The most accurate, best, and relevant advice that’s totally worthless.

Long time ago, I saw a YouTube comment where the guy was grumbling that the speaker didn’t ever seem to get to the point and that it was a bad speech. I agreed with him. Then I came back 2 years later and had my mind blown with the exact same speech. Here’s what happened…

Here’s the best analogy of why most self-improvement material is absolutely right, but totally worthless and why it doesn’t “work” for many –

Imagine you’re lost, but you want to get to NYC.

You get some directions, “Go Northeast”, which is advice that’s very effective for many people in the US, and people rave about the advice with 5 star reviews. You do the exact advice and actually end up worse…because you’re unknowingly starting out in Maine.

So on the way of being lost and heading Northeast, you go into a gas station (you get the “Know Thyself” home study course!) and ask which way is Northeast, which you then discover you’re in Maine.

Now you know to follow directions for people based in Maine and get one guru book that says “turn left, travel 5 miles” and another that says “go right after the bridge” and so on. It’s all out of order, because no one knows exactly where you are in Maine. So, all the advice is totally right, but it’s all out of order. You run around in circles following directions that are accurate, but not in the right order.

Many people’s goals change for the better in this process. So, you realize halfway to NYC, that you were actually wanting to get to LA. 

And now you realize you made a wrong turn a few miles back and you’re lost again. Rinse and repeat the cycle of inefficiency…

But each time you do this, you start memorizing more roads, more bridges, and so on until you basically have the entire US interstate system mapped out and memorized in your head. Then you know where you are, hopefully had a good idea of where you want to go, and finally how to get there. This takes the idea of “what level are you at” a bit further in regards to why it’s so damn hard to “level up.”

Doing all this one video / book of directions at a time is why this journey becomes almost impossible. Good / accurate directions of “turn left at the bridge” may even be 100% relevant to you eventually, but if that’s not your next direction, it’s often useless.