Confidence vs ego comes down to where your belief comes from. Confidence is earned: it rests on work you’ve actually done, like knowing you can run five miles today because you ran five yesterday. Ego is stolen: it’s belief you haven’t earned yet, borrowed at a very high interest rate, and it cuts you off from the feedback and reality you need to get better.

That’s the distinction Ryan Holiday gave me when he came on my podcast in 2016, right after Ego Is the Enemy came out. He was about to turn 29. I was reading the book at the time and told him it felt like my whole world was in it. My first question was simple: why is ego the enemy? His answer didn’t give me a definition to memorize. It gave me a test I could run on myself. “Confidence is earned,” he said, “and ego is stolen.”

What’s the difference between confidence and ego?

Ryan was clear he wasn’t talking about Freud. He meant ego in the everyday sense, and he leaned on the football coach Bill Walsh, who described it as the point where “self-confidence becomes arrogance.” In Ryan’s words on the show, ego is the line we cross when “our confidence, our assuredness, our ambition stops being a productive fuel and starts becoming a form of self-sabotage.”

Then he made it concrete. “I’m confident I could run 5 miles this afternoon because I ran 5 miles yesterday and I’ve been training.” Ego is the other voice: “Of course I could run a marathon. I’m the best there ever was.” The first is based on evidence. The second, as Ryan put it, is “what we wish was true rather than what actually is true.”

Here’s the quick version:

Psychologists draw a similar line. Researchers separate authentic pride from hubristic pride: the first comes from effort and real skill, the second from feeling superior. Same idea. One is earned, one is taken.

When ego does the most damage

Ryan said ego is dangerous at two very different points in a career. The first is the start. You tell yourself, “I got this. Of course, this is going to be easy.” You underestimate how much real work it takes, and you quit halfway because it turned out harder than you thought. The person who expected it to be hard is the one who keeps going.

The second point is worse. It’s right after some success, when you start believing “everything we do turns to gold” and that it can never be taken away. That’s when people implode and wreck the thing they worked so hard to build.

What struck me is that ego doesn’t only talk when things go well. Ryan said when we fail, the same voice whispers, “They screwed you over. This isn’t fair.” I said it sounded like it’s on the same volume but just changes channel depending on where you are in life. Ryan brought up Anne Lamott, who calls that station KFKD, and said to turn it off. If the praise puffs you up, the trolls will flatten you. Ignore both and do work you’re proud of.

Purpose vs passion: why Ryan said don’t be passionate

Chapter four of the book is called “Don’t Be Passionate,” which sounds strange when everyone’s been told to follow their passion. Ryan’s point was that passion without direction is chaos. Purpose is “organized and deliberate,” and it’s aimed at something.

He gave two examples. George Bush was passionate about invading Iraq. Christopher McCandless was passionate about going into the wild, and he died out there. Then he made it practical. If you were hiring, you wouldn’t take someone unqualified, in debt and unreliable just because they’re “really passionate.” You’d want someone mature who shows up on time and is ready to learn. “I think you’ve got to apply that standard to yourself.”

That reminded me of something a friend had told me about relationships. He said love isn’t enough; effort is what’s required. “I love airplanes, but I don’t know how to fly one. I love sports cars, but I don’t know how to fix one.” You need a manual. You have to study, sit the test and do the practical. Business is the same. A lot of people get into it on love alone, without the effort, and the difference between being interested and being committed shows up the moment the work gets boring.

Ryan’s version for writers was blunt. Passion for an idea gets you to about chapter five. After that the words stop coming easily, and you need a deep love of the practice plus a real goal to get you through the editing, the marketing and the next book.

How to take feedback without letting ego defend the work

This is where the confidence vs ego test really earns its keep. Ryan said you need “enough confidence to be sure of what you know you absolutely need to have in the project but then enough humility and open-mindedness that you can take input.”

He lived it on this book. Early readers told him the intro and conclusion were basically in the wrong order, and he restructured it. Then he sent a galley, the near-final version, to Tim Ferriss. By that stage you’re not really supposed to make changes. Tim sent back a long list anyway. Ryan said it would have been easy to say it’s too late and the publisher will be mad. Instead he looked at the notes honestly and decided Tim was right. His estimate: the book got about 15% better.

I told him what I believe about this: “You’ve got to always be in the student chair.” You sit there and say, okay, I don’t know everything, and that’s fine. Ryan added that it’s easier when the feedback comes from someone you respect, which is one more reason to keep people around who are better than you.

Then he gave me a filter he credited to Neil Gaiman. Gaiman’s own wording, from his rules for writing in The Guardian, is: “when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” So keep the first part and question the second. Something isn’t landing. Your job is to figure out why, not to argue.

Impatience is ego in disguise

Ryan sold his first book, Trust Me, I’m Lying, when he was 24. He was so convinced it had to come out right now that they didn’t even do galleys. Looking back, with the book still selling five years later, he said he obviously could have waited. “We want people to recognize how smart we are and before the work is out, that can’t happen.” That rush is ego. Every reader who picked up a weaker version is someone you have to work hard to win back.

I’d had a conversation with John C. Maxwell, who told me your first book is probably your worst. Ryan agreed and said he’s proud of that. Getting better with each thing you make is the point. He also said you have to be OK with a world where the book sells one copy, because the only thing you control is the work. If you can think that way, two readers feels lucky and a thousand feels like a miracle.

4 ways to keep confidence from turning into ego

When I asked Ryan for steps people could use right now, he didn’t give me affirmations. He gave me habits.

1. Train plus, minus and equal. Ryan borrowed this from Frank Shamrock, the mixed martial arts pioneer and UFC champion. Every fighter trains with someone better (plus), someone equal and someone they’re teaching (minus). The plus shows you what you’re doing wrong. The equal keeps you honest. The minus makes you explain it, and teaching is often the best way to learn. Ryan said you should have all three at work, at home and among your friends.
2. Turn dead time into live time. This one came from Robert Greene. Stuck in traffic, waiting out a contract or sitting in a dead-end job, you decide whether that time is dead or alive. “Often times we waste time out of ego,” Ryan said. If someone’s 30 minutes late, you can spend it calling them a rude jerk or you can read. He showed me a note card from his desk about Ian Fleming, who was forbidden a typewriter while recovering from a heart attack and wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by hand in the hospital.
3. Get small on purpose. Ryan quoted Bertrand Russell, who wrote in The Conquest of Happiness that “one of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.” A couple of times while writing, Ryan had to tell himself, “It’s just a book, man.” He started spending more time walking in the woods, on a beach in the middle of the night, on top of a mountain. It’s hard to feel full of yourself there. He meditates, too, and said it’s hard to have ego when you’re focused on the present moment. Back then I was living in Santa Barbara out in the mountains, and I spun the camera around to show him the view of the ocean and the valleys where I’d sit and meditate. He also said his relationship keeps him honest: if the book is amazing but it costs the person you love, is that really winning?
4. Take pride only in what you control. Ryan pointed to Michael Bloomberg, who has said, “I’m not smarter than anybody else, but I can outwork you.” You don’t control your IQ. You control your hours, your research and how much you put in. That’s where confidence should live.

You choose the ending of every story

Near the end I brought up a picture quote my friend Alexi had shared that morning. It went something like: was it really a bad day, or did you just milk a five-minute problem?

Ryan tied it straight to the Stoics. “You choose the ending to every story.” If someone’s rude to you at breakfast, you decide whether that ruins your day or stays an insignificant moment. They don’t get the other 23 hours unless you hand them over.

Here’s how I see it play out. We give an event a meaning. Keep repeating that meaning and it becomes a mood. Hold the mood long enough and it solidifies into a belief, and now it’s part of your programming, running your life without you noticing. Ryan took it one step further: you start making decisions from that belief. You’re in a bad mood, so you’re rude to someone who works for you, they stop trying as hard, they make a mistake, and now things really are bad. Ego turns a five-minute problem into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you want the practical side of that, the Stoic dichotomy of control is the tool. Ryan’s last 30 seconds came back to the same place. He reached for Kurt Vonnegut, whose advice boils down to be kind, and then the Stoic line he tries to live by: you don’t control what happens to you, you control how you respond.

Here’s where I land

Ego is sneaky because it feels like confidence. It even sounds like it. The difference is the receipt. Before you back yourself, ask what work you’re standing on. If you can point to the miles, the reps, the drafts and the notes you took, that’s confidence and you should use it. If all you’ve got is a feeling that you’re special, you’re borrowing, and the bill always comes.

So this week, find your plus, your equal and your minus. Pick one stretch of dead time and make it live. And the next time someone tells you something isn’t working, say thank you before you say anything else.

FAQ

What is the difference between confidence and ego?

Confidence is belief backed by real work and evidence, like knowing you can run five miles because you ran five yesterday. Ego is belief you haven’t earned, based on what you wish were true. As Ryan Holiday put it, confidence is earned and ego is stolen.

Is confidence the same as arrogance?

No. Confidence stays connected to reality and stays open to feedback. Arrogance is what happens when confidence goes past what you’ve earned. Bill Walsh described ego as the point where self-confidence becomes arrogance.

How do I know if I’m acting from ego or confidence?

Check how you react to feedback. If notes feel like an attack, or you’re rushing to be recognized before the work is ready, that’s ego. If you can point to the work behind your belief and still take notes, that’s confidence.

How do you build confidence without ego?

Train with someone better, someone equal and someone you teach. Use waiting time to read or think instead of complaining. Spend time in nature, and take pride only in what you control, like the hours and research you put in.

What did Ryan Holiday say about confidence vs ego?

On my podcast in 2016, Ryan Holiday said confidence is based on what’s real and earned through work, while ego is stolen, borrowed at a very high interest rate. He warned that ego does the most damage at the start of a career and right after success.

You sit down to study with the best intentions. The textbook is open, the assignment is due soon, and you know exactly what needs to be done. Then a notification appears. You check it “just for a second,” open another tab, reply to a message, and suddenly twenty minutes have disappeared.

An hour later, the page is still blank. You feel behind, frustrated, and convinced that you simply lack discipline. But focus is not a personality trait or a measure of intelligence. It is a skill shaped by your environment, energy, habits, and the way you approach difficult work.

For university students, poor concentration is rarely caused by one thing. It usually comes from a mix of digital distractions, procrastination, exhaustion, stress, and unclear planning. The good news is that each of these can be addressed with practical changes. You do not need to become a different person overnight. You need a system that makes focus easier than distraction.

Why Students Struggle With Focus

Digital distractions train your attention to scatter

Phones, social media, messaging apps, and endless browser tabs are designed to capture attention quickly. Every notification creates a small interruption, and every interruption makes it harder to return to deep work.

The problem is not only the time spent scrolling. It is the mental switching. When you move between a lecture reading, a group chat, a video, and an assignment, your brain repeatedly changes direction. That makes even short study sessions feel fragmented and unproductive.

A student may spend three hours at their desk but complete only twenty minutes of meaningful work because of constant digital distractions. Learning to manage technology is essential, but it is equally important to recognize when additional academic support can make a difference. For students struggling with demanding assignments, searching for ways “to pay someone to write my research paper online” may lead them to professional essay writing services that offer expert guidance, well-structured content, and help with challenging academic tasks. By providing tailored academic assistance, expert insights, and well-organized research materials, these services can help students strengthen their understanding, improve the quality of their assignments, and achieve better academic results.

Procrastination often comes from fear, not laziness

Many students procrastinate because a task feels too large, unclear, or emotionally uncomfortable. Writing a dissertation, preparing for a difficult exam, or starting a long reading assignment can trigger thoughts such as, “What if I do it badly?” or “Where do I even begin?”

Perfectionism makes this worse. If you believe every sentence, calculation, or revision session must be excellent from the start, beginning becomes intimidating. So you delay. Then the deadline gets closer, pressure increases, and the task feels even harder.

Procrastination is usually an attempt to avoid discomfort. The most effective response is to make the first step so small that discomfort cannot stop you. Instead of “write the essay,” begin with “open the document and write three rough bullet points.” Instead of “study biology,” begin with “review one topic for fifteen minutes.”

Fatigue makes concentration harder

Focus requires mental energy. When you are sleep-deprived, physically drained, or constantly moving between classes, work, and social commitments, your brain has less capacity available for sustained attention.

Lack of sleep can make simple tasks feel overwhelming. It becomes harder to remember information, follow an argument, solve problems, and resist distractions. In that state, checking your phone or postponing work can feel like relief, even when you know it will create more stress later.

Many students try to compensate with caffeine, late-night study sessions, or weekend sleep catch-up. These strategies may help briefly, but they do not replace consistent rest. A stable sleep routine gives your brain a better foundation for learning and concentration.

Anxiety turns studying into a threat

Stress and anxiety can make focus difficult even when you genuinely want to work. When your mind is occupied by deadlines, grades, finances, relationships, or fear of failure, part of your attention is always pulled away from the task in front of you.

This can create a cycle: you feel anxious about falling behind, so you avoid the work; avoiding the work creates more pressure; the pressure makes the next study session feel even more intimidating.

The answer is not to demand that you “stop worrying.” It is to reduce the size of the immediate task and give your mind a clear place to start. A manageable plan lowers the emotional weight of studying. It turns a vague source of stress into a sequence of actions you can complete.

Poor organisation creates unnecessary decisions

Sometimes the issue is not a lack of effort. It is a lack of clarity. You sit down to study but spend the first twenty minutes deciding what to read, which assignment to start, where your notes are, or whether you should answer messages first.

Every small decision uses mental energy. When you have no plan, your brain looks for the easiest option, which is often distraction. A cluttered desk, an overloaded calendar, and a vague to-do list can make even motivated students feel stuck.

Strong focus begins before you open a book. It starts with knowing what you will work on, why it matters, and what “done” will look like for that session.

How to Fix It

Use the Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is one of the simplest ways to rebuild focus. It works because it gives your brain a clear beginning, a defined endpoint, and regular recovery.

Here is how to use it:

• Choose one specific task, such as reading a chapter, drafting an essay section, or reviewing lecture notes.
• Set a timer for 25 minutes.
• Work only on that task until the timer ends.
• Take a five-minute break away from your screen.
• After four focused sessions, take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes.

This method is useful because it makes starting less intimidating. You do not need to commit to five hours of studying. You only need to commit to 25 minutes.

Apply it differently depending on the task. When preparing for an exam, use one Pomodoro to review a single topic and another to test yourself with practice questions. When writing a coursework assignment, use one session to create an outline, another to draft a section, and another to edit. When reading, set a realistic page or chapter target for each session.

The key is to protect the 25 minutes. No messages, no social media, no switching to another assignment. One task, one timer, one clear outcome.

Create a digital detox routine

You do not need to disappear from social media to improve focus. You need to make distraction less automatic during study time.

Try these boundaries:

• Turn on “Do Not Disturb” or Focus mode before you begin.
• Put your phone in another room, a drawer, or a bag during study blocks.
• Turn off non-essential notifications, especially social media and group chats.
• Close unrelated browser tabs and use only the materials required for the task.
• Set specific times to check messages, such as after a study session or during a scheduled break.
• Keep a notepad nearby for sudden thoughts, so you can write them down instead of acting on them immediately.

The goal is to remove the decision from the moment. If your phone is within reach, checking it requires willpower. If it is in another room, choosing focus becomes the default.

Plan before you sit down

Focus improves dramatically when you know exactly what to do. Before each study session, take two minutes to define one to three priorities for the day.

A useful format is:

• One priority task that must be completed today.
• One secondary task that would move an assignment forward.
• One small task that builds momentum, such as reviewing notes or organising materials.

Break large projects into concrete actions. “Finish psychology assignment” is too broad. “Find three sources,” “write the introduction,” “create an essay plan,” and “edit the first draft” are actionable steps.

Schedule study blocks in advance rather than waiting for a free moment. Put them in your calendar like appointments. Start with the most important or most difficult task while your energy is highest. Completing it early reduces stress and makes the rest of the day feel more manageable.

Protect sleep like it is part of studying

Sleep is not lost time. It is when your brain consolidates learning, restores energy, and prepares you to concentrate the next day. When sleep suffers, focus, memory, mood, and motivation usually suffer too.

A few practical habits can help:

• Aim for a consistent sleep and wake time, even on weekends.
• Avoid using your phone in bed, especially in the final 30 to 60 minutes before sleep.
• Create a simple evening routine: dim the lights, prepare clothes or materials for tomorrow, and do something calming.
• Avoid treating weekends as a time to “catch up” on several days of lost sleep.
• If you study late, stop before you become so tired that the work becomes inefficient.

You do not need a perfect routine. You need a repeatable one. A consistent bedtime, a quieter evening environment, and fewer screens before sleep can make a noticeable difference in your ability to focus during the day.

Examples

Preparing for an exam

Suppose you have an exam in three days and several topics to cover. Instead of telling yourself to “study all day,” choose three priority topics. Use a 25-minute Pomodoro to review the first topic, then a second to answer practice questions. Take a five-minute break, then repeat.

Keep your phone outside the room and write down any unrelated thoughts for later. After four sessions, take a longer break. By the end of the day, you will have made measurable progress without relying on a marathon study session.

Writing a coursework assignment

A long assignment can feel impossible when you view it as one enormous task. Divide it into stages: understand the question, gather sources, create an outline, write a rough draft, and revise.

Start with a 25-minute session devoted only to creating an outline. Do not try to write perfectly. Your goal is momentum. In the next session, draft one section. In another, improve the argument or add supporting evidence. Small sessions turn a frightening project into a series of achievable steps.

Studying after a busy day

After lectures, work, commuting, and social commitments, evening study can feel impossible. Do not begin by asking yourself to complete everything. Choose one meaningful task, set a timer for 25 minutes, and remove your phone from reach.

Even one focused session can maintain momentum. If energy is low, make the task smaller: review notes for 15 minutes, summarise one concept, or prepare tomorrow’s priority list. Consistency matters more than intensity.

Focus Checklist for Students

Before your next study session, use this checklist:

• Choose one specific task, not a vague goal.
• Define what you will complete by the end of the session.
• Remove your phone from your immediate workspace.
• Turn on “Do Not Disturb” or Focus mode.
• Close unrelated tabs and apps.
• Prepare the materials you need before starting.
• Set a timer for a 25-minute Pomodoro.
• Begin with the most important or most difficult task.
• Take a proper break after each focused session.
• Review what you accomplished and plan the next step.

Final Thoughts

Struggling to focus does not mean you are lazy, unmotivated, or incapable of succeeding at university. It usually means your environment, energy, and systems are working against you. Digital distractions, procrastination, fatigue, anxiety, and poor planning can all pull attention away from the work that matters.

The solution is not more pressure. It is better structure. Use the Pomodoro Technique to make starting easier, create digital boundaries to protect your attention, plan one to three priorities each day, and treat sleep as part of your academic performance.

Choose one method and apply it within the next 24 hours. Put your phone in another room, set a 25-minute timer, and complete one focused study session. That single decision can interrupt the cycle of distraction and show you that focus is something you can build, one deliberate session at a time.

For most of the last century, women’s football was treated as a sideshow. In England it was effectively banned for fifty years. Players trained after full-time jobs, paid their own travel costs and played in front of a few hundred people, if they were lucky.

Today, women’s matches sell out the biggest stadiums in the world. In 2022, 87,192 fans packed Wembley for the Women’s Euro final, a record for any European Championship game, men’s or women’s. A year later, nearly two million people attended the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

That turnaround did not happen by accident. It is one of the best comeback stories in modern sport, and it is full of lessons for anyone trying to build something from nothing, whether that is a business, a career or a personal goal. Here are seven of them.

Wembley Stadium before the Women’s Euro 2022 final, watched by a record 87,192 fans. Photo: Daniel from Glasgow, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

1. Start Before Anyone Gives You Permission

On Boxing Day 1920, a women’s team called Dick, Kerr Ladies played at Goodison Park in Liverpool in front of around 53,000 people. Less than a year later, the Football Association banned women from playing on its members’ grounds. The ban stayed in place until 1971.

The women who kept playing during those decades did not wait for approval. They organised their own matches on public parks, raised their own money and kept the game alive for the next generation.

Most big goals start the same way. Nobody hands you a stadium, a budget or a green light. You start with what you have, where you are, and you build the proof that eventually makes people take you seriously.

2. Small Stages Build Big Careers

When Benfica launched its women’s team in 2018, it did not start at the top. The club entered Portugal’s second division and spent its first season playing on small grounds against part-time sides. Within three seasons, Benfica were national champions, and soon after they were playing in the Champions League.

That pattern repeats right across the women’s game. Look at the women’s league fixtures and scores in a second tier like Portugal’s II Divisão and you will find players who are working day jobs, studying and training in the evenings. Some of them will be international players within a few years.

The lesson is simple: the small stage is not a waste of time. It is where you sharpen your skills while the pressure is low, make your mistakes cheaply and build the habits that carry you when the spotlight finally arrives.

3. Consistency Beats Hype

Women’s football did not grow because of one viral moment. It grew because leagues kept playing, clubs kept investing and players kept turning up, week after week, long before the crowds and TV deals arrived.

The headline moments, such as the 91,553 fans who watched Barcelona play Real Madrid at Camp Nou in 2022, were built on years of unglamorous work that nobody filmed.

It is the same in any field. One great launch, one big client or one good month will not make you successful. Showing up consistently, even when nobody is watching, is what makes the big moments possible.

4. Turn Doubters Into Fuel

For years, women footballers were told the same things: nobody will watch, nobody will pay, nobody will sponsor it. Every packed stadium since then has been an answer to those doubters.

Criticism hurts, but it can also give you clarity. When someone says something cannot be done, it tells you exactly what you need to prove. The players who changed the women’s game did not argue with the critics. They simply kept performing until the argument was over.

If people doubt your idea, do not waste energy trying to convince them with words. Let your results do it.

5. Build a Team, Not Just a Talent

Football is a team sport, and the rise of the women’s game was a team effort too. Players, coaches, volunteers, club owners, journalists and fans all played a part. No single star could have done it alone.

Even the greatest individual players rely on the people around them. If you have ever read through some motivational Lionel Messi quotes, you will notice how often he puts the team ahead of his personal records.

Whatever you are building, surround yourself with people who share the mission and bring skills you do not have. Talent opens the door, but a strong team is what keeps you in the room.

6. Invest When Others Won’t

The clubs and organisations that backed women’s football early, when it looked like a risk, are the ones reaping the rewards now. Governing bodies have also shifted their thinking. FIFA’s women’s football programmes now fund development, leagues and coaching around the world, something that would have been hard to imagine a few decades ago.

Being early is uncomfortable. People question your judgement and the returns take time. But the biggest opportunities are usually found where others are not looking yet.

Whether it is a skill, a market or a relationship, be willing to invest before the crowd arrives. By the time something is obviously a good idea, the best opportunities have often gone.

7. Play for the Next Generation

Ask many of today’s top women players why they kept going in the hard years, and you will often hear the same answer: they wanted girls coming after them to have it easier.

That bigger purpose is powerful. It gets you through the early mornings, the rejections and the setbacks, because the goal is bigger than you.

Spain celebrate winning the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Sydney. Photo: Storm machine, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When your motivation is only about yourself, it is easy to quit when things get tough. When you are doing it for your family, your community or the people who will follow you, quitting becomes much harder.

Final Thoughts

The rise of women’s football shows what is possible when people refuse to accept the limits other people set for them. A game that was once banned and ignored now fills the world’s biggest stadiums.

You do not need a stadium to apply these lessons. Start before you feel ready, respect the small stages, stay consistent, use doubt as fuel, build a strong team, invest early and keep a purpose that is bigger than you. Do that for long enough, and the crowds tend to show up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why was women’s football banned in England?

In 1921, the Football Association banned women’s teams from playing on its members’ grounds, claiming the game was unsuitable for women. The real effect was to stop a sport that was drawing huge crowds. The ban was not lifted until 1971.

What is the biggest crowd for a women’s football match?

One of the best-known records is the 91,648 fans who watched Barcelona play Wolfsburg at Camp Nou in April 2022, a few weeks after 91,553 had watched Barcelona play Real Madrid at the same stadium.

What can entrepreneurs learn from women’s football?

Mainly that lasting success is built slowly. Consistent effort, a strong team, early investment and a clear purpose turned women’s football from an afterthought into a global sport, and the same principles apply to building a business.

The fastest way to spot a fake business guru is to ask one question: what business have you built, besides selling information about business? If the only thing they’ve ever sold is the course on how to make money, you’re looking at a marketer, not an operator, and you should keep your wallet closed until they can point to something real.

That question isn’t mine. Gary Vaynerchuk asked it on my podcast in 2016. He’d spent only 11 hours in Sydney and was already in Hawaii when we connected. His book #AskGaryVee was out, and this time I didn’t just bring my own questions. I’d asked the Addicted2Success community what they wanted to know, and I started smashing through their list.

Halfway through, I asked him what question people never ask him but should. He didn’t give me a question. He gave me a rant about the people selling success advice who’ve never built anything. It’s the most useful part of the whole conversation, and it matters more now than it did then.

The one question every mentor should be able to answer

Here’s how Gary put it: “Why don’t you ask your mentor or your coach or your mastermind group what business they’ve ever built besides selling information to people? Shouldn’t that be a prerequisite?”

Read that twice. He isn’t saying information is bad or that coaching is a scam. He’s saying the person teaching you to build a business should have built one. That sounds obvious. Most people still skip it, because a confident voice and a nice-looking feed do a great job of answering the question before you ask it.

Gary didn’t stop there. He said the problem is that a lot of people listening don’t actually want to build a business either. They want to sell coaching too, and he called it what it is: “that Ponzi game of being somebody’s coach.” My read: coaches teaching coaches to coach, with nobody in the chain selling a product to a real customer.

Here’s my take on why the question works. Someone who’s built something can answer “what have you built?” in about five seconds, with names, numbers and the mistakes that cost them. Someone who hasn’t will usually change the subject to their students’ results.

What a real operator sounds like

Gary used himself as the example, and I think it’s fair. By his own account in 2016, he’d built two businesses, one doing 50 to 60 million and one doing 100 million, and neither of them sold masterminds or ebooks. His first business was a bricks-and-mortar liquor store and an e-commerce wine business. He said he was 34 years old before he started talking to the world.

“I’m not a podcaster or a pundit or a journalist or a coach,” he told me. He said his personality confuses people, and they don’t understand how much of an operator he is. He figured questions about leadership, organization or P&Ls, the real business stuff, just aren’t the sexy thing to ask him, because of the way he portrays himself on social.

To be fair to him, he didn’t pretend he isn’t inspirational. “I am inspirational, I’m motivating, I’m a good communicator,” he said. “I’m just not just that.” That’s the distinction. A real operator might also be a great communicator. A fake business guru is only the communicator.

Red flags of a fake guru (and how to tell if a business coach is legit)

If you’re trying to work out whether a business coach or mentor is legit, these are the red flags I’d check, all pulled from what Gary said that day:

1. The only business is the business of teaching business. Ask what they’ve built besides information. If the answer is their coaching program, that’s your answer.
2. The lifestyle is the pitch. Gary went after the guys “taking these pictures with cash on their bed,” flying private jets and “renting a car for the day to take a picture and then returning it,” all to get kids to buy into their program. If the cars are doing the selling, ask who’s paying for them.
3. The funnel is the whole model. He described it exactly: put out Instagram quotes “so that you then click my URL in my profile and then sign up and pay me $10,000 a month to tell you how to make money.” His own model, as he described it in 2016, was the opposite. Put out free content every day, then every three years ask people to buy an $18 book.
4. They talk outside what they know. “You can’t be a 22-year-old life coach,” Gary said. “You haven’t lived life.” He said he’d come across very humble if you asked him about health care, oil prices or artificial intelligence, because he only talks about the things he’s best at.
5. They sell shortcuts. Gary’s point about self-awareness was that when you know yourself and you know you’re good, “you don’t need to take shortcuts, you don’t need to rip people off.” People who promise you a shortcut are often telling you how they got where they are.
6. They push urgency on young money. When I asked for his advice to millennials, he said one word first: patience. The program that needs you to decide tonight isn’t built for your timeline. It’s built for theirs.

None of these alone proves someone’s a fraud. Two or three together and I’d walk.

Speaking only about what you know

This part landed for me personally. I’d told Gary he inspired me to get up on stage without slideshows and PowerPoint, and just talk from a place of authenticity. His reply: “When you actually talk about [stuff] you know, you win, and when you use slides a lot of times you’re talking about [stuff] you don’t know.”

I told him I’d once asked Simon Sinek what the key to becoming a great speaker was. Simon said, “I cheat.” When I asked what he meant, he said he just speaks about what he knows. Gary said the two of them were homies and had talked about exactly that. He said it’s why he comes across cocky and egotistical. He only talks about the things he’s the best at, marketing and building businesses, and he stays in that place.

That’s a good test for anyone you’re about to pay. Watch what happens when they’re asked about something outside their lane. Real operators say “I don’t know” a lot. Fake gurus have an answer for everything, and it usually ends with an offer.

Why brand beats the hard sell

I asked Gary what he did differently with the #AskGaryVee launch. He said it proved his thesis that “branding and marketing is better than sales and transactions.” He’d done the #AskGaryVee show for 18 months, rebuilt his website, started a podcast and put out a mountain of content. By the time he got around to selling the book, it was sold. He said he sold three or four times as many books in the first week as he did with Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.

Then he summed it up: “Nike doesn’t have to make the best sneaker. They’ve got Nike. If you and I start a sneaker company, we have to make the best sneaker.”

This is the flip side of the guru problem. Gary earned attention by being useful for free, then asked for a small sale. If you want to see how that plays out for a smaller business, this site has covered why it pays to give your knowledge away for free and let trust do the selling. The fake guru does it backwards. Thin free content, then the big ask.

If you’re building a personal brand, don’t become the guru

Most people reading this aren’t only buyers. You’re building something too, and the pull to look bigger than you are is real. I felt it myself. Around that time, I’d started stepping out from behind the Addicted2Success brand and shooting videos as me. I asked Gary what advice he’d give people getting in front of the camera.

“Don’t be embarrassed that you make 30k,” he said. “Don’t be embarrassed that you live in a [crappy] house. Don’t be embarrassed that you don’t have the fly clothes. Tell people the truth.” His reasoning was simple. Watching somebody come up from the bottom and rise is way cooler than watching somebody lie like everybody else.

He also gave me his top three personal brand strategies of all time:

• Stop BS-ing. Talk about what you know. If you’re 22, talk about what 22-year-olds are thinking about on the internet.
• Work is the only variable. “You can’t take talent drugs, but you can work more.”
• Be ready to adjust on the fly. The market moves on a whim, and when somebody smart tells you where it’s going, act on it.

That third one stung, and I told him so. Two and a half years before this conversation, he’d told me directly to get on Snapchat. I’d only jumped on it in the month or two before we spoke, and I was kicking myself. He wasn’t shy about it. He said he has an amazing track record, and that he’s right a lot because he puts in the work and has intuitive talent.

One more thing he said is worth stealing. He told me he’d listened to zero podcasts. Zip. Zilch. What he consumed instead was what his audience said about the content he put out, so he could adjust to them. A fake guru studies other gurus. A real operator studies their customers.

How you make your money matters more than how much

The line from this conversation I’d put on a wall is Gary’s answer to young entrepreneurs: “How you make your money is more important than how much you make.”

He said too many people want the money and the cars right now, and that hurry turns them into what he called a “scum bucket.” They end up disgusted with how they made their money, nobody takes them seriously, and they leave a lot of money on the table in their 30s and 40s. Then, as a 40-year-old at the time: “Your 30s and 40s feel like your 20s.” If that one hits you, it’s worth reading up on how to be patient in business while you build the real thing.

He also made a prediction about the cash-on-the-bed crowd. They’re going to get exposed, he said, and their families are going to be embarrassed about who they were. “That’s the ultimate loss.” I don’t need to add anything to that.

Gary’s last 30 seconds

I always end the show by asking for a last 30-second speech to the world. Gary gave me one only he could give. He told people to go back and watch everything he’d put out, because he’d shown them how to do it, and then he landed on the point that ties this whole thing together: “Understand there’s no shortcuts. You got to grind it.”

So before you pay anyone to show you the way, ask them the question. What have you built? If they can answer it, listen closely. If they can’t, keep your money and go build something yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spot a fake business guru?

Ask what business they’ve built besides selling information about business. Gary Vaynerchuk told me in 2016 that this should be a prerequisite. If their only product is teaching you how to make money, they’re a marketer, not an operator.

What are the red flags of a fake business coach?

Watch for rented-lifestyle marketing, a funnel from free quotes to a big monthly fee, advice on everything outside their experience, promised shortcuts and pressure to decide fast. Any one alone isn’t proof. Two or three together is a reason to walk away.

How can you tell if a business mentor is legit?

A legit mentor can name the business they built, what it sells and the mistakes that cost them. They stay in their lane, admit what they don’t know and don’t need to rush you. Ask before you pay, not after.

What did Gary Vaynerchuk say about fake gurus?

On my podcast in 2016, Gary said people should ask their mentor, coach or mastermind group what business they’ve ever built besides selling information. He called coaches teaching people to become coaches “that Ponzi game” and predicted the cash-on-the-bed crowd would get exposed.

Is it wrong to sell information products?

No. Gary’s issue wasn’t information, it was who’s selling it. He gave away free content daily and, as he put it in 2016, asked people to buy an $18 book every three years. The problem is someone charging thousands to teach a business they’ve never built.