It's like, no dude, this was all generated.

I just think the problem with this stuff too is when you're showing off the people that really have money, the moment they see it, they get a sense for your jet. They know how much your jet is worth, okay? And the other thing too is they know how hard it is to build a company, much less 2, 3, 4, or if you save a portfolio of 50, 100 businesses or whatever. The more you embellish it, the more you're actually showing to people that actually have money that you, one, care a lot about what people think about you. And 2, you actually don't have much relatively speaking compared to them, right? Like the person that you're trying to portray yourself, you're actually not at that level. And it shows a high level of insecurity at the end of the day. So again, I don't have a problem with courses. I bought a lot of courses in my lifetime.

Yeah.

I love courses, right? You've taught courses. I've taught courses too. Like we're teaching right now. I love education, right? But this is why people hate course creators. Because what happens is what they represent themselves to be is actually not true. And so what happens is people feel like they were lied to, right? And so I get it. Like, this is why courses get a bad rap. And as long as people are more genuine with how they represent themselves, good.

Dude, you and I are on the same page. And it's like, we don't have issues with these people. It's more so what they pitch and what they do is totally different. Like, there's some people that go out there and talk about like, look at all these holding companies and look at all these companies that we buy. I'm like, But if you look at all your ads and all your content, it's about how to make money and become rich. This has nothing to do with buying businesses. And you don't talk about buying businesses really online. You talk about selling people on whatever course you have.

Dude, and by the way, I had a friend today, so I was hanging out, he came over. So he has a new— he started like a new supplement line, right? And he talked to a health influencer. I was like, oh, you should go to this health influencer over here, maybe partner up with this guy, right? Maybe ask him a couple questions. And this guy is his friend, right? So, okay, if I go to you and I ask you for advice, you're gonna give me your thoughts, right?

Yeah.

And so here's the thing. That guy, the influencer, was like, oh, this is part of my consulting arm. I charge $5,000 for it, right? It's no different than the guy you were talking about, but we're not gonna— we can't give this story because it reveals who this person is. But like, if you're a friend and you pull out all of a sudden, oh, this is my consulting arm and you're gonna pay $5,000. What are you doing?

Right? What kind of friend are you?

Yeah, you're not, you're not a real friend. And so this is why people hate course people. Yep.

And going back to the jets, one thing is, is most rich people don't want to showcase how much money they have or pictures of jets or anything like that. They don't want to draw attention and they don't want to get sued. It's not that they're doing anything sketchy. It's just people tend to sue rich people and the bigger your company is, you'll always be in some sort of lawsuit. If you don't believe me, you'll be in an employment lawsuit or something silly and Yeah. That you can probably beat, but a lot of times it's just easier paying someone 3 to 5 grand than it is to pay the legal fees. Even when you have internal legal counsel like we do.

Yep.

And then the second thing is when these people talk about how much cash flow that they generate on an annual basis and how much money they're spitting off and the freedom and flexibility, most wealthy people I know, they take that money and they reinvest it.

Yeah.

They don't talk about all this cash that they're spitting off and instead they just try to reinvest everything and make more and more money.

Have you ever wanted to target a bunch of accounts on LinkedIn at once and personally message them? Well, previously you couldn't do this. Let's say you wanted to target 500 enterprise companies and you wanted to hyper-personalize those ads. You can do that now. And LinkedIn has confirmed with us that nobody else can do this right now. Only we can do it. The product is called Karrot. That's K-A-R-R-O-T, and it's Karrot account-based marketing. So if you go to karrot.ai, you can go learn more about it, and we'll see you on the other side. When you show off things, you're attracting the wrong audience anyway. You're like, you're attracting like 20-year-old version of me or 15-year-old version of me that just wants all these things. It's not exactly the right audience anyway. And the other thing is, what's— what the bigger trade-off here is, you're exposing yourself, to your point.

Yes.

And there's little to no need to expose yourself in that way. Like, if you look at the content we put out, what is it? It's mostly educational stuff. I might have some philosophical stuff. And, um, I don't think I ever post anything about cars or eating nice food or whatever, right? You never post because you just don't post that stuff. But like, it's just mostly educational. And like, and then otherwise we just try to keep to ourselves. That is how you want to be. Ideally, you become successful and anonymous.

Yes. Like Eric has an amazing view of— I won't say what your view is of. Actually, I will. I don't think you care.

Sure, I don't care.

It's of one of the fanciest golf courses in all of Los Angeles, if not the fanciest golf course.

Is it?

Yeah.

Oh.

And he has an amazing view of it. It's actually one of the hardest country clubs to ever get in, period.

Yeah. Oh, Neil's done research.

In the United States. So he has an amazing view of it. And he has an extremely nice car, doesn't care to talk about any of that. At the end of the day, it's just like you focus on your business, you focus on improving and all that's better. All the other stuff is just a bunch of bull.

Yeah. And by the way, like when you, when you focus on your business, I would hope that you're having fun. I, when I think, when I work every day, like I'm just excited, right? And like, I feel great. It's fun. And like, there's no need to draw, like, by the way, that other attention, here's the other problem with this. And then we can move on from this topic. When you become famous, oh my God, the thing I've heard about this is when you become top famous, the thing that you want— you don't want to lose is your fame, right? And then it becomes this cycle where you just become like— it becomes painful. You're agonizing over losing that fame. You're trying to think about how you can get it back. And then you're playing the wrong game at that point. You're not even playing business anymore. Anyway, that's it for today and we'll catch you tomorrow. Thank you.