The other day I was doing snatch pulls in the gym when I saw this note stuck to the wall.

It’s right where you’re staring when your legs are on fire, your heart’s pounding, and the wall ball is now a floor ball because you can’t lift it anymore.

Now that’s toxic gym culture right there. But I get it.

In that moment, mid-set, lungs gone, brain begging for a breather…it works. That’s the push you need. The battle of not putting the ball down is tough, and sometimes an obnoxious Post-it note is all one needs to get it high up again.

But rip that thing off the wall and stick it anywhere else and now it becomes bad advice.

Tell a marathon runner logging 128km a week that rest is for losers and you’re going to get someone injured. Tell a client in physical recovery the same thing and you’re dangerous.

The advice didn’t change. The context did. And without the context, the advice becomes the problem.

This is my life every time I open my mouth about marketing.

I say “email more frequently” and people stare at me like I just suggested they start cold-calling strangers at dinner.

”My audience will unsubscribe.”

”People hate getting too many emails.”

”That won’t work in my industry.”

(They don’t hate too many emails. They hate boring ones.)

I say “make more offers” and suddenly I’m a pushy used-car salesman in their head. I suggest doing something unexpected like a weird hook, a bit of personality, something that doesn’t look like everyone else in their space and I get “I’m not sure that’s really my brand.”

Every. Single. Time.

They’re arguing with the headline version of what I said.

Most advice comes with invisible prerequisites. Things the person giving the advice assumes are already in place. When those assumptions aren’t made clear, the advice sounds insane to anyone who doesn’t share them.

When I say email more frequently, the invisible asterisk reads: assuming you have something worth saying. The problem was never the frequency. It was always the content. Daily email works brilliantly when it’s personality-driven, interesting, and relevant. It doesn’t work if you’re just filling an inbox slot because someone told you to show up every day.

When I say make more offers, the asterisk reads: assuming your offer is actually good and genuinely relevant to your audience. More bad offers, more often, is not a growth strategy.

When I say do something unexpected, the asterisk reads: assuming you understand your audience well enough to know what “unexpected” means to them. Weird for weird’s sake is weird.

The practical problem is that most people react to the headline and skip the asterisk entirely.

The people who run with advice are the ones who hear it and ask: what would I need to have in place for this to be true?

The people who argue with advice are the ones who hear it and ask: why doesn’t this apply to me?

One of those questions leads somewhere. The other keeps you exactly where you are.

The Post-it made perfect sense at eye level in a sweaty gym mid-set.

It just wasn’t written for anywhere else.

Neither is most advice…including mine.

The context is always the point. If you’re arguing with the headline, you’ve already missed it.