There is a lot of talk online about Internet Marketing "Gurus". So what exactly is a "guru" anyway?

The dictionary definition of guru is as follows:
1) A spiritual teacher.
2) A charismatic leader or guide.

Okay. Now what does this mean in terms of The Internet?

As far as I can tell, both of these definitions do apply to Internet Marketing in that once a person gets hooked on a particular "guru" it's almost like a religious experience.

You buy all the eBooks; you buy all the "recommended" products; you buy all the software you never actually get around to figuring out how to use; you wait anxiously every day for your gurus email, so you can suck in all that new information.

You start to visualize yourself "making money while you sleep" while suppressing any thoughts about the real amount of work it actually takes to pull off this kind of success. I call this the "newbies dream".

Is it a religious experience? Perhaps, but my advice is this: if you are following a "guru" and keep falling into the "newbies dream" it would be much wiser to stop immediately and think carefully about what you're doing because unless you're actually applying what you're "learning" there is no guru on earth who can help you.

So how does one become an "Internet Marketing Guru?" There is no doubt the way to get this label is to make lots of money (I mean LOTS!) and to "help" others learn how to do the same thing. But is making money the only thing that people are obsessed with on the Internet?

No, but sometimes it seems that way, especially if you are someone who has decided to try to figure out how to make some money online. Once you make that decision, something very eerie begins to happens. You immediately begin searching for ways to go about reaching your goal and before long, you find yourself under the spell of one guru or another.

Now, if you've discovered a guru that teaches you everything you need to know about making a living online, then congratulations. There are a few out there but they are not always easy to find. Unfortunately, for many of us, the search for the "Ultimate" guru was never ending when we started online.

The reason? Because there are so many classifications of "gurus"