Hi,

I’ve been exchanging comments with a guy who I really like trading ideas (and witticisms) with over the last week and something occurred to me during that exchange. And it has to do with that word that I really rather cringe at even saying or typing. But here goes…

… G… G… Gu… Guru.

There, I spat it out. First, let me explain why I really don’t like that word. Well, to be honest, I just find it dopey. So I run to Mr Webster to get the definitive meaning. Here it is (verbatim):

“gu.ru 1: a personal religious teacher and spiritual guide in Hinduism. 2a: teacher and especially intellectual guide in matters of fundamental concern. 2b: one who is an acknowledged leader or chief proponent (as of a cult, movement or idea).”

Now, maybe, just maybe the term Internet Guru falls into category 2b (albeit loosely). In any case, I find it very difficult to refer to anybody as a guru. I suppose this may stem from my 40 or so years as a karate practitioner where specific titles are awarded to people for a combination of knowledge and physical ability. On that score I also have difficulty with the term “Grand Master” which SO MANY false prophets in the martial arts use. Grand Master! Phooey! I think it’s egregious and egomaniacal. I prefer titles that are awarded upon a measured test of knowledge and/or physical capacity.

Then again, we have Grand Masters of Chess, don’t we? Anyway…

The term guru is thrown around on the Internet like a giant open box of confetti in a wind tunnel. Get the picture? Everyone and anyone who has made money is instantly a Guru. It just doesn’t sit well with me. Moving right along…

… in my discusssions with Denis Caron, the friend I referenced above (website: http://www.deniscaronportal.com), I realised something. All of a sudden I realised why people call others gurus and why these so-called gurus take advantage of so many people. And I don’t mean that in a really negative way towards the information providers themselves. OK. I’ll relent for the purpose of this article. I’ll simply refer to these types as gurus from here on in (as much as it rankles me to do so).

You see, there are two main reasons. And pardon me for being blunt but I call a spade a spade not an instrument for excavating soil and yes, fat people are fat and short people are short. I’m not into bull-shitting the truth. Not so surprisingly, only a few minutes ago, a fellow Aussie Joanne Keevers said this about me:

“That’s what I love most about you Gary, tact & diplomacy! ROFL!”

Anyway, I’m sliding off track. The two reasons:

1 – SOME people are just dumb (sorry but they ARE),
2 – MOST people are bone lazy.

So, what a truly delicious combination for a “guru” to come along and clean up financially.

Look, I’m not knocking the MANY fine people out there who make substantial livings by providing quality information to others. We’re in the Information Age, supposedly. Personally, I think we are in the Information Overload Age. There is just far too much information whizzing around. Everyday something new is released – online and offline. You really can become a mental case even trying to follow it all.

However, when ignorance and laziness are in such abundance… “All hail Caesar!”

So many people want the “push-button” solution. That’s why we have instant lotto, instant tea and quick-fix solutions all over the place.

Personally, I write a lot of e-books to help people with various things. I get so many questions on Twitter and via email. Now, here’s the rub…

… when you tell somebody that their question is answered in an e-book and in-depth and not only that… a bunch of other related information too, what do most of them do? Do they get that e-book? Nope. If you even go to the extra effort to send them a pdf, do they thank you? Nope (well, some people do. Most don’t). And if you contact them a week later and ask them if they got their question answered whaddya think the most common reply is? Huh? Wait for it…

… “Oh, I haven’t had the time to read it yet.”

Duh-bloody-duh… Double Duh!

What so many people are REALLY wanting to do is to get others to do EVERYTHING for them. They want money for jam. All the reward for NO effort.

People really are their own worst enemies. This reminds me of when I was in hospital a few years ago. Side-tracking again but I think it conveys a salient point…

I watched in amazement as several people – with obvious lung ailments – stood outside in their pyjamas (right next to the NO SMOKING sign) smoking. And they were coughing their gutses up. How CAN you help people with that mindset? You can’t. Here’s something I said to Denis in a previous comment:

I get so many emails from people saying: “I don’t know how to do this or that or this or that.” I get it on the big T too (er, that would be Twitter). But… gasp… shock… E-GAD!

Now, I know that certain people get a lot of amusement from me quoting me but directly after that I said:

Those very same people are NEVER the ones that wanna read any of my e-books. Oh no! They just want to keep asking me dopey effing questions – one at a time – MOST of which are explained in my e-books.

And, going for the trifecta here (of self-quoting – hello Linda Caroll of http://www.lindacaroll.com – you’ll get a laugh or three out of this, no doubt!):

How do you help people like that when they won’t help themselves? (Note to D-Man: I’m fuelling up here for another mad rant on my blog – might even turn this into a post of its own).

So, if you are ONE of those people (not you D-man. Just talking in general with this bit) – get the FRIKKIN e-book. Then AFTER you’ve studied it – THEN ask me a question if you didn’t understand something. Christ! How much easier can I make this?

Some people make me wonder if mummy and daddy are still wiping their botties and tying up their widdle shoe laces. Sheesh!

So, there you have it. When so many people WON’T help themselves and WON’T take advice, can you blame a guru for taking advantage of them? That is why it’s open season out there. Find a need and fill it. Find a lazy person and take their money. Simple. There you have it. So, in reality, it really is no wonder the gurus are taking advantage of you. If you can’t or WON’T help yourself then what do you expect?

Internet Marketing – love it, hate it. Your choice.

What are your thoughts?

PS: Click on the banner below for some awesome free information on how you can improve your lifestyle:

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Are you sick of the same old results? Change your thinking and change your outcomes. To learn more click the banner below:

“You cannot teach a person anything, you can only help them find it within themself.” – Galileo (1564-1642).
Your JOURNEY to now has created the LIFE you are living.
Improving yourself will enable you to fulfill your DESTINY.
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Hi and welcome back to the TEMPLE. Do you like my new pics at the top of the page? I hope so. I do. It kinda encapsulates what I am doing here – that is, offering all sorts of resources to help you and others in your ongoing journey in Internet Marketing and/or blogging.

I hope you have been enjoying my Internet Marketing Tips videos too. I have five of them up now and many more to follow. Keep an eye out for them coz some are serious and some are frivolous and just poke fun at things. That’s me. I can’t be serious all the time. But today I want to be serious.

Oh… oh. That usually means… RANT coming! Well, not really but close to it.

You see, today I want to talk about blog hijackers.

What’s a blog hijacker? A blog hijacker is like a graffiti idiot. They come to a blog with the intention of spraying their invective bile all over everyone and everything. They make disparaging and often completely incorrect comments in a feeble attempt to “take over” the purpose and intent of the blog. In other words, they just want to disrupt everybody from the target of the blog. Most often they attempt this by trying to “take down” the blog owner – to make him or her look foolish to the blog owner’s readers.

Blog hijackers nit-pick on things like innocent comments or even spelling mistakes. They are hecklers.

Yesterday I was at a blog belonging to an aquaintance of mine, Dean Holland (Deano and I were in Las Vegas together in May/June this year), who is trying to help people understand the miasma of Internet Marketing. I think Dean is doing a pretty good job. But then…

… along comes “Mike.” Well, I doubt if that is his real name but that is what he called himself.

Mike’s sole intention was to hijack Dean’s blog with snide remarks, rudeness and smart-alec comments. If you are interested enough you can see what was said here: www.DeanHolland.com. But please read on first…

I have seen this type of miserable behavior before. Many times, in fact. Such individuals think (erroneously, I might add) that if they can take down the King or the Queen (ie the blog owner) that they can assume some sort of leadership or importance mantle. But it almost always backfires and simply makes them look foolish.

It’s a classic case of an individual attempting to disrupt a project by hijacking it to place all the emphasis on himself (or herself – but it is usually males who do this). It’s a matter of low self-worth and low self-esteem manifesting itself through jealousy.

When such an individual feels in his or her own mind that he or she cannot be part of a group moving forward they attempt to strike back by shredding the sails and throwing out the anchor. They sabotage the group by whatever means possible.

We see this often with disruptive junior students in classrooms across the country. Unfortunately, there are older people – who should know better – but have never grown out of this negative mindset. [Maybe they should study my “Mindset” e-book… but of course, they wouldn’t do that. Their mindset just wouldn’t allow it]

These hijackers attempt to divert attention away from the direction and focus of the group by being critical – often over the most trivial of issues. In the case above, Mike attempted to belittle Dean for mis-spelling the word bonanza. However, in doing so he committed his own literary gaffe. I won’t go into what that was here but he also told everyone that they were “blowing smoke up each other’s backsides.” Then, when he was castigated for that, he did what MOST of these types do. He then assumed (incorrectly) that he was the victim and told his own critic, “not to get personal.” Duh!

This is also a common trait of these people – they can give it but they cannot take it. But worse than that here is what happens:

The “Mike’s” of this world are given a second chance and sometimes they “play along” for a little while. But what they really want to do is divide and conquer. They want some of the visitors/readers to take their side with the empathetic/sympathetic approach. They like nothing more than for other commenters to start FLAME WARS against each other. This is their intention. They want the focus to be on their poor behavior. And when they can achieve factional camps within the blog then they are well on their way to the disruption that the initial criticism set out to achieve.

Some months ago, I watched negatively inspired people attempt to hijack Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing 2.0 launch during his live streaming. There were some people at that event who were hell-bent on ONE THING only – taking Mike Filsaime down. Why? Same reasons – low self-esteem manifesting itself as extreme jealously.

When the negative ones can get people focussed on their own ridiculous sideshows then they feel satisfied with their usual miserable existence. They re-inforce their own negative mindsets. Their equilibrium is restored.

If they are not banned from the discussion then they just keep needling away enough to keep the two emerging factions (those “sympathetic” towards the aggravator and those aggravated by the aggravator) watching all comments like hawks to see who says what. This keeps the entire sideshow simmering away in the background.

The best thing to do (after ONE opportunity has been given to ameliorate poor behaviour on a blog) is to remove the errant individual. Fair criticism is OK. However, blog hijack is something entirely different.

Michel Fortin of www.michelfortin.com and Christopher Knight of www.ezinearticles.com have stated many times on their respective blogs that their blogs are NOT democracies. And that’s fair enough.

Owners invest a LOT of time and money into their blogs. What rights do interlopers have to come and attempt to destroy all that work?

Quite simply, if somebody doesn’t like a website or a blog then they should just STAY AWAY!

So, after all that… what do you think? Remember, I’m open to well-placed disagreement but, as the blog owner here, I also have the “dump button.”

[PS1: BTW… Mike, if you come here via my link on Dean’s blog you can defend your actions. However, if you try that garbage that you pulled on over there with Dean then I’ll do what he did and it will be sayonara to you.]

PS2: Click on the banner below for some awesome free information on how you can improve your lifestyle:

************************************************************************************
Are you sick of the same old results? Change your thinking and change your outcomes. To learn more click the banner below:

“You cannot teach a person anything, you can only help them find it within themself.” – Galileo (1564-1642).
Your JOURNEY to now has created the LIFE you are living.
Improving yourself will enable you to fulfill your DESTINY.
************************************************************************************

This is SUPPOSED to be Internet Marketing Tip #5 but as it turned out – NO Internet Marketing tip today. I’m rarely stuck for words but this venue (the T&A Training Stage in the Excalibur Casino in Las Vegas) just proved too much… even for me! LOL!

I’m still trying to figure out why Las Vegas is called SIN CITY! Can anyone explain that?

PS 1: If you want to read about what me and the crew got up to in Las Vegas while we were attending these Internet Marketing seminars then you can go here: Internet Marketing Seminars – Las Vegas June 2009

PS 2: If you want to watch the four previous Marketing Tips then you can watch them here:

Internet Marketing Tips #1

Internet Marketing Tips #2

Internet Marketing Tips #3

Internet Marketing Tips #4

************************************************************************************
Are you sick of the same old results? Change your thinking and change your outcomes. To learn more click the banner below:

“You cannot teach a person anything, you can only help them find it within themself.” – Galileo (1564-1642).
Your JOURNEY to now has created the LIFE you are living.
Improving yourself will enable you to fulfill your DESTINY.
************************************************************************************

Well, HELLO THERE! Here I am with yet another one of my short videos about Internet Marketing Tips. This is number 4 in an ongoing series. I hope you are enjoying watching these and maybe learning something – even if that’s only how nutty I can be.

If you have seen Internet Marketing Tips #1 then you might recall that in it there was a certain truck with a billboard on the side advertising… hmm… shall we say… “Ladies of the Night.” Well, I have only just noticed that vehicle makes yet another appearance in the background of this video. So… does it just chuck bog-laps (Aussie term for doing a continuous circuit looking for “like-minded people”) around the strip or was it following ME?

Anyway, this short video is all about taking ACTION. Lemme ask you this – do you want to wear out or would you rather just rust out? The choice is yours.

Speaking of choice… if you don’t yet have my free e-book “The Power of Choice” then you are seriously missing out on some MAJOR motivation. And if you don’t have my ACTION Planner well, why make it difficult for yourself when I have made it SO EASY for you to plan and achieve. (How do you think I crank out these mega valuable free e-books so fast? Huh?)

Anyway, sit back and enjoy the video – watch for the truck and also the TGM tee-shirt (which I forgot I was even wearing until prompted).

PS 1: If you want to read about what me and the crew got up to in Las Vegas while we were attending these Internet Marketing seminars then you can go here: Internet Marketing Seminars – Las Vegas June 2009

PS 2: If you want to watch Internet Marketing Tips #1 then you can watch it here: Internet Marketing Tips #1

And Internet Marketing Tips #2 can be viewed here:
Internet Marketing Tips #2

And Internet Marketing Tips #3 can be viewed here: Internet Marketing Tips #3

************************************************************************************
Are you sick of the same old results? Change your thinking and change your outcomes. To learn more click the banner below:

“You cannot teach a person anything, you can only help them find it within themself.” – Galileo (1564-1642).
Your JOURNEY to now has created the LIFE you are living.
Improving yourself will enable you to fulfill your DESTINY.
************************************************************************************