Advice on advice
Most advice is bad. Fortunately, we can dissect why it's bad and how to give advice that's less bad.
"All models are wrong, some models are useful."
- some autistic statistician, probably
I like to receive advice. Hearing others’ perspectives expands my own thinking, and it's a helpful tool. What's not to love? But after listening to enough advice, you realize that not all advice is created equal. Even "good" advice shared with the best of intentions can send you down the wrong path.
When receiving advice, it's risky to listen blindly. The quality of your filtering mechanism decides the impact that advice has on your life. I would go so far as to say that the act of receiving advice well may be equally as difficult as giving good advice.
Pitfalls with “good” advice
If I were to compress all problems with advice into a phrase, it would be that context matters and incentives matter. Advice is not universally true, and true advice is not universally useful.
Advice is context dependent
What works for others may not work for you. People tend to share what worked for them and what they think is true. Unfortunately that guarantees nothing.
Take for example, the common advice to "just be yourself." It's not universally true and can even be destructive. Self-conscious people might benefit from being themselves, but delusional people will not. The receiver matters.
Corollary: Advice is vulnerable to the XY problem. If you give advice, are you addressing the core issue or some different-but-related problem?
Corollary: Smart people can give stupid advice. Don’t assume smart people are infallible. Nobody knows your personal situation as well as you do.
Corollary: Confidently-given advice warrants skepticism. Confidence is either backed up by evidence or delusion. Unless someone else knows the nuances of your life well, assume the latter.
Advice needs skin in the game
Incentives matter. Consider the following pieces of advice, and notice what's wrong with them:
"You should buy my online course." (Ulterior motive)
"Hurry up, get married, and have kids. Time is ticking!" (Projection)
"Don't stress out, you're perfect. The other person is wrong." (Walking on eggshells)
Why doesn’t everybody give brutally honest advice? Because all advice givers play a meta game of some sort. Exploring why they say something is just as important as hearing what they say.
Corollary: Follow your own advice. It's easy to tell other people to do stuff. Beware hypocrites.
Corollary: The only real advice is to think for yourself. You’re the only person with your own best interests in mind. Everything you hear passes through your own internal filtering mechanism. It’s your last line of defense.
The 3 axes of advice
Advice tends to fall along 3 different spectrums:
How it makes you feel.
How correct it is.
How useful it is.
It's worth paying attention to where a piece of advice falls on each of these spectrums. Otherwise, you may improperly weigh advice. It's easy to conflate advice that makes you feel good with advice that's correct, for instance.
Feel-good
Some people just know how to say all the right words. Two different people might tell you the same thing, and only one of them can make it land. But whether something makes you feel good or not doesn't determine its validity.
Contrast these two statements:
"You're unhealthy and need to lose weight."
"Don't worry, the perfect one is out there waiting for you."
The rude piece of advice may be true, while the one that sounds good is completely meaningless!
Correct
Advice that is "more correct" may be worse than advice that's directionally correct (or even wrong). The receiver may suffer from information overload or misinterpret the advice.
Here are two approaches to weight-loss advice:
"Make sure to keep your daily caloric intake slightly below your TDEE."
"Stop drinking soda."
I zoned out halfway through reading the first bullet point.
Useful
Arguably, this is the only trait around advice that matters. Whether advice is useful has painfully little to do with whether it sounds good or is true.
For example:
"Follow your talent; don't follow your passion."
"Just keep going to the gym, and it'll cure your anxiety."
I'm not sure if these statements feel good. I don't even know if they're correct. But they’ve sure been helpful.
Receiving and giving better advice
As a receiver:
Focus first on whether the advice is useful. Disregard everything else.
Hear what everyone has to say, but don’t necessarily adopt their advice.
As a giver:
Prioritize making the advice useful. You do want to help, right?
Then prioritize making the advice feel good. It’ll increase the chance that others listen to you. “Tough love” is seldom persuasive.
Remember you don’t have to give advice in the first place if it’s not going to be a net positive.
But feel free to ignore everything I said. This is just my advice.