As a young man, I was never a person who believed anyone would bother to really listen to what I had to say. Over the years I’ve learned people asking for advice, aren’t really looking for answers. They’d already made up their minds and were simply seeking confirmation. People liked to start conversations. The information would flow from me like water. This seemed to encourage people to ask for advice from me. Being the sucker I was, in trying to be helpful, I would give an opinion on what it is they ask for. Herein lies a problem.
Now I’m middle aged, people call or come to me asking for an opinion on different things they know I have interest in. Most of anything I might know is generally practical layman knowledge across a variety of subjects I learned from Giants in their field. Often, I’m not even sure I have a full grasp on their message, but I generally seem to muddle through the information and take strides to better my understanding.
People who actually have a problem to solve will pay an expert. Experts who are paid to give advice, make sure they understand the situation completely. They will take the time to pull all the necessary information from the client. They will give courses of action and make appointments for follow up.
Being sought out for confirmation by friends or family is a situation I’ve started to dodge. I have enough experience to know, they will cherry pick the advice, or not follow it at all. Often the seeker has already made up their mind, they simply wanted confirmation and will not present all the information you need to give sound advice. Later, pressing them on the resolution can lead to resentment if you were right and they didn’t follow the advice and resentment if you were wrong because they didn’t give you the full scoop, or they cherry picked your advice.
So I am very wary of giving advice when the question starts off “What should I do…” My answer now is generally “I do not know”.
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