You Want Approval, Not Advice - Daily Laterals #5

Welcome to Day 5 of Daily Laterals - a race against myself to see who crumbles first: my will to write daily shorts like these or time itself.

Daily Laterals (weekends not included) is either a short concept/idea I’m currently thinking about or thoughts on a piece of information I’ve recently read.

Approval, not advice.

If you’ve been on the internet in the past few years, you’ve probably met a new species of human: the Success Guru.

They come in packs, armed with ring lights, “frameworks,” and an incurable addiction to saying “it’s all about mindset.”

Their pitch is always the same: “I can show you how to succeed.” What they’re really selling, though, is approval.

They’ll tell you that you’re special. That your potential is limitless.

That if you just try hard enough, you’ll make it.

And that’s the trap. It feels good to be told that all you need is hustle and a morning routine. 

It’s much harder to hear that your timing might be bad, your idea might suck, or you simply might not be built for that particular game.

Real advice is uncomfortable.

It sounds like: “This is a dumb idea.”

“You don’t have product–market fit.” “You’re chasing the wrong metric.” “You’re working hard, but not smart.” Or the classic: “You might fail, even if you do everything right.”

Uncomfortable advice doesn’t go viral. It doesn’t sell $999 courses.

It doesn’t get likes from people who already think they’re on the right path. So instead, we get approval disguised as guidance.

A generation of creators trained to seek validation instead of clarity.

The truth is, the people worth listening to rarely tell you what you want to hear. They’re rarely viral.

They tell you what you’ll probably hate to hear. It’s your job to find the motivation to keep going.

That being said, reply “PLAYBOOK” to this email so I can give you my guaranteed guide on how to get your first 1,000 paying customers!