Who doesn’t love a good story?

Like a story of overcoming adversity, of perseverance, of triumph? We like those who buck the status quo, who disrupt industries, and who despite being pioneers and trailblazers, who make it all seem within reach.

These folx, who we call visionaries, are able to see past the present into a bold and daring future. They ask courageous questions, push people out of their comfort zones, and demand people be willing to sacrifice for their vision.

There’s just one problem.

Most of the time, these stories are made up, grade-A, horse shit.

“The visionary” is, quite possibly, capitalism’s greatest illusion and we, apparently, never seem to get tired of it.

Here’s what I mean...

Who will be the next genius, "visionary" to grace the cover of Forbes?

Sadly, that honor has become a bit like the Madden Curse as titan-after-titan industry is revealed to be a fraud or greatly exaggerated. Whether shown on Forbes, Fortune, Time, or Bloomberg, there is a disturbing trend of people cast as visionaries, who turn out to be sociopaths and liars, being showered with praise.

Sam Bankman-Fried (or “SBF” as he’s apparently known) was on the cover of Forbes in October 2021. He was the founder of FTX, a crypto-currency exchange, and Alameda Research, a trading firm. At one point he was worth of $26 BILLION dollars. In October is was $10.5 Billion, and then...

Less than a week ago, FTX filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and sent catastrophic ripples through both crypto markets and financial markets. Turns out, the whole thing was being run like a ponzi scheme. Oh, and rumor has it that SBF is in the Bahamas with millions of other people’s money. What a visionary!

She threw on a black turtleneck, artificially deepened her voice, and pretended that her solution worked. That was enough for her to be hailed “the next Steve Jobs.” Forbes now has her net worth at $0 and she was found guilty on 4 out of 13 charges.

Behold, the visionary.

The answer is no. That shit is stupid. It looks like Second Life circa 2007, but where no one has feet.

After countless privacy violations, subjecting users to psychological experiments without consent, flooding the world with unrestricted misinformation, helping foreign nations to disrupt our elections, engaging in a pattern of obviously anti-competitive monopolistic business practices, and most recently guiding his company to losing more than a $700 billion loss in value — in about one year — by betting on a stupid vision of wearing VR goggle to simulate a cubicle, Zuck is a special kind of “visionary” billionaire. Don't worry though, only 11,000 people were laid off.

He got lucky and built a social network at the right time, ripped off features from everyone else, bought up any compe

NOTE: This is a longer one and if that is intimidating, overwhelming, or cause for you to sit this one out despite being interested in the topic, I’m going to encourage you instead to try the podcast version (Apple Podcast | Spotify).You can also skip over the whole post and jump straight to the framework -- though the story is what will give it context.

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Some people love public speaking, others can’t stand it. But, anyone who has ever done it, wants to be good at it. They want to be light and funny, entertaining and informative, and perhaps most importantly transformative. They want the audience to walk away changed, seeing the world through new eyes, ready to tell someone about it.

The obvious problem for most is something we call “stage fright.” It’s this natural tension that unleashes our fear of freezing up and looking like “a total loser.” Everyone starts pointing, sneering, whispering, and even laughing. You can feel the judgement creeping down every hair on your back. It is embarrassing, possibly even shameful.

Everyone thinks stage fright comes from general anxiety about this nightmare unfolding. The truth is that there are three things that cause stage fright, and none of them are anxiety -- though all three can cause anxiety.

If you can wrap your head around what I’m about to share with you, not only will it help you avoid freezing up but it will change how you speak in front of groups, no matter how larger or small, for the rest of your life.

I’m going to tell you how a single moment 8 years into my speaking career changed everything.

These are the events that led up to me falling apart on stage and how to make sure it never happens again.

I did my first speaking engagement in August 2010.

I had been hired to talk about social media, for 90 minutes, in front of 200 people out in Los Angeles. Again, this was my FIRST speaking engagement. Luckily, I was passionate about the subject matter and knew what I was talking about.

I reached out to one of my peers and he gave me some advice about breaking the talk into smaller chunks or acts. I broke the 90-minutes into three 30-minutes segments.

I was ready.

When the time came for my talk, I was nervous. I waited anxiously in my seat waiting for my time slot. When I heard my name called I felt butterflies turn to panic. Can I really do this?

My heart was racing, beating out of my chest, and my only relief was the knowledge that my blazer was covering the sweaty armpit stains on my dress shirt. I walked up the stairs on the side of the stage, and I'll never forget what happened next.

As my foot hit the stage and I shook the hand of the person who introduced me…I felt an immense wave of calm wash over me. It happened in an instant. I was in my zone.

Not everyone has this happen but I did. I loved it and I was hooked.

After that, I took any gig I could get and for the next 6 years, I spoke in front of thousands of people, all across the country and even internationally. I was giving talks on a variety of social media topics running exclusively on coffee, passion, and subject matter expertise. I was comfortable, funny — at times — and deeply invested my audience walking away with practical, tangible information.

My audiences responded well, I got overall good feedback, and I thought I was great speaker.

I have a new online course coming out soon called Hyperfocus that is a complete productivity system for people with ADHD, and I have a question for you.

Should I price it at $497 or $499?

On second thought, don’t answer that, I have another question…

I’m only planning on offering 3 licenses in the first 6 months, do you want to join the waiting list?

No, no, no, wait…don’t answer that. I know what I really want to ask you.

Why are these obviously scammy sales and marketing tactics still a thing?

• Go through the directory of all online courses and all online product downloads, and they often have a price ending in 99 or 97.
• Look at most online courses or webinars and you’ll notice that despite being online and infinitely scalable, they often have limited seats and even more limited time to sign up before the deadline.
• Watch any advertisement on Youtube for making money and you’ll notice they all follow the same script about someone going from rags to riches when they discovered this one simple trick.

With all that has been written about these marketing and sales tactics there’s no way that people are falling for it, right?

I’m not so sure, however, my gut tells me that even though 99% of us can see through the BS, that 1% still makes it worth it to continue playing these games.

For nearly a century, companies have been setting their prices at $4.99 instead of $5.00. For anyone left who doesn’t know why, it’s because of a psychological trick that takes advantage of our tendency to read prices left to right. By seeing a lower number at the left, the price appears lower in our minds even though we rationally understand the real price after rounding. Something $997 is really $1,000. Something $4.99 is really $5.00.

We all know it. And yet, we’re still doing it.

The trick is all laid out for us to see. As consumers, the most we can really do is be annoyed. As businesses, however, we can choose to respect our customers enough to round up and be honest about the price, choosing instead to focus on making the product or service worth the actual, honest price. No tricks.

Since at least 1984 when Robert Cialdini published Influence, possibly even earlier with the invention of the department store “sale,” or possibly even before that, scarcity has been a tool to move people into action.

We know it, but sometimes we still can’t help ourselves. When we see that Amazon listing shows “only 1 left in stock” we spring into action.

Unfortunately, we don’t know if that’s even true, as clever marketers everywhere realized that there doesn’t actually need to be real scarcity to use the tactic.

So, we continue to get campaigns that push and press on us to take action now before it’s too late.

One of the things that I’ve gotten from a decade in marketing is a greater awareness of the tactics attempting to be used on me. Once I see the trick, it's harder for me to be fooled by it. Part of Becoming Superhuman, as you learn and think, is developing an immunity to manipulation. For me, I've found that companies that take the alternative approach of being honest, are somewhat refreshing. I think a lot of customers are looking for a little more honesty in the world.

This is why, for at least the last 8 years, my prices have been flat numbers: $5, $50, $500, $5,000, etc.

As I release my products and courses in the future, I plan to mak