Advice on being advised
I just gave a talk to a lovely group of 18 and 19 year old students who are about to start collage to enter into the tech world. While I wish I had most of this advice early on, it can be useful to stop and get a bit meta at any point.
All advice is optional. This is advice.
If you work in tech, you have to learn from others. Sometimes it comes labeled as advice. It also comes as directives from a boss, a random comment from a friend, or feedback from a peer.
The industry is still in it’s infancy. The paths are varied and ever changing. Getting advice isn’t just for those early in career. It’s part of the job. We can’t get very far if we hide and try to do it all on our own. At the same time, no one will have all of the advice that is right for us.
The problem is that it’s hard to get good advice. Everything about it is hard. Asking is hard. Knowing what to ask is hard. Getting advice that is worth following is hard. Following advice without losing your authenticity is hard.
It doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it. The most valuable change is a simple mindset change. If you internalize that listening to advice is not the same as taking advice, it all gets easier. I’ll repeat it:
Listening to advice does not equal taking advice.
When this gets awkward is when you give someone the impression that you are asking them to tell you what to do. Then if you don’t if feels weird. If you ask someone “what should I do?” They will give you answers that tell you what to do. You will rarely get answers that are both new and right. People don’t know what they should do, they certainly won’t know what you should do. So what’s the answer?
Stop shoulding yourself.
Here are a few shouldless questions that can lead to better advice:
- What have you done in situations like x?
- What are lessons you’ve learned around x?
- How have you approached x?
- What criteria would you use to evaluate x?
- Are there implications I’m not considering?
- What context am I missing?
- What resources would you check out?
By asking questions like these, you are more likely to get information that is easier to process and consider separately from making your decisions.
tl;dr treat advice as info, not as edict
