New BiggerPockets Article: In Praise of Seemliness

My new BiggerPockets article is up, titled (by BiggerPockets as "Warning: Why You Shouldn't Buy What the Gurus are Selling," but originally titled by me as "In Praise of Seemliness."

Sure, I take my shots at the "gurus" in this piece,

The gurus trying to sell their $10,000 course on real estate investing (or cryptocurrencies or drop shipping or Amazon FBA or day trading or some other multilevel marketing scam). For some reason, their "educational videos" usually have a Lamborghini in them. Maybe scenes from a Caribbean vacation, a few supermodels, an entourage of guys in suits with sunglasses walking decisively in slow motion. Someone's probably smoking a cigar (presumably Cuban).
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It’s really rather sad actually.

But I went after the gurus more directly here.

This piece was more of a tangential critique of the gurus. The main theme was a praise of seemliness, which is something anyone who is successful (or trying to become successful) should do in my humble opinion,

I think we need to get back to a culture of seemliness, meaning “fitting or becoming with respect to propriety or good taste; decent; decorous.”

Perhaps add in a little humility, too. (This would go for real estate investors and non-investors alike, of course.)

Yes, we should announce our newest projects and celebrate our successes. There is a lot of nuance here and no exact lines. But I think the famous phrase “act as if you’ve been here before” is a good rule of thumb...
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...Trying to win approval by flaunting a wealthy lifestyle (again, real or imaginary) will always be fake and superficial. And doing so en masse hollows out our culture and builds resentment. Plus, those lifestyles are about as real as a seller-provided pro forma on a completely vacant 100-unit apartment complex.

It's one of my deeper and more philosophical pieces and I'm rather proud of it so please give it a read (and take its advice to heart).