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I can't stop thinking about my favourite quote by Steven Bartlett... it's called "Parrots vs Practitioners".
Essentially, on social media, there are two types of people: you have parrots and you have practitioners.
Parrots are the people who basically repeat other people’s messages.
Now, yes you can be valuable to people by being a source of curated content. You find great resources, and then compile them into a newsletter or LinkedIn posts. That's great and genuinely useful - people follow you because you provide them with a fast track to information.
But there’s a large segment of people online who are just parrots.
A parrot can sometimes disguise themselves as an expert. They may not even realise they’re doing it, but they are simply regurgitating what they’ve heard elsewhere.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve fallen into this trap myself. Sometimes we just repeat to others what we’ve heard other people say, but it's not actually our knowledge or real-life experience that we're sharing.
For example Bryan Johnson, who's famous right now for reversing his age, holds dinners where he asks attendees questions like, "How much water should a person drink each day?"
Almost everybody answers "two or three litres" just because that's what we've been told. Right? Here we’re just parroting back what we've been told is true and we're wearing that answer with false confidence.
Some people are masquerading as experts when they’re really just repeating what they’ve heard. On a long enough time horizon, this becomes a problem because the market will spot it if you’re not really helping people.
Real sees real.
If you're not genuinely solving their problems, offering unique insights, or sharing your real experiences, people will notice and won't take your recommendations or real insights seriously.
We live in a world where information isn’t the problem anymore. Thanks to Google and now ChatGPT, information is accessible to everyone. It still blows my mind that we have access to such resources, where we can ask any question and get an answer with just a few clicks.
However, we’ve reached a point where we don’t even question the source or validity of the answer.
On the other hand, practitioners are the ones doing the work in the real world and having a real impact.
A practitioner's journey involves trial and error, ups and downs, and a lot of learning from experience. They are the ones getting their hands dirty and then sharing what they’ve learned.
Everyone who has built a sizeable audience and stood the test of time has actually done something of value in the world. They’ve learned something through practice, and that’s why people trust them.
You can get by being a parrot, but you can't go far.
Practitioners, even if they don’t have a large audience, can still have high-paying customers because they’ve done the work and have the experience to back it up.
One of my favourite examples is James Clear. He wrote newsletters for years - publishing thousands of words - before he became well-known. Over time this built a loyal audience.
Eventually, he wrote his book Atomic Habits which became a New York Times bestseller. The reason James Clear can post quotes or screenshots from his book - which on the surface looks like easy content to make - is that those exact words represent years of hard work.
It’s not just about a one-liner on Twitter going viral; it’s about the depth behind those words.
So the goal is not to be a parrot — the goal is to be a practitioner. More than ever before, the true value lies in experience and action.
If you’re not providing implementation, structure, or unique wisdom to help your customers or company get real results, then you might just be delivering something that will soon become free, universal knowledge.
Parrots are replaceable, practitioners are not.
"Knowledge is not power. The implementation of knowledge is power." — Tony Robbin
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