Everyone is an expert online.

Open Instagram or LinkedIn and everyone's winning. Everyone's crushing it. Everyone has the answers.

But here's the question you should ask before taking anyone's advice:

Would I actually want their life?

Not the 1% they post about. The whole thing. The relationships. The stress. The trade-offs they made to get where they are.

Because if you wouldn't trade places with them, why are you letting their advice shape your decisions?

This applies everywhere. Business. Relationships. Career. Life.

Someone posts about working 80-hour weeks and scaling to 7 figures. Sounds amazing. But you don't see the burnout. The failed relationships. The health issues. The parts they don't post.

Someone gives you relationship advice but their own relationships are a mess. Why are you listening?

Here's what psychology tells us: We're wired to seek social proof. We look at what others are doing and assume it works. But social media shows us a curated highlight reel, not reality.

The "success" you see is 1% of the picture. The other 99%, the struggles, the failures, the context that made their path work for THEM, is invisible.

And that context matters. What worked for them might not work for you. Different circumstances. Different values. Different trade-offs.

Everyone is struggling somewhere. Even the people who look like they have it all figured out.

The difference is some people are honest about it, and others aren't.

So before you take advice:

1. Look at the whole picture. Would you actually want their life, not just the part they're selling?

2. Consider the source. Are they where you want to be? Or just loud online?

3. Know your context. Their path worked for them. That doesn't mean it's your path.

Choose your advisors carefully. Not based on their Instagram grid or their LinkedIn posts.

Based on whether you'd actually want what they have.

Who's someone whose advice you trust, and why?