►EXECUTIVE SUMMARY   • Anyone claiming to own 10+ businesses while simultaneously selling courses is lying—real operators maximize cash flow, not LinkedIn engagement. • The inverse relationship between portfolio size and teaching time reveals the grift: legitimate multi-business owners don't have bandwidth for masterclasses. • Failed self-funded searcher turned advisor offers more credible insights than fabricated serial acquirers—skin out of the game beats fake skin in the game. • Apply the same skepticism to guru credentials that you'd apply to seller EBITDA claims—both are systematically inflated to close a transaction. • The business acquisition education market suffers from adverse selection: those qualified to teach are too busy operating to teach.