Shut Up, Gurus!
You're Killing Us!
By Hadji Williams
It's been a little over two weeks since Keith Elam, one of
the most accomplished artists of my generation passed away.
As one-half of Gang Starr, Elam was truly a Gifted emcee who
pioneered an ill poetic street corner philosopher’s eloquence not yet heard
prior. Between his Gang Starr catalog and his groundbreaking Jazzmatazz work,
he proved to source of seemingly Unlimited Rhymes. And his willingness to
discuss everything from the writing process to manhood to parenthood to
politics to crime made his lyrics truly Universal.
Looking back, April 19, 2010 saw the passing of perhaps the
only non-east Indian who could rightfully call himself a guru with a straight
face. Elam's death also got me thinking about all the other so-called gurus out
here…
A while back I met a guy who’d penned the definitive book on
Twitter. I know it was the definitive book on Twitter because he said it so.
And so had his publisher. Now the guy admitted to never having worked for
Twitter. To my knowledge he didn’t even know anyone who did. He hadn’t even
been using Twitter very long himself. But no matter.
He had a book, a title, and full schedule of speaking gigs
and media appearances to validate his self-inflicted gurudom.
Now, the easiest thing would be to insult, slander folks
like this. That’d be the one-off sureshot that would garner plenty of RTs,
comments, and e-daps. But instead, I wanna try something different, beginning
with a question:
What if all the gurus, particularly those of us in
marketing, PR and social media, just said—out loud:
“I don’t know.”
What if all the so-called trendspotting gurus and trendsetting
fashion gurus stopped for a second and said, "Mr. & Mrs. Talk Show
Host… to be perfectly honest, I just wrote this book to get a few speaking gigs
and make some quick cash. But to answer your original question, 'I’m really not
sure,”?
What if we all told our clients we’re not experts and added,
“at this stage of the game, no one is an expert. The space is just too new and
too fluid for anyone to be claiming otherwise. We’re all students learning as
we go. And fact is, what worked last year, or even last week, might not work
tomorrow.”
What would happen to all us gurus then?
Would our
billings get cut? Would we lose contracts? Would our LinkedIn connects turn on
us? Would we lose followers? Would we get less sex?
Would the conference circuit dry up due to a lack of
“rockstar panelists,” most of whom would’ve long since admitted that they’re
really no so hot after all?
Seriously, what would honestly happen if we all took, say 6
months… or 60 days or even 6 days and just shut up—
and listened.
And by “listen” I mean, no more whitepaper decks. No more
self-aggrandizing tweets and blog postings. No more “ain’t I a genius”
podcasts. No more keynotes or panels that invariably devolve into just how
forward-looking and ahead of the curve you and your company are…
In fact, no more anything that doesn’t begin and end with
listening.
Listening to people who are actually doing the things so
many of us claim to somehow mastered before anyone else… Listening to how
regular people are actually living and moving and working and playing…
Listening to people who spend way more time offline than on… Listening to
people who buy more than they try to sell… Listening to what people with no
vested interest in who/what we claim to be are paying attention to and ignoring.
What if, god forbid we all listened to people who
didn’t look like us? Listened to people from different cultural/ethnic
backgrounds. Keith Elam was the only black guru I’ve met with any real
following in the last 20 years.
There’s something perverse about the fact that white skinned privilege
seems to be an integral part of being a guru. As if people of color can’t be
authorities on anything beyond certain musical genres. So what if we listened
to these people, too?
Listening. What if we all just listened…
I once stayed in a house fulla nuns in the middle of the
Westside of Chicago. About twice a year, they’d take vows of silence while
living in the middle one of the loudest neighborhoods in one of the loudest cities
in America; and all they did was listen.
I mean, they still did their jobs—taught classes, shopped,
all that… But they didn’t talk. They just listened. If they had something to
say, then wrote it down and passed notes. It was surreal. (Especially once you
read some of their notes.)
I wonder if all us gurus could do that...
I’m gonna try it myself and see how far I get. Something
tells me there’s a whole other world out there once I stop pretending I know
everything.
Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a link. It’s from Gang
Starr’s DJ Premier honoring his fallen comrade and the only man worthy of the
guru crown.
R.I.P. Mr. Elam.
And to all the other gurus out there: Shhh… listen.
Salute to Guru, courtesy of Gang Starr’s DJ Premier
Keith "Guru" Elam
Tribute Mix by Dj Premier Blog
Radio on Mixcloud
===================================================
Hadji
Williams is not a guru. This is also the second to last time he refers to
himself in third person. If you wanna know more about him, just google him. (That
was the last time.)
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