Who have you taken advice from and why does their advice work?

In: Advice| How To| Psychology By: Brian Armstrong

18 Oct 2008

An anonymous poster asked this great question on the Breaking Free forum…

Who have you taken advice from and why does their advice work for your specific type of business? It is important to figure out what exactly works for you and why, so that we can find the right path for each of us.

Here are my thoughts:

I have a simple rule for this that I try to follow: Only take advice from people who have already done it.

You wouldn’t have a fat trainer at the gym. But that is what most people do with business. They ask their friends and family who have never started a successful business in their lives.

Instead you should ask rich people. Entrepreneurs who have been successful so you can model what they did and see their mindset.

Regarding finding what works for you, I’ve often made the mistake of trying to do it “my own way” too soon.

I think when first starting out you should just copy what a successful person is doing, even if you think it won’t work or is wrong. Only later, after you’ve become more experienced can you start to innovate and find your own style.

Think of it like martial arts. You COULD come in untrained and think you will beat a black belt by doing it your own way. And you will get creamed. But if you study with the greats for many years, incorporating a little of each of them into yourself, then and only then after many years can you start to develop your own style. Your own style comes later with mastery, not at the beginning.

Business is definitely a complex skill just like playing the violin, building a race car, or getting a black belt. You can get the basics in probably a few years by studying the greats. You can master it in probably a few decades or even a lifetime.

I’ll probably be promoting more threads from the forum that I find particularly interesting.

Tags: Advice, business, experience, mastery, success

9 Responses

Caroline

October 20th, 2008 at 3:45 am

It seems obvious but many people ignore this advice. It can be quite dangerous acting on second hand advice.

Jamie Harrop

October 20th, 2008 at 5:07 am

Hey Brian,

I agree with you to a large extent, although there are times when I like to ask for advice from people outside the circle (like friends and family).

I often find those people within the circle, including myself, suffer from varying degrees of tunnel vision. Often, friends and family are able to think of something I or other people in the circle haven’t thought of. Then I can take those thoughts to the circle and the people who know business can discuss and solve them (if something needs solving).

Jamie

Brian Armstrong

October 20th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

Yep that’s true Jamie. When it comes time to be CREATIVE, I think outsiders do a much better job at thinking outside the box. Brainstorming, product idea generation, etc. Maybe not so much when it comes to practical implementation though.

Jamie Harrop

October 20th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

Absolutely.

I guess it’s just like asking the public to find problems. Beta testing, if you like. Once the beta testers (friends/family) have done their work, you can then take all the issues back to the people that can fix them. :)

Jamie

Brian Armstrong

October 20th, 2008 at 3:11 pm

Good point…I use friends & family for guinea pigs aka getting early feedback too.

Frank Denbow

October 20th, 2008 at 11:13 pm

Hey Brian,

Glad to see I could contribute with the forum :) I had to test out your no-login posting, which is an awesome idea.

For me I try to take advice from people who have similar values in business/life as me. For the core principles of the mission/drive of a company I take advice from these people, and take tactics from others who may not have my same approach. As long as I understand the real meaning behind peoples actions/thoughts I will always mix and match things from what I read about.

Brian Armstrong

October 21st, 2008 at 12:26 am

Thanks for the question Frank, and you’re right about identifying values. Some people I just don’t trust and I don’t take advice from them. I’ve noticed that the people who I trust more talk about their failures just as easily as they talk about their successes.

christian

October 24th, 2008 at 8:39 pm

i believe that’s a logical fallacy called ad hominem… when you ignore the content of an idea or piece of advice based on who’s giving it. unfortunately it’s not always that easy as many successful people either don’t realize how they got there or prefer to believe in false reasons to make themselves look better or more uniquely insightful.

Brian Armstrong

October 25th, 2008 at 5:45 pm

Hi Christian, you’re right it’s argument ad hominem, but that has a negative connotation because it typically refers to a personal attack on someone to discredit them such as a sexist or racist remark.

This isn’t a personal attack, its establishing credibility, which of course has to be done in a court of law all the time and is just plain common sense. You wouldn’t ask a bum on the street for investment advice.

Some rich people are lucky, but long term wealth is unlikely to come from wealth. Imagine someone whose last 3 businesses have been successful or who has continually built their net worth for the last 20 years. The chance of that being luck goes down substantially. Stats show that people do do get rich in a lucky way (lotto) often lose it rather quickly.

Anyway, you’re right that people who are “naturally good” at something often don’t know or can’t explain how they do it. But i’d sure rather be around one of them trying to figure it out, then getting advice from poor people! ;)

Anyway, not to get too dramatic on here but I believe pretty strongly about that one.
Brian

Breaking Free

Who have you taken advice from and why does their advice work?

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