Don't Give Advice

A few days ago, I tweeted this picture and I realised that I didn't provide enough context with it.

So, here is my context/opinion.

PS: this is my opinion for now. As I grow in life and age this could change. So, read it for fun.

Dopamine Hit

Advice/suggestions are useless without context and if the person is not following it. In my experience after doing many mentorships, free advice sessions etc.

Generally I observed that people are "obsessed" with the idea of "getting advice from X person". It is a dopamine hit for them. They will listen but don't follow through and move to the next person to ask the same thing. They won't follow the given advice.

I was one of them. I used to ask 100 people the same thing. I was doing the same a year ago too. Also, I used to ask random social media famous folks without digging into their real profile.

Now, I strongly believe (PS: this is my opinion and I am not an expert)

Whom to ask? What to ask?

• Do not ask advice from random people.

• Do not give advice to strangers.

• I prefer to do a deep dive on their profile (giving advice, or taking advice). Everyone has a different path in their life. Eg: I reached UK by not having a goal — "I want to move abroad". Somehow an opportunity came and I went ahead. I worked most of my life w/o the goal of applying for Global Talent Visa but now I got it. So, everyone has a different path, and luck.

• Also, everyone knows what they need to do to fix their life and career. They just need to hear it from someone else (I am also like this). I have 1-2 people who know me for years, they know my personal life goals, professional, health etc. I reach to them to get a second YES. To hear - yes, you are at correct path or No, you don't have tiem for this.

• Even when I do mentorship (which I have stopped now) I ask lot of question before getting on a call. I need to know their whole background - personal, and profressional. Without knowing all these, giving advices are waste.

Good Advice is Boring. Super Boring

Good advice is very boring. Eg: sleep on time, wake up early, reduce social media consumption, turn off notifications, fix to a schedule, sit an hour to do upskilling, etc. This is the advice which everyone knows. In fact, read any self-help book and you will find the same advice in every book.

But this advice doesn't give you a dopamine hit. This advice makes you work — and that is what the human brain tries to oppose.

Golden question: So, we should not ask for advice?

Well you should — but from those who have walked the same path. Also understand that the path may not take you to the same goalpost. Eg: I won't ask a product manager how to crack a tech interview. But I will ask — how to be a product manager. But even in this — I can GPT this, make my notes, cut short my resources, watch a few videos, then have a call with a senior or director PM to confirm — are these resources correct? What else am I missing here? how the career path looks like? I am moving to this path due to these reasons. due you think that these reasons I won't face in new PM path?

At the end of the day, advice is only useful when it comes with context and when you're ready to act on it.

Happy reading!!