Digital Influencer Culture: In the past, if you wanted to become an authority in a given field, you had to apprentice to a lineage. If you were a scholar you had to devote yourself to earning a PhD. If you were a writer, you had to work your way up to the journals of record. True also for martial arts, yoga, or meditation. Pick your tradition, find your teacher, submit to the practice, and maybe, just maybe, if you proved yourself out, year after year, at some point you’d get the nod and be given permission to assume the mantle of teacher yourself.
