You get excited. You tell people. They have opinions. Now you're off course. In this episode, Jake makes the case for keeping your mouth shut — until the work speaks for itself.

Everyone has an opinion about what you should be doing. Your friends, your family, your mentors — even people five steps ahead of you. The moment you open your mouth about a plan, you're inviting all of it in. And sometimes the noise isn't worth it.

In this episode of Move Faster, Jake gets into the power of silence — not as a communication strategy, but as a creative survival skill. He shares what happened when he casually mentioned he was starting a weight loss journey to two friends in the fitness space. He didn't ask for advice. He knew what he was doing. He'd lost 30–40 pounds multiple times. Didn't matter — the unsolicited opinions came anyway, and suddenly he was on the defensive about his own plan.

The lesson isn't to go dark on everyone. It's to be strategic about when you share, who you share with, and what you're actually asking for when you do. Jake breaks down three ways to handle it — stay quiet until the work is done, brace for the feedback and hold your ground, or set the terms upfront by telling people what you need from the conversation.

He also talks about what it takes to actually trust yourself as an artist — which is harder than any of this — and why silence is one of the few tools that protects your instincts long enough to act on them.

In this episode:

• Why announcing your plans can quietly derail them
• The three ways to handle the opinions you didn't ask for
• How Jake and his wife set communication terms before every hard conversation
• Why artists have to protect their instincts — and how silence helps do that
• The journal trick and other ways to "say it" without opening the door