OK I’m gonna ask you a question straight off the bat.

How much money do you make?!

Go on… tell me.

If you’re hesitating, then I’d say that’s a fairly normal response.

I don’t think it’s a normal question to ask how much money you make. I think it’s quite rude!

Maybe it’s cos I’m British and we’re very funny about talking about money. Or maybe because I’m a woman and apparently, we also don’t like talking about money either.

Or how about we just scrap all the damn stereotyping and decide that it’s just a little bit icky to ask people how much money they earn.

I saw a Zoopla advert the other day where it was someone asking how much their house cost.

Now, I don’t even think that is THAT rude but the entire commercial was based on how rude this question is and that you can find this question out on Zoopla so there’s no need to ask.

By the way, Zoopla does NOT sponsor this podcast, but they just got a free shout out!! Heyyyyy!

So, the point is that it’s a little rude when you ask about someone’s finances. And I think most people do think it’s rude.

But I’ve noticed this ridiculous trend in entrepreneurship at the moment, and it’s alllllll about shouting about how much money you earn. Or, how much money you want people to THINK you earn.

So OK, it’s a bit different if someone tells you how much they earn if you don’t ask them. But still.

When has it become normalised to brag about how much you earn?

Imagine going to a party and being like “Hi, I’m Tom and I earn £3m a year!”

“Hi Tom – you’re a dick.”

It’s not a good look.

But somehow, the trend in entrepreneurship is to talk about how much money you earn and it’s driving all the conversations.

I know that we’re Iiving in a cost-of-living crisis and money is difficult for most people, but this mad trend of flexing your income is wild.

It’s weird, I just made that comment about the cost-of-living crisis as if that should justify the bragging, but if anything, it would make people less likely to talk about what they earn.

But the thing is, people aren’t being honest.

I mean, let’s face it. How often are people ever honest on social media? Like truly honest. They usually show people what they want them to see and not the whole, true picture.

So when entrepreneurs are struggling, they don’t admit it, because that apparently “looks weak”. Instead, they keep living off the old results, or worse still… they photoshop new ones!

Which brings me onto the latest trend – bragging about how much money you’re earning.

Let’s take a look at WHY this is such a popular strategy at the moment.

I guess the problem is, humans are drawn to status. We naturally respect those with a higher status and assume they’re better, regardless of how they got that status.

This attraction to status is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history. After all, people with a higher status often had better access to resources, such as food, shelter and protection. And this meant it increased their chances of survival.

Despite the fact we no longer live in times like these and we’re all more than capable of surviving with what we have, the instinct is still there to want more and seek a higher status.

Instead, now, it’s more about recognition and influence, and using status to get all the nice things in life – whether it’s for survival or not.

And in this day and age, money is one of the most obvious indicators of status. So, by showing that you have a lot of money, you’re declaring to the world that you have a higher status. In return, they hope to be admired and respected… or even perhaps be envied, by others.

The psychology around money is an interesting one – we often equate financial success with personal success. You should listen to my episode on success BS which talks about how success has become synonymous with money.

But when someone claims to have made a lot of money, it’s automatically assumed that this person has done something right – whether in business or in life.

It then makes these people more attractive, not necessarily like in a sexual way, but just even to get to know that person. People hit that follow button and want to know more about them, usually to aspire to be like them.

If someone is earning a lot of money, perhaps if they can replicate things that they do, then they can earn a lot of money too.

So, this is what people do now.

Because also, having a social media following is a currency nowadays. People can leverage brand deals, sponsorships and even jobs based on the number of followers they have. This is why so many people manipulate them, to look as though they have influence.

And maybe it all comes down to that – they want to build a social media following. Because if they do, they look like they’re a leader in their field, they get social validation, and are more likely to be given opportunities.

And how do you get more of a social following? You talk about how much money you earn on social media! Or you lie about how much money you earn.

You inflate it for a while, until it becomes true.

You fake it until you make it!!

Social media is the best place for this nonsense because it allows people to craft and present an idealised version of their lives. Entrepreneurs can easily share screenshots of results, success stories and financial achievements, whether they’re true or not.

In fact, when I was researching this topic, I was Googling a lot of creator posts where they were claiming that they were making thousands a month in sales from their courses and had videos/screenshots of Stripe payments coming through.

So, when Googling this, I found a few websites where you can generate all these screenshots with a click of a button! They create Reels for you where you get notifications of payments from Stripe with all the supposed money coming in!

The fact that people have dedicated the time to create websites with this functionality shows you how many people are looking to create this!!

There are websites where you can get templates of fake bank accounts, P&L statements and payment notifications. It’s honestly crazy.

But even when people ARE earning a decent amount of money, they manipulate the situation to make it look as though it’s way more than they’re actually getting.

For example, a classic thing is to claim to be a million pound company. Now, they calculate this by something called their “run rate”. So, they don’t actually have a million quid in the bank, or even a million in turnover. But they made £83k ONE MONTH and now they multiply that by 12 and get a million!!

It’s honestly very silly. Lots of people even just wait to get all their money in one month, delaying payments and messing with their cashflow just so they can get it all in one month and screenshot that and brag about it to the world.

Honestly, if you’re gonna go to those levels, you may as well just photoshop it! I’d rather not mess with the cash flow!!

The problem is, these big ass claims are often met with tons of praise and affirmation from followers. It creates an echo chamber because God forbid anyone were to disagree with one of these creators – it would cause an uproar.

So, you have all these followers blindly believing the revenue claims… (or they’re fake comments to make it look like lots of people agree with them!) Trust me, this happens – check out my episode on personal branding if you don’t believe me.

And you’re probably thinking, well, why don’t people actually verify the numbers and check for themselves. Things usually don’t add up and it’s pretty obvious.

But confirmation bias plays a massive role on social media. Many followers want to believe their favourite creators are super successful. Well, largely also because they’ve been following them, hoping to follow in their footsteps. So, if their success is fake, then you will never amount to anything either!

Obviously, that’s not true, but that’s what a lot of people think!

There’s also authority bias, which makes us more likely to trust people who appear successful. And as we said earlier, money is synonymous with success and those with success gain more authority.

So we have a really vicious cycle here.

Also, at the end of the day, the people making the big revenue claims are not targeting the most experienced customers. Because experienced entrepreneurs see through that bullsh*t.

They’re aiming at those who are newer to the game and won’t know how to verify earnings or validate their claims. They’re usually more impressionable too, so they can get away with the non-humble brags.

So, again, it doesn’t really matter in itself that there are loads of people just lying about how much money they make and making themselves look more successful than they are.

Instead, it’s about the impact that it has on other people.

First of all, it creates massively unrealistic expectations for other entrepreneurs. They see this huge numbers and expect to be earning the same amount of money. This sort of content on social media is what has encouraged this wave of entrepreneurship, which is amazing, but it has also seen so many people quit earlier because it’s not as easy as they expected.

There’s far too much overemphasis on the quick wins, because it sounds sexy on social media.

Look at what trends or go viral – the cheat sheets, the “hacks”, the “get rich in 90 days” and things like that. Even though it’s all a lie.

How many times have you clicked on a post about “how I went from 0-100k followers in just 3 months”.

I could do that in 3 minutes if I purchased them.

It’s all very silly, but it’s really addictive to many people. Getting those quick results is like a dopamine hit and people are seeking out this hit over and over again.

This is what leads to the unethical behaviour and the temptation to fake success so that they can look successful in order to win another client.

In fact, it reminds me of a kid who keeps cold emailing me. He’s 20 years old and he’s built a website that claims he did the branding for Harrods (even though it’s been around since before he was born), does marketing strategies for Ferrari, British Airways and all these ridiculous brands.

He’s clearly never worked on any of them.

He cold emails me with the subject URGENT!!

And then in it, it says “I can help redesign your website”. I was actually fuming, so I sent him an email saying that putting a subject that says “URGENT” when it is not never going to make a good first impression.

I got back such a barrage of abuse!!!!

He then was like “Oh well, I don’t need your business because I’ve got all these amazing clients and actually I had 63 people respond to my email and I’ve already generated £18k in business from all that!”

It was the biggest load of drivel I’d ever seen.

I mean, if you’re doing branding work for Harrods, you probably aren’t gonna be cold emailing a bunch of small businesses.

Secondly, that’s not a lot of money per lead is it! And if that’s your portfolio, then wow, you’re undercharging!

The guy just made all of it up, and when I called him out on it, he got very defensive. I even said that our clients were on there so I knew it wasn’t legit.

He went quiet with the insulting emails, but then a week later, I got another cold email again. He learned and didn’t mark it URGENT, but he wasn’t smart enough to delete me from the outbound list.

But yeah, this guy was trying to validate his social proof too by claiming that he makes lots of money, sells to lots of big clients etc., in the hope that one person believes it, gets impressed by it and he can finally make a sale!

I guess it’s the fake it til you make it strategy, but to me, it just feels like fraud.

And that’s what these fake revenue claims are too. You’re lying about who you are and what you’re capable of.

People call it marketing, but that’s why marketing has such a bad reputation!

And all it does is cause anxiety and stress in other entrepreneurs. There’s this insatiable need to compare yourself to others and when you do, you feel inadequate or insecure. This may even cause you to push yourself so much because of the pressure to keep up with the success or others.

This then leads to poor decision-making, financial strain, burnout, anxiety and stress. Before you know it, you have a whole load of health issues on top of your financial issues.

You think I may be exaggerating, but I’m not.

This is what I see all the time.

This is why it annoys me. This is why I call out the bullsh*t. I’ve worked with so many entrepreneurs who just have such low self-esteem and develop Imposter Syndrome because they don’t think they live up to the “success” (and I am making air quotes right now) of others.

This hinders confidence and growth, and once you team that up with the constant pressure to succeed financially and the feelings of inadequacy, you likely end up with depression and burnout.

All because some idiots are choosing to lie about how much money they earn on social media.

So, what can we do to stop ourselves getting affected by all this? Well, we need to cultivate some self-awareness and recognise the triggers.

When spending time on social media, pay attention to what triggers those feelings of inadequacy or the urge to compare yourself to others. Once you’re aware, you can start to do something about it.

For example, you can curate your environment by cleaning out your feed on whatever platform you’re using. Limit yourself to that toxic content – unfollow accounts that constantly talk about wealth or spread bullsh*t. Instead, seek out content that inspires you and aligns with your values.

I’ve had to do this a lot lately, as the top creators who I once admired have recently sold out. I don’t know if they think they have to create content like this now to “succeed”, again in inverted commas, but it’s not right.

One creator I used to admire – I listened to all his podcasts, consumed his YouTube content and thought he was quite down to earth, and that’s what made me like him. Recently, all his podcasts are about how to get to £100M and he seems to have forgotten who his audience are and all his interview questions to his guests seem super selfish.

Like he’s not interested in making content for the audience anymore, but actually he’s only doing it for himself – to get to £100M. He apparently is already on £10M a year, so he’s not exactly poor!

But yeah, I’ve had to stop listening to his content and have unfollowed him. My entire LinkedIn feed is now cleared out because it’s so full of drivel.

I’ve been spending the last two weeks unfollowing people every day off each social media channel. But it’s taking me so long because I have to be careful with the limits that I don’t get banned.

So, it will probably still take me another couple of weeks to clean out my channels with people I just don’t enjoy absorbing the content of anymore.

Instead of motivating me, they’ve been making me feel pretty crap about myself!

Another exercise that I think could be helpful is to redefine success. I did an episode on this a few weeks ago – Success BS. I talked about what the different definitions of success are and how that impacts how you go about things.

I think if you create your own definition of success and work towards that, then no one else can affect your path. As their definition will be different to yours anyway!

If you truly know your values and you stick to them, then you should never be affected by what others say or do.

So, it’s just important to know that these people are not making anywhere near as much money as they claim to be making. If they were, they wouldn’t be spending so much time on social media!

If you’ve realised you’ve been following some people lately because they claim to be earning a certain amount of money, have a think if that’s actually true and if their content is healthy to digest.

And actually do some research and ask for genuine testimonials. When I’ve questioned the results of these guys with big claims, they get very defensive and claim that they don’t need to “prove their worth”.

But the problem is – they do need to. If you’re selling me your services, that’s exactly what you need to do.

But yet again, that’s another classic social media buzz term that’s causing people to become obnoxious pricks!

Right, I think that’s me done for this episode before I get ranty again.

I will have to catch you all next week. But until then, keep sniffing out the bullsh*t!