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Episode #82

Most of What You've Learned Is Wrong

Most conventional wisdom is unverified repetition. Stop teaching it as truth. Share your experience, flag your uncertainty, and think critically.

8 min 57s
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Key takeaways

  • Stop repeating information you have not personally verified. Share your experience as experience, not as fact, and flag the limits of what you actually know.
  • Use AI research tools to pressure-test what you think is true. They are biased too, but they are faster and broader than relying on a single source.
  • When you are not sure, say so explicitly. 'This was my result, we are not sure yet if it generalises' is more useful to your audience than false certainty.
  • Look up Godel. Understanding the philosophical limits of truth-finding changes how you consume and share information.
  • Being unrealistic about what humans can achieve is not naive. According to Paul, it is exactly how growth happens.

Timestamps

00:00Opening: rethinking everything I thought I knew
00:49Everyone is repeating everyone else, and I did the same
01:19The squatting kid myth, a case study in repeated nonsense
02:41Stop being a parrot: think critically, use your resources
03:56Carnivore diets, sunscreen, and the danger of false certainty
06:37Godel and the limits of knowing what is true
07:58Optimism, abundance, and why unrealistic is the right direction
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Read the blog article

Why Do So Many Coaches Teach Things That Aren't True?

Show notes

Kernboodschap

Most of what gets taught as truth in entrepreneurship, health, and personal development is unverified repetition. Paul Veth argues that sharing experience as fact is not just intellectually lazy, it actively slows down collective progress. The fix is simple: tell people what you found, tell them it was your experience, and tell them you are not sure yet.

Besproken onderwerpen

  • How one person's result becomes "the truth" in coaching and consulting
  • The squatting kid myth, a widely repeated claim Paul caught himself teaching before questioning it
  • Carnivore diets, sunscreen, and other health topics where certainty is overstated
  • Why AI-assisted research helps but does not eliminate bias
  • Godel and the philosophical problem of ever knowing something is definitively true
  • How repeating bad information slows civilizational progress

Belangrijkste inzichten

Experience is not evidence

One person's result, or ten people's results, is a starting point for inquiry. It is not a curriculum. Paul draws a clear line between sharing a vision and teaching it as verified fact.

Uncertainty is a feature, not a weakness

Saying "we are not sure yet" is the most honest and useful thing an authority figure can say. It invites testing. It keeps the conversation open. It moves things forward faster than false certainty ever will.

Critical thinking is the real skill

Paul references Kurt Godel on the limits of truth-finding. The point is not to know everything. The point is to stop pretending you do.

Referentie

Kurt Godel, mathematician and logician, on the limits of formal systems and truth-finding.

Topics

unverified informationcritical thinking entrepreneurscoaching misinformationPaul Veth podcastGodel truthIdentity Firstentrepreneurial honestycarnivore diet debateAI research toolssharing experience vs fact

Full transcript

View full transcript
0:00
0Most of the things I've learned are not true and I hate it. The last few months I am rethinking everything I know. And I always do this, I'm always looking for, okay, what do I think is true and it's not. But the last few months I'm finding out there is more that I thought was right that isn't right. And I hate it, because now when I'm watching videos online, sometimes I'm scrolling on Instagram or TikTok just to find out some inspiration or what the trends are or where the algorithm drives me because, yeah, I'm a sensitive guy for algorithms as well.
0:49
0You cannot fight it. But when I'm watching videos, I'm like, okay, this is bullshit, this is bullshit, this is bullshit. And everyone is repeating another person. And I did the same thing. What happened this week, I was watching my kid, my kid, Joah, he is 22 old and something fell on the floor and what he did was bend over and grab it from the floor.
1:19
0And I know a lot of people, a lot of personal trainers told me in the past, yeah, look at kids, when a kid is picking something up, he's always squatting. It's not true. My son is not always squatting. Yeah, when I tell him make a squat, he will squat. That's cool.
1:42
0And sometimes, yeah, when he picks something up, he is bending his knees, he's making the squat, but sometimes he's just bending over. So, all the things people told me about this, I repeated it. I told other people as well. I was like, yeah, look at kids, they always do it in the right way. And when we are adults we are starting to bend over.
2:07
0It's really bad because we didn't know how to move anymore. It's fucking bullshit. I hate it because this is just one example and every week I see so many different things that are not true. And now with AI it's great, you can switch on research and find out all the scientifically proven things. I know that's still biased and we never know what is really the truth.
2:41
0But I hope we stop just repeating like parrots what somebody says. I think we need to think more critically and use all the resources we have nowadays to find out if it's true or not. Because there are like the big things that are. Publicly opened up right now that a lot of things are not true, like, okay, you can be healthy on a carnivore diet diet. Maybe it's not really proven with a low certainty it's bad for you, so you cannot tell people it's bad for you.
3:28
0We're not sure. Just tell people we're not sure. It's likely bad for you, but we are not sure. So, yay to the people who are testing carnivore diets and are measuring their blood and their performance so we can find out maybe on the long term it gives us longevity. And beyond that, okay, why?
3:56
0Why does that give longevity? Because maybe it's not in the diet, maybe it's something else. Maybe it's just not eating processed foods. It's possible. We don't know.
4:08
0I don't want this video about that specifically, but these things are the bigger things that people are researching now. But we need to do it for the smaller things as well. Like some people say: you don't need sunscreen. Okay, but studies say that in the afternoon the sun can be bad for your skin, so it's good for you to use sunscreen. But make sure it's a natural sunscreen or just step out of the sun into the shade.
4:42
0We are not sure about it, but I hate it people are like parrots nowadays. They don't think, they hear something and they are like, yeah, this is what's the truth and I'm going to teach It's not like people are sharing their vision and opinion and tell people it's just their vision and opinion. No, what they are doing is, Okay, I've learned this from one person who told them, Okay, I did this and the result was this. And they are like, Okay, now it's the truth. And I'm going to teach it to my customers.
5:26
0No, that's not correct. And a lot of this is done by coaching. And not only people who call them coaches, because a lot of consultants or other entrepreneurs are an authority as well for other customers, for other business owners as well. And they tell other people just things in a way they say, okay, but this is the truth. And it's not.
5:59
0So, I hope we stop sharing shitty information that's not correct. And if you don't know for sure if it's correct, tell people this. Okay, I found this out. This is just my experience or experience from 10 people and we had this result. So it can be true, but we are not sure yet.
6:37
0Because to be honest, to know things really sure, it's almost impossible. Maybe it's totally impossible. Therefore you can look up. Godel. That's just the name I'm dropping right now.
6:59
0I'm not going to explain it, just look him up about truth finding, knowing what is true and what's not and look out for Godel. And I hope we, by searching for the truth and not telling people you own the truth, we can go beyond ourselves. We can go much faster, grow into maybe even a new civilization, Because if we are talking to each other. About information that's not true and tell people it's true. We are down on a path.
7:58
0That's destructive. And I hope we I'm really an optimist, I'm a positive guy, I hope we can go to the the future where where the real potential of us humans is met and we will find a lot of abundance. We can create it. I believe we can can create it, but it's not the truth. It's just what my vision and what I believe in.
8:37
0And I believe the way the right way is. To talk about what's true and what can be done. And be pretty unrealistic about it. Because that's how we grow.

Frequently asked questions

What is the main point of this episode?

The main point is that most information passed around in coaching, consulting, and entrepreneurship is unverified repetition. Paul argues you should share your experience as experience, flag what you do not know, and stop presenting one person's result as universal truth.

Who is Godel and why does Paul mention him?

Kurt Godel was a mathematician and logician who worked on the limits of formal systems and truth-finding. Paul references him to make the point that knowing something with complete certainty is philosophically very difficult, so humility in what you teach is not weakness, it is honesty.

Is Paul saying you should not share what you know?

Paul is saying share it, but label it correctly. Say it was your experience, say it came from a small sample, say you are not sure yet if it generalises. That framing is more useful to your audience than presenting it as settled fact.

How does this connect to the Identity First philosophy?

Identity First starts with who you are and what you have actually lived. That means your experience is real and worth sharing. The point is not to hide it, it is to stop dressing it up as universal law. Honest signal, not inflated authority.

What does Paul mean by 'being unrealistic is how we grow'?

Paul closes by arguing that optimism about human potential, even when it looks unrealistic, is what drives civilizational progress. Repeating bad information caps that potential. Chasing uncertain but ambitious truths is what moves things forward.

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Discussion

The content calls out conventional wisdom as unverified repetition, which is a pretty uncomfortable claim if you've built part of your work around ideas you were taught. What's one thing you believed for years, taught or shared with others, and later realized you were just repeating without ever actually testing it?

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