The Two Tests for a Legitimate Self-Help Guru
Is the advice the best available? Are they lying about who they are?
Shaan proposes a simple two-part test for evaluating any self-help figure. First: is the advice itself high quality and actionable, regardless of who's giving it? Second: is the person being honest about their credentials and experience? You can fail one test and still be useful. A fraud with great advice is still worth reading — you just need to know what you're dealing with. But someone who fails both tests is just noise.
Related Signals
Expected Value Decision Making: How a 19-Year-Old Used Gambling Math to Decide When to Sell
Multiply the probability of each outcome by its payoff. The option with the highest expected value wins — not the one that feels best.
Why DHH Stopped Listening to the Numbers and Trusted His Gut Instead
They had a data scientist for a decade. They never once did what the numbers told them to do.
The Idea Validation Filter: How to Know Which Ideas Are Worth Building
Coming up with ideas is easy. The real skill is a framework to filter them — marketability, personal experience, and adjacent company revenue.