Most People Are Dumb F***s... Wait, What?!

Imagine standing in front of 5,000 people and telling them most of them are dumb. Then imagine every single person in the room nodding along, including themselves.

That moment is coming. But first, a red wine and a disclaimer: this is Part 2 of my National Achievers Congress Auckland experience. Part 1 covered David Leon and Grant Cardone. This one covers everyone else, including the speaker who dropped that bombshell, and the main event who made the whole trip worth every dollar.

Grab something to drink. This one runs long.

Graeme Holm — Infinity Group

Graeme lost me quickly by declaring himself the "number one financial adviser in Australia." He wasn't expecting many Australians in the room, because any Australian in the audience immediately starts thinking about Scott Pape and The Barefoot Investor, which has sold millions of copies and whose author most people have actually heard of.

To quote Grant Cardone from earlier in the day: obscurity is obscurity. If I'm Australian and I've never heard of you, but I've heard of your competitor, perhaps you're not number one.

He had compelling results to show: clients who'd dramatically reduced their mortgage timeline. The numbers were real and interesting. But like most speakers on this bill, every piece of value was a preview for a coaching course sale rather than actual advice you could act on. A Kiwi friend summed it up well: "Why would I pay some Aussie thousands of dollars for what my local financial adviser would tell me?"

Short review for a short value offering. Moving on.

Elena Cardone — Grant Cardone Enterprises

Elena came out for an interview format rather than a straight presentation, and it worked. She is, to be clear, an actress, so my inner cynic kept one eye open throughout. But she spoke genuinely well and offered something none of the other speakers had managed: content that wasn't visibly angled toward a sale.

Her focus was on what it means to be a supportive partner to someone with big ambitions. For anyone who has a bad case of "big picturitis" and knows what it's like to need someone in your corner who believes in the vision before it's visible, Elena's framing resonated. She described herself as the Female Indicator Gauge for Grant's ideas: the reality check, the emotional anchor, the person who decides whether an idea gets oxygen or not.

The one moment my alarm went off was brief: she mentioned that supportive spouses should attend conferences with their partners. Coming from Elena Cardone, at a Grant Cardone enterprise event, the conflict of interest was hard to ignore. But it was a single beat in an otherwise solid set.

She told the Clydesdale story, which is originally Zig Ziglar's Belgian horse story, but delivered it with enough genuine conviction that it landed anyway:

A Clydesdale alone can pull around 7,000 pounds. Two Clydesdales working independently can pull slightly more than double that. But two Clydesdales trained to pull together can move 25,000 pounds. The same two horses. The difference is coordination, not capacity.

You don't need more people. You need your people pulling in the same direction. Well done, Elena.

Adam Hudson — Reliable Education

Adam introduced himself as "that annoying guy you've probably seen on YouTube." Accurate. He then dropped the line of the day:

"Most people are dumb f***s."

Five thousand people nodded along, including, presumably, most of the dumb people in the room. The statement works because it implies the speaker and the audience are excluded from the category. Everyone assumed they were one of the smart ones. Classic in-group psychology, delivered with a smirk.

He followed immediately with: "We need to teach our kids how to think." And yes, on that we can all agree.

Adam runs an Amazon selling course and his entire presentation was built around selling it, which is fine but worth naming. He showed compelling student results, though when asked directly about profit margins versus revenue, he deflected smoothly and never returned to it. Noted.

Still, he had genuine substance mixed into the pitch. A few things that stuck:

• Give A Shit (G.A.S.) factor: the businesses that win are the ones where someone actually cares about the product and the customer
• Sell things people want, and do it better than everyone else currently doing it
• Social media shows only the extremes, the spectacular wins and the dramatic failures. It does not explain the reality of what ordinary, consistent progress looks like

He's a network marketer who sold his position and now sells coaching. That's a legitimate model, and he executes it well. Likeable, polished, entertaining. He would have sold courses. Probably a lot of them.

Gary Vaynerchuk — VaynerMedia

Full disclosure: I'm a Gary V fan. When he walked on stage it felt like being a teenager seeing a favourite band live for the first time. That level of it.

He opened with this:

"I am desperate to provide you with the most value I can for free. This isn't some funnel to get you to buy something. Every funnel with selfish intent is complete dog shit. Most people are fake giving because they want your money."

In a room where every speaker before him had spent their set building to a pitch, Gary opened by torching the entire model. Whatever every other speaker on that stage thought of that opening, I would pay good money to know.

He also began by saying: "I'm not sure what the f*** I'm gonna say, so let's just go with it." Then proceeded to deliver the most coherent, useful, and genuinely generous set of the day.

The themes that stood out:

• Patience is the most underrated business virtue. Everyone in that room wanted it fast. Gary preached the slow, difficult, compounding work that actually builds something lasting
• Kindness is a competitive advantage, not a weakness. In a world of manufactured toughness and hustle theatre, genuine care for people is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable
• 98% of people will listen, nod, and do nothing. The gap between knowing and doing is where most ambition dies
• The danger in modern entrepreneurship is it's predicated on money rather than finding a process you actually enjoy
• The best thing a parent can do for their children is listen. Be genuinely present for the short time they're young

The Q&A ran long. Nobody wanted it to end, including the organisers who were clearly watching the clock. Gary stayed present and engaged for every question, including the ones that required him to be direct with people about uncomfortable truths. He did that without cruelty and without softening the message. It was instructive to watch.

The Honest Takeaway

The National Achievers Congress is a mixed bag. The pitch-fest speakers are frustrating precisely because the format creates a captive audience that came to learn and ends up being sold to instead. That gap between expectation and delivery erodes trust, and the organisers would be wise to notice how many people walked out of the lower-rated speakers.

But Gary V alone was worth the cost of admission and the flight to Auckland. And the contrast between his approach and every other speaker's approach is itself the clearest possible lesson about what genuine value looks like versus manufactured value. One of those things builds a following that lasts. The other fills a course intake.

Up next: Sir Richard Branson in Brisbane. That one deserves its own post entirely.