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Hello hello!

The first day of spring is tomorrow, and while I’m excited for warmer days…. I have no idea how we got here. Wasn’t it just the start of the new year like 3 weeks ago?

Not many updates on my end of things other than bringing on a new team member to CreatorPad, making things move at light speed as we continue building, testing, iterating, and repeating.

Until I can give you the full run down, I hope you enjoy this week’s read, brought to you by Beehiiv, again!

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-Luke

The Hidden Cost of Free Advice

The internet is overflowing with advice.

Scroll for five minutes, and you’ll find someone telling you exactly how to grow your audience, scale your business, or optimize every aspect of your life. Free advice is everywhere….and that’s exactly the problem.

The more you listen, the harder it gets to know what’s actually worth following, and what’s just noise.

But when you feel lost, or feel like you need some guidance, sometimes any advice is taken, but that “free” advice comes with a cost. As a startup founder, creator, and scriptwriter, I’ve had advice thrown at me from every direction. Post every day. No, post once a week. Long form is dead. No, short form is dead. You need a niche. No, you need to be everywhere.

And it’s not just random internet gurus either. Well-meaning friends, investors, and even successful founders will give advice that sounds great on paper, but completely contradicts something else you just heard.

The hard truth is that advice is usually just a reflection of what worked for that person, in their specific circumstances, with their unique timing.

While it’s not “bad” advice per se, it could lead you down a path that is not the most effective route to take. Even if it seems promising, blindly following someone else’s playbook can be a shortcut to failure.

So, how do you know which advice to take and which to ignore? I’ve found a few things help:

1. Consider the source. Is this person actually experienced in what they’re talking about, or are they just repeating what they’ve heard?

2. Check for skin in the game. Are they giving advice with real stakes, or are they just throwing out opinions because they can?

3. Does it align with your goals? Just because something worked for them doesn’t mean it’s the right move for you.

4. Test before you trust. Instead of taking advice at face value, experiment and see what actually works for your situation. As always, test test test.

Some of the best moves I’ve made in my career have come from ignoring advice that didn’t fit my path. At the end of the day, you’re the one building. No one else has to live with the results other than you, so take advice, but take it carefully.

And when in doubt, trust the person who knows your business, content, or audience the best: you.

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Hope you enjoyed this week’s post. See you next week ✌️