What if I told you that two of the biggest names in personal development, people you've probably followed, maybe even admired, have been faking their YouTube views? Now, I'm not here to tear them down, but I am here to tell you the truth. Because if you've ever felt like you're behind, not good enough, or wondering why your message isn't landing the way theirs does, this illusion might be the reason. And when I started digging into the numbers, when what I uncovered didn't just change how I saw them, it changed how I see this entire industry. And you need to hear it. Welcome to A Changed Mind. A journey into the topics that matter to you most. From the neuroscience and spirituality of mindset and personal growth, to groundbreaking strategies for health, wealth, and relationships, to open and honest conversations about pressing global issues such as the environment, censorship, corporate capture, and democracy. Each and every episode reminds us of the certainty of the goodness of future and provides the teachings, tools, and timeless wisdom inspiring you to create real, lasting change in your life and in the world. If you've been desiring a sanctuary for your spirit, a place to go to tune out the distraction, negativity, and doom and gloom so that you can tap into the deep power, the vibrancy, and the potential you have inside, you're in the right place. Welcome to a Changed Mind. Hey, it's David. Welcome to a Changed Mind. A sanctuary for your spirit. A place where each and every episode, I remind you of the certain certainty of the goodness of the future. I'm your friend, your host, your guy, David Bayer. Man, I really debated whether or not to talk about this on this episode, and I decided I would. And so here it goes. I was checking how my podcast was performing on YouTube. It occurred to me recently, like, you know what, the algorithm's been changing. We've been getting about 30 to 50,000 listens per episode, which is amazing. I'm super grateful. I'm wondering how some of the other channels are performing. And so I took a look at a couple of other top channels and what I found shocked me. Now, I'm not going to name names. I will tell you that one of the individuals I took a look at came out of the network marketing space and has become a big influencer in the personal development space. Helped a lot of people, inspired a lot of people. I'm not taking anything away from the beautiful things that this individual has done. The other one really started out in the expert business coaching space and decided they wanted to get into high performance and personal growth. And so I started combing through. If you're joining me on YouTube, I'm opening my phone right now. If you're listening on the audio platforms, just bear with me. And I'm looking at the number of views. I'm like, okay, the first individual has over a million subscribers. And I'm like, last video, 3,000 views. Video before that, 17,000 views. Video before that,. 3,000 views. I'm like, that's really odd for, like, having over a million subscribers. But the algorithm's been changing. Week before that, 26,000 views, 9,000 views. And then I see 116,000 views. Then I see 198 views. So I'm like, wow, those are weird pops. I certainly have some episodes that are dogs and some episodes that are winners. But when I click on this video that has 116,000 views, I see that it's only got 81 comments. And I'm like, that's really odd. It's got a thousand likes. And so I went and looked at my metrics, and I'm like, well, here's a video with only 38,000 views. It's got 210 comments and 2,000 likes, and it's pretty consistent. Like, what I see more or less is that about 5 to 10% of the total views on my channel end up becoming likes. Now, that's neither here nor there. But what I realized was, oh, my gosh, some of the people that I've been looking up to have been faking it the whole time. And I actually saw an interview on one of the channels between these two individuals talking about leadership while fabricating influence. And the point I want to make is this. This is not about them. It's about what we believe as a result. And so this is the big problem and why it matters. Like, sure, you could argue that these individuals are getting guests on their shows as a result of falsified numbers. They're appearing on other shows as a result of fake numbers. They're getting keynote speaking opportunities. And maybe that's taking someone else's spot who deserves it. Fine. I'm not so concerned about that. What I'm concerned about is we compare ourselves to these people. And I'm speaking from experience. When I started this show and I was recording my episodes, I was getting less than a thousand listens per episode. And this was back in, I guess, the summer of 2023. And I remember looking at some of these influencers going, like, what am I doing wrong? Like, I don't understand. And there were times where I felt like I was wanted to give up. And this is not about calling other people out, this is actually about calling you back in. So this is damaging not because they're cheating, but because you might feel like you're not enough. And it creates a false standard that honest creators compare themselves to. And I'm not even just talking about creators on YouTube. I'm talking about all of us. We look at the achievements that other people have made and we compare ourselves to those achievements and our own timelines. And so many of these achievements are based on false premises. The metaphor I would use is it's like being a world class athlete, which is what I believe you are. If you're listening to this show, you are in your process of becoming world class at whatever you do, yet losing in competition to somebody who's using performance enhancing drugs and then thinking you don't have what it takes. This creates a false standard that we end up comparing ourselves to. And it can affect real world access to opportunities like I talked about. But really the biggest thing is that it deflates our own psyches. Now, again, I believe in a world of abundance. So I don't believe that their success takes away from mine, but I do believe that if we're not careful, it can take away from our self esteem. And so I want you to know right now the competition out there is weak. There are certainly great people doing great things, but I will tell you, I'm seeing more consistently than ever before that people are achieving things based on a platform of inauthenticity, making shortcuts on the system. And those chickens come home to roost. I think my grandma said that once. I don't really know what it means. I mean, I think you want your chickens to come home to rooster. Why would you want your chickens to go away and never come home to roost? But you get my point. My point is this. The competition is weak out there and the space is very, very broad. There is room for you if you're willing to put in a little bit of action every single day over time and build momentum. There isn't anything that you cannot create. And I don't care who is doing what you think you're doing, who's already doing it. There's space for all of us. But you have to understand, you are not behind, you are not too small, you are not missing anything. And the people that you admire may be more polished, but they're not more powerful. I started my own story in a space where I very easily could have been comparing myself to someone and saying what's the point. And that someone is the goat of modern day personal development, which is Tony Robbins. I pay tremendous homage to what Tony Robbins has built in the personal space. He's helped millions and millions of people. He's impacted me personally in my own life. I think my work is very different than Tony Robbins. A lot of people, at first glance, especially when I got started, was saying I was just like a Tony mini me. Frankly, I'm half an inch taller than Tony, so I would be at least a Tony mega me or a grande size. But I appreciate what Tony's done for me in his life. I've shared my story. Before that, Carol and I were in a Tony Robbins platinum partner program. We invested more money than we think we ever could possibly invest into a one year journey in the world of Tony Robbins. And I knew that I wanted to help people. There was a model there I knew I wanted to do live events, have coaching programs, make a great impact in the world, have bestselling books, because that was a fantastic marker for the influence that I'd be making in the world. Of course, I had some ego in there too. We all have some ego. It doesn't mean we all cheat and buy YouTube video views, but we all have ego involved in everything that we do. And it was very easy for me to be like, well, what's the point of me doing what I'm doing? Like, there's already a guy doing it and he's doing it at scale. And I'm never going to be as good as Tony Robbins. I mean, Tony Robbins is like a modern day spider man. Like if you know Tony Robbins story, he started out like at a maximum height of like 5 foot 6. And then he got a tumor on his pituitary gland that pumped extraordinary amounts of human growth hormone into his body. And he became Tony Robbins. He's like a modern day spider man. He got bitten by a radioactive spider. Boom. Tony Robbins. How can you compete with that? But number one, it's not about competition. And number two, more importantly, it's not about comparing yourself to other people. And I started off coaching a 19 year old with social anxiety for $125 a session. That was all the way back in 2014. And that year I did my first workshop. 23 people showed up. And I went from coaching $125 an hour to $1,500 a month to $3,500 a month, to $5,000 a month, to 50 people in a workshop, to 300 people in a workshop, to a thousand People at my live event and it's taken me almost a decade and there were a lot of times where I wanted to give up. We've got enough to deal with with our own personal insecurities than to have people who we look up to cheating and falsifying their success and making it seem like we're further behind than we actually are. But I'm telling you that everything starts with small beginnings. I never would have imagined. I guess I imagined it because here I am. But here I am. Having started with working with someone for $125 an hour and now having a business that's doing has done over $40 million in revenue, has helped hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. We just got done with our live event. I mentioned this on the last episode. I was blown away. It was almost a $4 million event. 700 people coming, transforming their lives, moving to our coaching programs, our certification programs, and creating prosperity and abundance for us as we get to help them create prosperity and abundance for themselves. It's small beginnings with daily consistency that is the real hard earned growth. And this didn't come from hacks or hype. It came from honest service. And I'm not saying that to like blow smoke up my own ass like, I'm perfect. I'm not saying I'm perfect. There have been times in the past where I tried to cut corners. I shared on one of my earlier episodes that I got to write my own bio for a Success magazine article. They asked me to contribute a six page article in Success magazine. I wrote my own bio. And in my bio I said that I was a thought leader in the next evolution of personal growth. And I've quoted that. I think I still have marketing material that quotes that as if Success magazine said it. Well, it appeared in Success magazine, but I said it about myself. So I'm not perfect. But I would hope that by the time I have the level of influence of these influencers, I've sorted my shit out. Because the worst thing is to build a mountain of success on top of a pile of shit because that'll corrode you spiritually. And unless you come out and say, hey, this is me, I did it, I cheated, it'll eat away at you forever. And it just continues to feed into that insecurity that started the disease in the first place. So I'm not trying to tear down these two guys. I just think it's important that we don't allow ourselves to tear ourselves down by comparing ourself to them. Because some of the people that we've put on pedestals, have built their castles on sand. And this is not to demonize, but to humanize. These are insecure people using influence to medicate their self worth. And their actions reveal fear, not leadership. I mean, I was blown away when I watched this. One of them said to the other, what do you think about people in leadership today? And the other one said, well, I think most people don't want to be led. And it's like, oh my God. The irony of this is extraordinary. But these people have helped a lot of people as well. You know, God has a capacity to turn swine into wine, so it all works out in the end. But there's a tremendous cost to faking it. What I want you to understand is you're on the right path. And don't sacrifice your integrity because there are invisible costs and there are extraordinary costs. Spiritual erosion, identity distortion. The trap of success built on illusion. Because when your empire is built on fabrication, you end up buried in your own performance. The crazy thing is, is one of these two guys, or both of them, either of them could come out and say, hey, you know what, I was cheating. And we'd probably respect them even more. That's the beautiful thing about honesty and integrity. It's never too late. But the mind convinces you that, man, I've built up so many lies at this point, I can't stop. I know that firsthand from my own addiction. All the lies that I had to tell to maintain my sex addiction, my drug addiction, my alcoholism. It was a full time job maintaining the lies and living in the fear that I was going to be discovered. It's crippling. And so ultimately, no matter what success you achieve, number one, it's not authentic. Number two, you'll never achieve your full potential. And so I want you to get that right now. You're already world class. Yeah, there maybe needs some cleanup, some amends, some honesty. That's why we're having this conversation. Get real with yourself so you don't end up like these guys. Real world class doesn't mean flashy. It means real. It means being your authentic self. When I was at my event, we had a business session where I taught my business methodologies. The night before the main event, There are about 450 people in the room and I was talking about messaging and authenticity and how that is like the new calling card in business. With everything that we have now around artificial intelligence, the mind is going to become irrelevant because everything can be figured out so quickly. You have an off board brain. That is the best brain in the history of the world. I actually asked ChatGPT the other day, I'm like, what is going to be the differentiator in business? It was all the things that we talk about on this show. Soul, spirit, spiritual vision, community, authenticity, vulnerability. And I asked everybody in the room, 90% of whom were in the room as a result of this show. I said, what are the two things you say about me Consistently? One lady raised her hand and she says, you're able to take complex concepts and break them down into ways that we can understand. Boom. Another lady raised her hand, I pointed to her, she said, you, authenticity and vulnerability, that's it. World class means being real. You have to speak to everybody else's inner world class identity. And that is truth, that is honesty. And so your frequency, your message, your honesty, your micro integrities and cleaning up your mess when you make one. Because we're all going to make messes. We're going to do things and go, hey, that wasn't my best expression of my highest self. Let me make amends. Right again. Something I learned in recovery, that's what creates actual power. And so that's the message I have for you today. I want you to know that you're powerful because of your vulnerability and your perceived weaknesses and the day to day struggles and challenges that you're going through as you're moving towards some sort of goal and bettering yourself. If you just keep doing that every single day, you will turn good into great 100% of the time and stop comparing yourself to illusions. I know, I feel like I'm yelling at you on this episode, but it really ticked me off. I'm like, man, this is so damaging. How can people get up there on one hand and say I'm here to help people and on the other hand be buying YouTube views to prop up your numbers, not realizing that people are looking up to you and you're creating these false statistics that people can never match up to. I was doing the same thing. I'm like, shit man, my content's pretty good. I don't understand, like, no offense, I don't think this person's content is particularly that remarkable. How are they getting 350,000 views on a video? I'm like, oh, and there's 10 comments on it, right? It doesn't make any sense. You don't need to fake anything. Your path, your process is enough. All of us are on our own unique journey. God, the universe, Jesus is intelligently designing you to transform the early age programs that you adopted and your traumas and your wounds, that's the shadow side, into the light of your brilliance. And this is your process. One day at a time. There are no shortcuts, so you don't need to fake anything. And your pace is divine. So just trust me on this when I say, as you continue to quietly build yourself through this process, you'll become the loudest legacy. And so I think, number one, we have to extend grace, right? For those people who are struggling with comparison, for those people who are lacking integrity, for those people who are dealing with personal insecurities and faking it, for those of us who have faked it. And we want to create a shift and be honest with ourselves and finally step out of the shadow and be like, you know what? I'm not perfect. And things are taking longer than I expected. You know, my business has not been a straight line. We contracted in 2021, 2022. We had to pivot. After Covid, I had to start investing back in my business. I wasn't even paying myself. Happens. That's the journey of entrepreneurship. That's the journey to greatness. That's the hero's journey. And I think we also have to acknowledge and have grace for those brave enough to tell the truth and to build slow and to shine bright. And so that's my encouragement for you. You're doing great. I want you to know that. I want you to know that I believe in you. I want you to know that I love you. I want you to know that. It was not easy to record this episode because I know some people are like, oh, put aside your own ego. You're just calling people out. And you know what? They're probably right. Probably. Last night when I was looking at these YouTube views, I was like, if you're listening along with your kids right now, cover their ears. But I was like, f you. Like, what are you doing? How can you come up here and lead people while you can't even lead yourself? But you know what? What I also realize is I've been that in my own life. And when I see that in other people, it gives me an opportunity to love myself and acknowledge myself for who I've become even more. And so take this moment to love yourself and acknowledge yourself for your imperfection, for your willingness to do most of the time what's right. You're doing a great job, and I love you very much. So I hope this episode has served you. If there's somebody who needs to hear it, please share it with them. I think we all need to stop comparing ourselves to false idols and start wearing our own names on the back of our own jerseys, being proud of the accomplishments and the things that we've done, no matter how small they are. Stack them up over time and you'll build a kingdom of appreciation for yourself. If you haven't yet and you're listening on the audio platform, subscribe, leave me a rating or review. My ego loves that. And if you're following along on YouTube, do me a favor. Do the same thing. Subscribe, hit that Bell icon and let me know what you think. I mean, maybe you think I should never record another episode like this again. Maybe you think it's too controversial. I'm certainly not a news show, but I like to talk about the topics that are important, that are real for us, that are impacting us, and a lot of times the invisible topics that actually make a difference. Because you make a difference. I love you very much and I will see you in the next episode. Hey, it's David. One more thing. If you want to go even deeper deeper on everything we've talked about on today's episode, don't forget to jump over to www.DavidBear.com. you can find the link in the show notes and subscribe to our newsletter. A couple of times a week, I'm going to be sending you the latest episodes that we've released along with additional free trainings. You'll get immediate access to my free Mind Hack ebook and go even deeper into all the tools, the technologies, the frameworks that have helped tens of thousands of people established a changed mind. Don't forget to jump on over to the site and I will see you in the next episode.