The Guru Method: Become a disciple
Informational or content based business models often require a steady stream of new, useful information. After the initial burst of new ideas, the creative process can be a painful experience.
The good news is that you don’t have to come up with your ideas from scratch. No one does. Not even great authors.
Indeed, the best writers *read* before they write. Why? To generate new ideas. To see things from new perspectives. To jumpstart the creative process.
The cool thing is that you can systematize this process by using what I call the Guru Method.
What is the Guru Method
Put simply, the Guru Method requires that you latch on to an expert that you trust and whose ideas you believe in. Then share those ideas with the world.
Let’s be clear. This is not plagiarism (you should always reference your sources). Instead, the Guru Method should be conceived of a way for you to spread the word about ideas that you truly believe in. In a word, it’s all about discipleship.
Why the Guru Method?
The Guru Method works for several reasons. First, you are not required to generate brand new ideas. Good ideas are hard to come by. Instead, you can spend your time adding user-value through organization, summarization, and concrete examples.
Second, the Guru Method gives you a system to work within. It sets boundaries. It gives you structure. In a real sense, it allows you to become a teacher. Just like your Professors teach out of textbooks, you can use the Guru Method to teach people online, adding your own style and flair to already great ideas.
An example of the Guru Method in action
One of the employees of my company is a huge fan of value investor Ronald Muhlenkamp. So, he started an investing website with the main goal of sharing the basic principles of Ronald Muhlenkamp’s investing strategies with the world.
The articles at The Common Sense Investor mostly center around Muhlenkamp’s distinct value-oriented approach to investing. What’s unique about many of the articles at CSInvestor is that they apply these ideas in new user-friendly ways. Plus, not every article is directly descendent from the Guru. Some are the differing opinions of the author himself, and would not be supported by the Guru. But every disciple introduces his own slightly different flavor.
How To Setup a Guru Site
To setup your own Guru site you first need to find an expert that you trust. Preferably, the expert should be someone providing unique practical advice on a topic of interest to a large number of people. Finance, health, business, self-improvement are all good candidates.
Next, you should read enough of the Guru to get the main principles. Once you’ve got the ideas down, start writing about them from your own perspective. Apply them in unique ways. Make sure your readership is getting original, valuable information within the framework of your Guru’s basic principles.
At first, articles should flow fairly easily. When the ideas start to dry up, simply go back to your Guru, read more of her stuff, and I guarantee that new article ideas will start to emerge.
If you hit a permanent brick wall, simply move on to the next Guru topic, and maybe revisit your old sites every 2 months to see if any new ideas have emerged during the time away.
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I think that a lot of ebook authors have taken this concept to the max…
You write a book about XYZ. I write about about how XYZ worked for me.