Good Advice Is Usually Boring
And “The Hook” Is Very Often Bad Advice
My friend Alexander Cortes starts every day by telling people to “go to the gym.”
That’s probably good advice for most people. It’s general and actionable. And most people should go to the gym.
If he told everyone to do exactly the same thing at the gym, it would be bad advice. And I know he would agree.
If my advice is bad, I want it to be because I am wrong. I don’t want to say something I know to be bad advice just to “say something exciting.”
I’ve been a guest on many, many podcasts. The best ones are real and conversational.
But many others are simply marketing vehicles designed to make the host look credible and important, so he can sell coaching or some other product. Most podcasts now are infotainment designed to be clipped into reels and shorts. Their purpose is to get you to say something wild or controversial or exciting that will grab people’s attention and funnel them into the host’s marketing ecosystem.
“Jack Donovan said this crazy or stupid or inspiring thing…”
“oh…hey…wait…I ALSO happen to need real estate business coaching!”
“oh…hey…wait…I’m ALSO addicted to porn and shopping for a biblically-centered anti-porn coach!”
“oh…hey…wait…I’m ALSO in sales, and the host is a world-renowned sales coach and a ticket to his next conference in Scottsdale is only $3,000 if I ACT NOW!”
I have been on all of these podcasts and many more like them, selling many other things. I agree to go on them because I want men to keep discovering The Way of Men and my other books.
The hosts of these shows are looking for hooks and actionable advice—little nuggets of content—so they often program questions like this:
“If you could give men today ONE piece of advice, what would it be?”
Well, I don’t know…
Are we talking about a retired Green Beret, or Elon Musk, or a married man with three kids in school, or a 22-year-old who is trying to get laid?
Those are all men, but they are men at very different levels of accomplishment and understanding.
They all need to hear very different things.
What are their goals? What is their level of experience? What are their limitations?
The advice either has to be extremely general, like “go to the gym” or “do something hard” or the advice is probably only going to make sense for a small percentage of the audience.
So, for most of the audience, it’s going to be bad advice.
The truth is that there is only so much good, general advice.
We’ve all heard that advice a thousand times, and sometimes we need to hear it again.
And because we’ve all heard it, it’s boring. It’s old. People today have a lot of the same problems people had 2000 years ago. That’s why reading someone like Aristotle is still worthwhile.
Reading Aristotle is boring.
In part, that’s because books like Nicomachean Ethics are actually believed to be his lecture notes. So they read like…math.
But reading Aristotle is also boring because Aristotle’s advice requires you to figure out the answers for yourself.
What does the “mean” between excess and deficiency look like in any given situation that arises in your life?
No one can tell you that on a podcast. There is no info-nugget for that.
“Find the mean between excess and deficiency” IS the info nugget, and it’s 2,300 years old.
It’s not that we never need advice or that we can or should just figure out everything on our own. But the best advice for us is going to come from someone familiar with our specific situation.
I drove out to meet the leader of another men’s group yesterday, and we had a great conversation because we are doing approximately the same thing and encounter very similar problems. His advice for me would be worth far more than the advice from some random guy whose objectives and challenges were completely different.
When it comes to fitness, a good trainer is going to help you figure out where you are, and then make adjustments to help you improve.
Want to hear some boring fitness advice?
It’s called PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD.
My biceps were (and are) a visually lagging bodypart. So last year, I decided to really work on them. I asked the guy in my group with the biggest biceps what he did, and following his advice, I put two biceps exercises (including one he recommended) first in my back workout. I have a Google Sheet running. I try to beat the reps or weight every session. I’ve made some solid progress, because I’ve been doing the same program for 20 weeks. That’s pretty boring, but it’s working. I’m going to keep doing the same thing for another 12 weeks.
“If something is making your biceps juicier, keep doing it.” — Sun Tzu
4 sets of Zottman Curls and 4 sets of Preacher Curls.
I start with a weight at 5 reps, then stick with that weight until I can do 8 or 10 reps. Then, I go up in weight.
BORING.
But I currently have the best-looking biceps I’ve had in my life.
People have been conditioned to want to hear advice from David Goggins or Cameron Hanes or some extremely driven outlier.
They want to do Navy SEAL workouts. Or they want to train like an action movie star who has a team of professionals monitoring everything he does, and everything he eats, and every supplement he takes.
The average 35-year-old man will hurt himself going on a jog through the neighborhood. It’s not that he couldn’t get in great shape or do something really impressive. But you don’t start from sedentary by signing up for an ultramarathon.
Maybe start training for a 5k and re-evaluate.
I’m an idealist, and I believe that we should hold up the best men—the most extreme cases and outliers—as exemplars to show us what is possible.
But you don’t start moving in that direction by doing what the guys at the top are doing. And this is true of many things. Fitness is just a great metaphor because it’s measurable and easy to understand.
I didn’t mean for this to be fitness advice for the New Year’s resolution crowd, but if you’re looking for that on January 2nd, you’re welcome.
Someone with good intentions just asked me for a one-size-fits-all answer, and it started me on a rant.
Good luck with whatever you’re trying to do.
Remember that there’s a lot of bad “throw spaghetti at the wall” advice out there that sounds super exciting.
But the best advice is probably BORING.
Stay Solar ऋत
If you’re interested in my philosophy or you’ve read Fire in the Dark, and you want to be part of creating or participating in or just supporting a new Solar Culture—consider joining my fraternal organization, The Order of Fire.
I’m working on a new book this year, and our members are the only guys who are seeing the chapters as I finish them.
We also give a lot of boring fitness advice.
We’re like those other men’s groups with rituals and event meet-ups, except we don’t cry or yell at you. And our rituals are cooler.
I don’t have any wide videos of my doing Zottman curls, but the still above comes from this video. I’m doing videography now, with a focus on fitness and martial arts, so if you live in the Phoenix metro area and want to hire me to produce professional video for YouTube, Instagram, etc., DM me on Instagram or reach out via my videography web site.
Thank you for the reality check.
It's all about the work in the dark.