How Influencers Inspired A Generation, Then Tried To Pick Its Pockets

I can say this entirely without irony: I used to fucking love Simon Sinek.

 A young charismatic “why” guy who really seemed to get how to explain purpose to the masses.

 And like many others, my understanding and inspiration in the world of business, branding, and marketing seemed a bit brighter after watching him on YouTube.

 I looked up to this marketing mogul and was deeply moved by his ideas. I shared them with others, I accepted them as gospel, and my peers and I built decisions, aspirations, and projects upon their counsel and direction.

 The pithy clarity of Sinek—and others like him—produced power. Followers like me suddenly had obtained all the ammunition necessary to shut down a CEO who’d read a marketing book over the weekend or a sales manager who thought the pipeline analytics should be the only factor in deciding on what stories to tell.

 But underneath my feet, the power of Sinek, Chris Do, Seth Godin, and all the others started to shift. Slowly, their content went from being a resource to being a business, with a soothsaying evangelist sitting atop a media empire oddly shaped like a pyramid.

An Idea Heard ‘Round the World

 The genius of guys like Sinek, Ferris, Do, Vee, and others, is that they’ve aimed the full force of their brilliant minds at coming up with ideas that land smack in the intersection of these three avenues that I love – business, design, and social psychology. Simultaneously, they spoke into wide swaths of my daily work with ideas that were, for the most part, pretty damn good.

 Sinek’s Golden Circle. Tim Ferriss’s 4 Hour Fill-In-The-Blank. Chris Do’s carousel topic explainers. All of these are concepts that have the potential to help land the next client; all of them contain facets that simplify the complex in powerful ways.

 All of them have some semblance of truth.

 So, where the hell did it all go wrong?

How The Mighty Have Fallen

 With little deviation, many of the influencers that I used to celebrate and draw direction from have fallen victim to the same cycle.

 Step 1: They share an idea, system, ideology, etc., that distills a complex problem into a simple explanation. Then, the gold: they present an anyone-can-do-it solution of their design, which looks innovative but actually fundamental. All of this is done with a potent mix of language, science, data, and artistry. All delivered by master communicators.

 Step 2: The idea, system, ideology, etc., BLOWS UP. The idea goes everywhere, and they become the algorithmic mavens of their preferred channels (Instagram, LinkedIn, TedTalks, etc.)

 Step 3: The thought leader expounds upon their idea ad nauseam. They double and triple down, and people steadily join their ranks, while a vocal minority gets lambasted in the YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn comments. This simple concept gives them license to be the answer to everything. Their very narrow expertise becomes a fundamentalist religion that is the answer to EVERYTHING.  While posing as a broad-based expert, the thought leader is actually becoming an expert at only their idea.

 Step 4: The thought leader writes a book, goes on a speaking tour, starts a podcast, hosts a seminar for an elite group of acolytes, creates an app, or some other adjacent cash grab that focuses on their idea as the solution to whatever (really, any) problem a business or person has. This is a particularly insidious stage, as it both creates multiple places where a person can “buy-in” and tightens the noose of belief around their neck at the same time. Through endless validation of third-party reviews, you crawl deeper into their web.

 Step 5: The thought leader pushes manifestations of their big idea, business opportunities, investment possibilities, now with the consistent theme that it produces subscriptions, master group members, paying acolytes to the religion. They don’t even address counter thoughts until they come upon an influencer with equal or greater clout. In this way, their reach expands to various other companies, products, and spheres of influence, while still not creating anything new, all the while the simplicity of their one idea is quickly unwinding due to the unstoppable march of time.

 Step 6: It’s 5-10 years later, and that thought leader has created an empire out of their “thing.” Now with a devoted following, the thought leader is no longer addressing the problems of the current moment, rather doubling down on the cash cow, instead rely on the revenue from their one outdated “idea” to keep them afloat.

 This last step is toxic for followers. For the thought leader’s idea to retain its potency, nothing can change either in the world or in the thinking of their followers. And since things are constantly changing in the world, that means the thought leader is deeply invested in their followers not progressing.

 How a follower thinks is intimately rooted in the thought leader’s influence. So, if the follower changes how they think, they may stop relying on the thought leader and their idea. And if that happens, the thought leader loses their revenue. This means that a thought leader who “made it big” has to actively root against the best interest of their followers – they have to encourage the follower that their plan works better than others while still coming up with ways to gather new follower’s money.

 And this grift is why I’ve lost respect for these “modern marvels of marketing.” It’s why the heroes that I loved in the youth of my career are now dying in the streets.

 The Answer Is Truth

 I’ve seen and been victim to these steps and these vicious cycles more times than I care to admit. I have bought the books, attended the seminars, sat in the online classes, and drank all the make-you-better Kool-Aid till I was pissing bucket-fulls of Ferriss-flavored ideas and sharing them with my friends and peers.

 But no matter what new trend or fad comes along, no matter which new thought leader is rising or falling, I have discovered the antidote for the endless hustle.

 It’s truth.

Truth in all its complexity, nuance, evolution, and inability to oversimplified.

 Remember near the beginning of all this I said that one of the things that initially make these thought leaders so potent is that their ideas carry semblances of truth? Well, it took me years to realize that thing that makes these thought leader’s ideas so sexy is not the idea born from the truth. It’s the truth itself. 

 At CultureCraft, we often tell clients that we create trust by bringing the truth about our clients into the light for them and their customers to see. And truth, like trust, is addictive. Once you’ve had some, you only want more.

 That’s why brands committed to truth, authenticity, and trust are so highly regarded – because we innately know that a brand that tells the truth about itself and its product ultimately knows the truth about us, our wants, and our needs as well. 

And that means they’ve created something that seeks to shamelessly meet that need, want, or burgeoning identity.

 In other words – they’ve sought our best interest.

 That’s the end result of so much truth: it ends in the best interest of others.

Death To Our Heroes 

 In closing, I want to say that many thought leaders still have good things to say or share. Many of Sinek’s ideas are still worth hearing, Chris Do continues to be an inspiration, and so many other thought leaders are still contributing ideas that have some bearing on the business, marketing, and branding worlds at large.

 But I also think we have to start calling thought leaders out on their bullshit. Their masterclass or elite group is an echo of Seth Godin’s ‘Tribes’ (appropriation that really didn’t age well.) The cycles these moguls, once my heroes, are perpetuating are not in the best interest of the people who want to be like them. 

 Instead, they’ve convinced slews of people into ‘actualizing’ their dreams by spinning up endless businesses with hollow brands, regurgitated ideas and click funnel websites. If they “just follow these 5 easy steps,” they too can become a millionaire influencer that collects checks from their Bali beach house.

 I can’t roll my eyes hard enough.

 In writing, there’s a famous phrase: “Kill your darlings.” It means that to produce your best work you’ve got to cut your favorite parts of the writing. Your love for these “darlings” is keeping your work from being all that it can be.

 I’ve learned that sometimes you’ve got to kill your heroes to progress. And that’s what I’m doing. Truthfully, I hope you’ll do the same.