I hear this phrase sometimes from people who grew up in tough environments: "All fart, no shit."

It's crude. It's also spot-on.

It describes the person who makes a lot of noise—who talks big, who seems important, who takes up space—but who never actually delivers. No substance. All show.

The person who farts is all air. The person with shit has weight.

We live in an age of air

Social media, podcasts, newsletters, conferences—we're drowning in noise. In commentary. In hot takes. In people who have opinions about everything.

Most of it is fart. Sound without substance. Provocation without point. Noise designed to capture attention, not to create value.

The person with something real to say doesn't need to yell about it. They don't need to be everywhere at once. They just create the thing and let it speak.

They have weight. They have shit.

The test is simple

Can you point to what they built? What they created? What they changed?

Or are they just... here? Taking up space in your feed? Commenting on things? Offering unsolicited opinions?

The fart people are easy to spot once you know what to look for. They're the ones who:

  • Post a lot but never finish anything
  • Have ideas but never test them
  • Talk about their success more than they demonstrate it
  • Are always in the middle of something big that we'll hear about eventually
  • Spend more time arguing online than creating offline

The shit people are different. They:

  • Create in public or not at all
  • Let their work speak
  • Don't need to tell you how good they are
  • Show up to finish things, not just start them
  • Spend their time building, not broadcasting

This applies to you too

The question isn't "Am I calling out the fart people?" The question is: "Am I being a fart person?"

It's easy to be all air. To have a hot take. To share an opinion. To say what you're going to do.

It's harder to actually do the thing. To finish it. To put it out there and stand behind it.

We all have some fart in us. Some noise we produce without substance behind it. The goal isn't to be perfect—it's to have less of it and more of the real stuff.

The compound effect

Here's the thing: fart people stay the same. They're always talking about their big plans. Always about to launch. Always working on something amazing.

Shit people change the landscape. Their work compounds. People start to point to them. They become known not for what they say, but for what they've made.

After 10 years of fart, you're still at the starting line. Still making promises. Still "about to."

After 10 years of shit, you're the person others point to when they want to know how it's done.

Choose your work

You don't have to be loud to be valuable. You don't have to be everywhere to matter. You don't have to have the biggest platform to create the biggest impact.

You just have to do the thing. And finish it. And do it again.

Everything else is just noise.