​​🎧 Listen to the podcast version of this email here​.​​

Steroids work.

You get bigger. Stronger. Leaner. Faster than you should.

From the outside, it looks like you’ve figured something out, like you’ve cracked the code.

People ask how you did it, and before you know it, you're giving fitness advice like a true guru.

But you haven’t built what actually gets you there.

You’ve just skipped it. You cut corners.

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You look at what gets results, what gets attention, what moves quickly, and it’s tempting to think:

And to be fair, sometimes it does work. At least in terms of attention.

I mean, if no one sees you, nothing else really matters, right?

But you might not like what those results lead to.

There’s a difference between something working and something being worth building on.

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Attention right now is harder to get than it used to be.

So much noise, so much content, so many more people trying to say something at the same time.

What used to stand out doesn’t stand out the same way anymore, reach feels all over the place, and you can almost feel what happens next:

People start pushing a bit harder, a bit louder, a bit more extreme, just to get something to stick.

You see it everywhere.

You could put something thoughtful out there, something useful, something that actually helps people… or you go with something designed purely to get the attention.

You already know which one wins.

I saw an artist who spent hours creating hyperrealistic drawings with nothing more than a set of pencils getting a few hundred impressions.

Meanwhile, the most low-effort, click-hungry content racks up a million views overnight.

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And that’s where it gets tricky.

Because those tactics do exactly what steroids do; they give you the result you’re after, at least on the surface.

Visibility. Impressions. Likes. A spike of validation. It all looks like progress.

But you've cut corners. It’s not the same thing as building something real.

Because what you consume shapes how you think, and what you put out shapes how people see you.

If most of what you take in is fast, reactive, surface-level stuff, your thinking starts to move in that direction as well.

And if your content follows that same pattern, you might get attention, but you’re also quietly teaching people what to expect from you.

So when you later try to say something with more depth, something that actually reflects your experience and your way of seeing things, it doesn’t land in the same way.

This is because you’ve trained them to come to you for something else.

That’s the trade-off most people don’t see.

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Chasing attention isn’t neutral. It shapes your work, your thinking, and your positioning over time.

So yes, go get attention, especially in the beginning. There’s no point in being invisible. But don't sell your soul for it.

Fast results do not equal real progress.

Just because something gets you quick results doesn’t mean it’s worth doing. They work in the short term but quietly work against you over time.

Make it a great day.

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What's cooking

Latest episode Why Quit a Business That's Working​​ In this conversation, Jack Gaisford-Miles and I talk about admitting your flaws, building a meaningful community and personal brand. Watch the conversation HERE.

Listen to the rest The Solo Sauce is getting traction​ Make sure you follow 'The Solo Sauce' on your favourite podcast player for more stories, insights, and lessons from the kitchen table. Listen on Apple or Spotify.