You want to build a great life. But you are engulfed in a veritable tsunami of advice – dating advice, love advice, life advice, business advice, fitness advice and so on – that is so voluminous and overwhelming that even the most focused and clear-minded internet surfer (does anyone even say that anymore?) is likely at times to find himself underwater.
A lot of this advice is bad: contradictory, lacking insight or intelligence, or just plain crazy.
So how are you supposed to navigate the jungle?
Buckle up: this article will explain all.
Overload
First off, let’s consider why we are in this ‘advice overload’ position. Of course, as with many things in this modern world, the blame falls squarely at the feet of the internet. And more specifically, the way in which people make money sharing information over the internet.
Right now, what we are seeing – on Twitter, in particular, but also YouTube, Instagram and so on – is the rise of the ‘personal brand economy’. Now look, before I go any further down this route, I must confess my own vested interest in this world. Not only do I have my own personal brand as Troy Francis, but I’ve also promoted the personal brand model when I was publishing a lot of content on business last year. I even developed a course teaching people how to create their own personal brand, which you can purchase here if you’re interested.
For these reasons it would be hypocritical for me to shit on personal brands from a great height, and that’s not my intention in this essay. Instead, I want to draw your attention to their existence, because this will inform what follows.
You see, people (including myself) have worked out in the past few years that if you develop a presence online by putting out free content – articles like this one, Tweets, Insta stories, videos etc – then you can slowly build a following. And you can monetize that following by selling products and services to it.
Of course, the easiest items to sell are so-called ‘information products’, since these require minimal initial capital to produce. For example, when I write a book (like my recent, number one release APPROACH HER LIKE CHAD) the costs are tiny – there is my time, of course, but that’s factored in. Beyond that I’m paying for a cover, editing and formatting, as well as electricity and broadband. But it’s almost negligible. And once the book is created I can put it out there for people to buy and start making cash immediately.
Another thing that people like me can sell is our time. So, for example, I offer Skype coaching calls with readers who want my advice on dating and other matters. I have also offered daygame coaching as well. Again, this is a (relatively) low-cost service to offer, since, so long as I price my time in accordance with what it’s worth (or at least, what the market will bear) then I’m doing well.
(There is another issue here, that one is better creating content that can sell for years rather than being paid by the hour, but that’s straying too far from the topic).
Contrast these information products and coaching services with producing a physical product (like Kyle Trouble has done with Selo Oil, for example). Suddenly you’re in an entirely different ball game. There are real, onerous set-up costs – the cost of materials, of manufacture, etc. Plus you have to deal with shipping, regulation, legal matters, and all manner of other, unseen details.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that a lot of people, myself included, sell information and coaching online because the costs are low and the potential profits high. Fine. But what does that mean?
The Personal Brand Economy
As I said, it is not my intention here to knock personal brands, particularly since I have one of my own. And in that spirit, if you disagree with anything I say then you must feel absolutely free to ignore it. Similarly, you are under no compunction to purchase my books or services if you don’t think I’m the real deal.
Of course, I’m sure most personal brand business operators would say the same thing. But because we use rhetoric and persuasion – through content – as the tools of our trade, the message can get blurred somewhat. And the more compelling people find our voice and messages, the more likely they are to buy from us and – which is potentially worse – take our advice.
The point here is less that you should watch out for hucksters and grifters so you don’t get conned out of your money – although that is a very real concern. What concerns me more is that you take on someone’s ideas and implement them in your life without serious consideration and due diligence, because it’s likely that person has presented them in the first place to make money.
This is not to say that all – or even most – content creators are putting out information that they don’t believe in just to make a fast buck. Those that do tend to get found out and shamed pretty quickly, and it’s a tough model to make work online where you can get flamed for pretty much anything.
I have little doubt that the majority of personal brands in the so-called ‘manosphere’ are sincere in the beliefs that they espouse and that they are genuinely trying to help people as they see fit.
But whether or not their advice is right for you is another matter entirely.
The Crucial Necessity of Putting Out Content For The Personal Brand Creator
What you have to remember is that content is king for the personal brand creator – out whole business model relies on putting this stuff out, day after day, month after month, and year after year.
I myself have written over 1000 articles – available for free on the internet – all directly or indirectly giving advice based on my own personal beliefs and experiences. Now, without wanting to virtue signal, I’ve always been very conscious of my responsibility in doing so. That is, apart from perhaps on Twitter where I fuck around a bit, I’ve always tried to give advice that sits well with my conscience. That reflects as accurately as possible my own beliefs on the best course of action for men to take, based on my own careful observation, experience, reading and so on.
The fact remains that I am on the content treadmill as is everyone else out there from BlackLabelLogic, to Tom Torero, to Rian Stone, to Pat Stedman, to AJAC Cortes. We have to keep putting this stuff out if we want our brands to thrive and return profits.
What Does This Mean For You?
OK, do much for the plight of us poor content creators. What does all of this mean for you?
Simply, you must be vigilant, alert and careful when you assess the advice presented to you by internet personalities. You must be aware of the commercial context within which that advice has been published, and make your decisions on it accordingly.
Let me try to make this a little more concrete. Say a content creator advocates that men should get married young:
‘Forgo all of this messing around dating, travelling, and so on. Instead, be responsible. Work hard at a trade, find a good woman to marry, make her your wife and look to start a family as soon as possible.’
Nothing wrong with any of this, of course – except that perhaps it is precisely the opposite of what you need to hear right now.
Perhaps now is not the right time for you to look for a wife. Perhaps you are too young and you haven’t yet dated enough people to make an educated decision on who is the right partner for you. Or perhaps you are just not suited to a settled-down life at this point in time.
The danger for you is that, being subjected to all of this propaganda being pumped out to bolster someone’s else’s online presence and therefore sales, you will start to buy into the rhetoric and the accompanying virtue signalling and think ‘yes, he’s right! I SHOULD stop messing around with my life and get serious, starting right now’.
But if you make important life decisions based on what other people think sounds like a good idea (or will make them popular online) then you run the risk of making yourself unhappy in the process. Perhaps that early marriage won’t work out too well. Perhaps you’ll argue and be miserable. Perhaps you’ll have a child that you don’t have the means to look after. And perhaps that job you take to support the whole enterprise will make you want to kill yourself.
I don’t say this to be nihilistic. Of course, the opposite is equally possible as well. Maybe you’ll take the advice and things will work out fantastically. If so, then congratulations.
But far too often I see young men drawn into the cult of online personalities only to do things that will likely not improve the quality of their lives.
Society
Of course, the killer blow in all of this is when the guru quits pretending that the advice will have a beneficial effect on the life of the individual, and instead tells him to do it ‘for the good of society’.
You see this a lot with the blue pill guys, the ‘settle down and do the right thing’ dudes. When presented with reasonable arguments for why their prescription might not be best for every individual, they double down: ‘Maybe not, son – but society will thank you. Do it for the good of society! Think of the children!!’ and so on
I’ve already written on why you should always favour yourself as an individual over the collective, both in my book Cucked, and in my recent essay Individualism Versus Collectivism, so I won’t go into it in great depth again here. But the essential point to bear in mind is that you came into this space (presumably) looking for answers to personal issues in YOUR life, not to be lambasted with a bunch of BS about your (imaginary) public duty.
How to Build A Strategy That Will Improve YOUR Life Today
I’m not saying that you should stop reading self-improvement Twitter or blogs, or stop watching videos on YouTube or whatever. But I am counselling you to ensure that you engage your brain while you do so, and view every new piece of content through the lens of ‘how will this help me in the achievement of my own particular aims’?
In other words, if it’s been your plan all along to be a married man with five children by the age of 30, then by all means seek out gurus who’ve done the same thing and take their advice.
If, on the other hand, you want to be a digital nomad who is not tied down to any one particular city or country and who moves around while working, then only take the advice of those further along the same path.
What is most important is that you have a firm idea up-front of who you are and what you want, and you do not allow yourself to be swayed by whatever ‘flavour of the month’ idea is floating around right now
In other words, the best way to build a strategy that will improve your life today is first to take some time away from social media, away from books and blogs and podcasts, just with yourself, so that you can figure out precisely who you are, what makes you tick, and most importantly, what you actually want.
Do not make the mistake of diving into the self-improvement space without first being certain on these points, because if you do you are in danger of being swayed by people who – while not being intentionally malicious – may be more interested in spreading their ideas to build a following and make money than actually helping you.
In the end, content creators are individuals taking what they can out of the market. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you, as an individual, must be sure to exercise the same prerogative too.
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