3309: How to Give Advice to Others by Mark Manson on Personal Growth & Self Help

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[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Optimal Living Daily, how to give advice to others by Mark Manson of Mark Manson.net.

[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Emure narrator Justin Malik reading U-Blogs every single day of the year including holidays.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to get right to today's post as we optimize your life.

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00]: How to give advice to others by Mark Manson of Mark Manson.net.

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_00]: In the internet age, everyone and their dog is an expert on something.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_00]: The beauty and the curse of the internet is that everyone has an opinion and is going to share it.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And not only are we all going to share it but we're more convinced than ever of how right we are.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So I've come up with six basic principles to follow when giving advice, you know because I'm so convinced of how right I always am.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I think these principles are widely applicable whether you're helping your nephew deal with bullies at school or critiquing some guy's starcraft theory on a nerd forum

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_00]: or giving life advice to your brother.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_00]: If you genuinely want to help someone, I recommend following these six principles when giving advice.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Number one, make sure the person actually wants advice.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_00]: No type of advice is worse than unsolicited advice.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_00]: No one is more likely to be ignored than a nosy, no it all.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Make sure the person you're trying to help is actually looking for help.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Unless you come across as a condescending fool.

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Bad advice example and responds to someone excited about getting accepted to graduate school.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, that's cool you got accepted but honestly graduate school is a waste of money.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_00]: The debt you incur is hardly worth the slight bum you may get on your resume.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_00]: My cousin spent all this money on grad school had no social life for years and now is stuck in a job he doesn't like only because it pays well and can pay off his debt.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing you're helping here is the perception that you're at.

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Number two, make sure you actually know what you're talking about.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_00]: The second biggest sin of advice giving is giving someone advice when you don't have the proper experience yourself.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_00]: The person you're trying to help may not notice but I guarantee you people who do have the experience will notice.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And whether they say anything or not, you will lose credibility as the old adage goes.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_00]: He who thinks he knows everything learns nothing.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't have experience but you do feel like you have an important or useful observation to make,

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_00]: then you should always qualify it by saying,

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I've never had this problem before but it seems to me or something similar before speaking or posting.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Number three, meet them where they are not where you are.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_00]: It's difficult for many of us to step outside of ourselves and to imagine the place others may be stuck in.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Many of us have the tendency to project our own issues and successes onto others even when it's not warranted.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Giving advice based on your life situation and not theirs is ineffective at best and embarrassing at worst.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Bad advice example and response to someone talking about a petty argument with their sister.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I hear you on having to deal with family members.

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_00]: One thing that you have to understand is that regardless of what they say, your family usually doesn't actually care about you and we'll just do whatever they want.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_00]: There was one time my brother bar on my car and etc.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Number four, psychoanalysis is not advice, it's condescending.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00]: This seems to be the most common error on self development and dating forums.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_00]: The worst part about this is that you may even be right, but you're still not helping anybody.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_00]: The quickest way to someone often shut yourself out is to try and tell them who they are, why they're having the thoughts they're having,

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_00]: why they're making mistakes they're making and so on.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Things only get worse if you start making assumptions about their character, their life or their past.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_00]: This relates to meeting people where they are, but just because you notice something doesn't mean you have to fix it.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_00]: If someone has an overly negative attitude and thinks the world is against them, then telling them they have a negative attitude,

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_00]: it is not likely to help them.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_00]: They're going to perceive you to be condescending in just another part of that world that is aligned against them.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_00]: The best way is to meet them where they are and answer their questions in the simplest way possible for them to understand.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Bad advice example, and response to someone complaining about how hard it is to make friends in their new town.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Look, you obviously come from a screwed up background and now you're viewing every opportunity in front of you as something you're going to fail at before you even try.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_00]: This is because you have a little self-esteem and your attitude and beliefs are only going to perpetuate it.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a pitfall that I fall into most often when giving advice and it can easily push the person away from taking me seriously.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Seasful to know that sometimes people are looking for specific observations on their mindsets and world views,

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_00]: and in those situations advice like this is useful.

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_00]: But again, if they're not looking for it, then giving it to them is not going to go well.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Number five, criticize their actions, not their character.

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Or is it more commonly known, love the sinner, hate the sin?

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_00]: It's important to differentiate the actions of a person from their intentions.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_00]: You'd be amazed how often people do stupid things with really noble intentions.

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Anyone who's grown up with overly critical parents knows the sting of someone judging your character based on some mistake you made.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Bad advice example and response to a guy saying something creepy to a woman.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have no respect for women?

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Just stop trying to meet them all together if that's the way you're going to go about it, that's disgusting.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Number six, people do not owe you anything.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Just because you take the time to give someone advice does not mean they're obligated to use it

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and it does not mean that they owe you any gratitude or anything in return.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Too many times, particularly on forums I see someone who has given advice,

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: gets upset that the other person didn't use it.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: They have no responsibility to use it. It's their life, it's their path.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_00]: If what you say resonates with them, they will identify with it and try it out.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_00]: If not, then they owe you nothing.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Advice is a gift and as a gift it is given unconditionally with nothing expected in return.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And with that, you can take the advice of this article and use it more you may disregard it, whichever you choose.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_00]: You just listen to the post titled How to Give Advice to Others by Mark Manson of Mark Manson.net

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Mark. I guess you could say I'm in the advice business since these articles are all basically advice.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And then we had a show for a year or so called Optimal Living Advice where Greg from Optimal Relationship Staley answered

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Listeners questions.

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_00]: At least with these examples people wanted the advice that didn't come unsolicited.

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure we could both think of examples where we did this in our personal lives.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we're so excited to help but when you see it from the perspective of the other person,

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_00]: it really could be raining on their parade, depending on what they were looking for.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_00]: If they're an adult then it's not our job to try to prevent their mistakes if that advice is not what they're looking for.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Although again, it sort of is my job but with this podcast hopefully I've made it clear that when I share my commentary at the end,

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_00]: it's just my perspective, just like all these articles are the perspectives of the various authors.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not here to tell anyone how to live their life.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just sharing what other people wrote and then what's worked for me.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe that's something we can think about today before giving advice.

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Do they actually want it and are we the right person to be giving it?

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you again to Mark for this one.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for being here.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I can only keep doing this with you continuing to listen, wishing you a great rest of your day and week and month and year.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Of course and I'll see you tomorrow as usual where you're optimal life.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_00]: That way it's...