Now that we have seen the different ways a person might ask for advice or help, let’s talk about actually giving advice and that doesn’t always mean giving advice.
When you know that the advice-seeker is just looking to “unload”, any advice you give will be received as empty, or worse as a sign that you are not interesting in listening to their story or problem and more keen on throwing advice in their face to show them that you might be better than them. So, avoid giving advice in those cases.
How do you tell those cases apart? By sensing the general tone of the advice-seeker and looking out for some telltale signs –
1) If they are focusing more on complaining about a person in their life than on the problem itself, they might be more interested in trashing that person than asking you for a solution to their problem.
2) If they are repeating the same story about the same problem they came to you with in the past, they might be more interested in milking the story for winning some “victim points” than doing something about it (otherwise they would’ve done something about it and updated you on the outcome of that).
3) If they seem to get frustrated and provide counter arguments as soon as you open your mouth to give them some advice, without even trying to listen to what you have to say first, they may not be looking for advice at all. Otherwise, they would’ve shut up and listened intently.
But if they are focusing more on the problem than the people or circumstances their life and seem to be in a mood to listen to you, they might be genuine advice-seeker and you can proceed to provide them some helpful advice but beware of a few things.
We humans seem to be quite bad at saying “I don’t know”. When someone asks us a question, the first impulse is to dish out an answer even if we have absolutely no idea about the topic. Maybe it’s because we think we would look foolish by admitting our lack of knowledge on that topic. And by not saying “I don’t know”, we are in effect being even more foolish because first of all, we are giving up an opportunity of learning something on the topic and secondly, we are risking looking even more foolish when our answer is countered by someone who knows a thing or two on the subject. And that’s the exact same thing we do when we are asked to give advice.
Even when we know that we have little knowledge or experience in that area, we are only too keen to give advice. And I think this instinct is the result of a mixture of human conditions – ego about admitting lack of knowledge on the subject, a chance to flaunt the knowledge or experience we do have on it, a chance to help out another human being, or if I am being more cynical, a chance to bring another human being in our debt. And we must fight all those very human instincts if we want to say “I don’t think I am the right person to advise you on this”. It can be done. Instead of focusing on us, we need to take a beat and think about what’s best for the advice seeker. In short term, it might make us and the advice seeker feel bad to terminate the conversation with “I am sorry, I don’t think I am the right person to advise you on this” but in longer term, it might help the advice-seeker much more. They might find a person more suitable for the job (we might be able to provide the some suggestions on that) who might end up helping them much more than we ever could have.
In cases where, after a moment of contemplation, you have decided that you can indeed provide helpful advice to someone, you need to be careful about a few things.
1) Just because a person is seeking your advice doesn’t mean they are interested in receiving a lecture. Give all the good advice you can but be very cautious of your tone. Being in the (higher) position of giving advice doesn’t grant you the right to judge the other person’s actions, their life choices or their personality. And it is also not right for you to speak in a condescending and pedantic way, treating them like the stupid kid in a school classroom. Maybe it helps to focus on their problem itself and not necessarily their character or personality.
2) Before you serve your advice on a snobbish platter, be sure you make the advice-seeker feel like you are listening to them and not just waiting to jump to advice-giving (or rather lecture giving) at the first possible opportunity. More often than not, we humans tend to listen not for the purpose of listening but for responding. We aren’t absorbing the words of the other person but simply waiting for them to give us a time-window in the conversation where we “jump in”. It’s not a good feeling for the other person. Imagine a situation when you go the doctor and get a feeling that she barely listened to you describe the problem and the symptoms before writing down a prescription for you. It’s not a comforting feeling.
Receiving prescription or advice is important but so is the feeling of having been listened to. So, listen to the advice-seeker and acknowledge it. If they are in a fix, show sympathy. If they tell you about having done something nice, show your appreciation for it. And most importantly, let them finish talking naturally, and don’t interrupt (unless they are circling around the same problem over and over). Give them the satisfaction of being listened to. Sometimes, that’s all that they need anyway, more than any real advice. I personally think that going to a therapist is helpful not because you would received some magic solution to your problem. It works because having someone to listen to your problems is already half the solution.
3) Your advice will, of course, be based on your knowledge on the topic or your own experience in the same or similar situation in the past. But no matter how accurate and wide your knowledge is, it’s not the “absolute truth” about the world because there’s no such thing. And no matter how similar your experience is to their situation, it’s not and can’t be the same situation at theirs because you and them are different people and your circumstances can, at best, be similar to theirs but never be identical. (The in-built randomness in the universe takes care of that) So, give them the advice but tell them to take it with a pinch of salt. They should know that your knowledge is bound to have gaps in it, no matter how miniscule and that your experiences in a similar situation are just a reference example and not an instruction manual on how to handle things in this or that circumstances. So, instead of just giving them a detailed account of what situation you faced and how you handled it, you should take a beat and think about the most relevant parts for their problem. And how can you know which parts are relevant? By understanding their situation clearly, by asking them questions, and by putting yourself in their shoes and not in your own shoes that wore during your own similar situation in the past. Of course, it’s quite hard to do all that and that’s why giving advice is not the easiest business.
And speaking of the business of giving advice –
Books that contain advice on various things in life – self-help books, management seminars, essays on giving advice, they all have several things in common. First and foremost, they are all one person’s opinions and thoughts and aren’t (and can’t be) “absolute truths”. Secondly, since they try to target a wide variety of audience, the advice in them maybe very generic and may not apply to your situation at all. Thirdly and most importantly, they are, directly or indirectly, business ventures. They are supposed to make money, for the book authors or the publishers and for the management consultancies and the speakers. So, they will quite often claim to include advice that is “proven”, a key to “guaranteed success”, or a shortcut or silver bullet. Sadly, in life, there are no silver bullets. So, beware of the advice provided by those management gurus or spiritual instructors. They are in the end business ventures.