Ten Quotes on Getting and Giving Advice

“How to be civil though busy is a mighty rare accomplishment.”
Kin Hubbard in “Abe Martin’s Primer (1914)”

Friends and acquaintances will ask for help and advice at inconvenient times. You don’t have to drop everything–unless they need immediate help like a ride to the hospital like my neighbor did a few weeks ago–but you must support them.

“Right now I’m having amnesia and deja-vu at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this before.”
Stephen Wright

I have this reaction when I hear the same good advice for the second or third time. I have to ask myself, “What is the barrier to taking action?” Also when I make the same mistake again that I told myself I was not going to make again.

"When you start to measure someone, measure him right: make sure to take into account the hills and valleys he came through to get where he is."
Mama to Beneatha in Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun"

One self-rescue technique is to try and understand what the other person has experienced that is informing their perspective and approach.

“The hardest thing is to unlearn the secrets of your past success.”
Jiro Tokuyama

Things change and we don't always notice that what used to be effective is now much less so.

"What the world wants is good examples, not so much advice; advice may be wrong, but examples prove themselves.
Josh Billings

Often the best advice you can offer is an adequate example of the approach you want to suggest.

"Sometimes the best thing to do is to just sit back quietly and let people come to their senses."
Robert Brault

Let people express their thoughts, let them get their ideas out of their heads, and they will naturally expose them to critical analysis. Just the act of voicing them forces them to compose them into a coherent narrative--or at least a start on one. Sometimes a stream of urgent disconnected thoughts related to a challenge is a critical first step. I see this happen in face-to-face Bootstrapper Breakfasts when an entrepreneur voices their ideas, challenges, or needs to a group of peers who listen, take them seriously, and provide advice and perspective.

"Many receive advice, few profit by it."
Publilius Syrus

One way to improve your profit is to summarize what you have heard and get the other person to confirm. Another is to understand what their diagnosis or root cause analysis is for your situation so that you gain a better understanding of why they are recommending a particular course of action.

"A mark of mastery is the persistent ability to simplify correctly."
Angela Jiang

A good preamble to offering advice is to offer the simplest complete explanation you can for their predicament and see if they agree or if you have overlooked something.

“There are silences harder to take back than words.”
James Richardson

We often say, in hindsight, "I wish I had not said that" but it's equally true you can wish that you had offered more support or had not been afraid to speak up. I believe it's crucial to overcome fear and inertia to offer public support and private comfort. I know it’s “very easy to say, very hard to do,” but I think a major source of regret when we do not follow our first instinct to speak up in support or to help.

“If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.”
Carl Jung

True as well for things we want to change about our spouse, friends, acquaintances, strangers, and enemies. Many times they are just showing us what our own words and actions look like to others.

More quotes at https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2023/04/30/quotes-for-entrepreneurs-curated-in-april-2023/

Image Credit: JD Hancock "Take my Advice, I'm Not Using It"