Lawyers love to give advice. Some in our ranks describe the profession as one of soothsayers guiding people through the murky, legal jungle. That’s a romantic way to think of ourselves. Although, it’s not just lawyers who love to give advice, a lot of us do. Or, at least, many of us like to offer help to those we think are in need of it. So, how should we take such offers? We should accept advice, right?
“I tell people not to listen to too much advice. Listening to advice from other people should be approached with great caution.”
Wut?
This comment–or advice?–was made by Sam Altman on the Lex Fridman podcast this year. Sam seems like a pretty smart guy. He is the former and current CEO of OpenAI, which, as the creator of ChatGPT and DALL-E, is one of the most interesting companies in the world today. He strikes me as the kind of guy who could offer some good advice.
However, when I first heard Sam’s comment, my knee jerk reaction was to reject it outright. Advice has always struck me as something of which you could never get enough, kind of like information. Who doesn’t want all the information–or advice–they can get? You don’t always have to heed it, but it’s still good to have.
Then I heard another podcast guest say something similar. This time it was a therapist, Nedra Glover Tawwab, on Rethinking with Adam Grant. She didn’t strike down all advice, but noted that it needs to be tailored to the recipient. The example she offered was the adage that “everything happens for a reason,” to which she said “ah, that’s not true.” I agree. Platitudes often get pawned off as advice when really they aren’t.
So, what should we make of this advice to not take advice?
General advice vs. bespoke advice
Perhaps Sam’s initial comment needs more context. Here is his full answer when asked what advice he would give to young people in high school and college:
“I think [Sam’s own blog post How to be successful]* is like good advice in some sense, but I also think it’s way too tempting to take advice from other people and the stuff that worked for me, which I tried to write down there, probably doesn’t work that well or may not work as well for other people or like other people may find out that they want to just have a super different life trajectory. And I think I mostly got what I wanted by ignoring advice. And I think like I tell people not to listen to too much advice, listening to advice from other people should be approached with great caution.”
*Side note: Sam reflecting on his article about advice by suggesting that you should not listen to advice is pretty meta, but we’re going to roll with it.
Anyway, this wider comment aligns with Nedra’s sentiment that broad advice is not always terribly helpful or applicable. We’ve all experienced this at some point, probably at a lot of points. Someone, usually well-intentioned, offers advice about life or careers or whatever without understanding–or asking us about–our goals and desires. Sometimes this hits home, but often it misses the mark because it is either too general, already understood, or irrelevant.
This problem is apparent in many self-help books. I love me a good self-help book, but if you’ve read more than a couple of these, you’ll find that many of them fall into the trap of listing generic, bright line rules to govern your life that aren’t as universal as they seem on the surface. They try to distill daily wisdom into clear and easy-to-remember bullet points and listicles supplemented with anecdotes or historical examples of the advice in action.
Such books usually aren’t bad or wrong per se, but as each one comes out, they feel like the same advice repackaged over and over. I often find myself pining for One Book on life’s wisdom to rule them all. Some will say that is the Bible or another religious text, but let’s be honest, that’s not it. Holy books contain much wisdom, to be sure, but even they don’t cover every little wrinkle in life. Come to think of it, the Ten Commandments and Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path are kind of like the OG listicles for how to live your life.
So, general advice: nice, but not always the most helpful. Advice serves us better when it is targeted to our specific situation, but there’s another problem: it’s difficult for others to know all the factors shaping our situation and impacting our decisions.
We’re the only ones living our life
The main reason to ignore advice from others is that no one can appreciate every factor affecting us in any given situation. In other words, no one is living our life except for us. So, while our best counselors tailor their advice as best they can, it’s hard for anyone else to consider everything.
Perhaps this is why we often don’t act on the advice that’s given to us. Or, more maddeningly, the advice we offer to others goes ignored.
Should we embrace Sam’s attitude of ignoring advice or approaching it with great caution?
It seems foolish to completely ignore all advice. For, even though only we are living our lives, we aren’t perfectly rational creatures. Far from it. We’re emotional. We have a bevy of biases and blindspots, and often can’t see the forest for the trees or are too close to a situation to make the right choice. It often behooves us to seek another perspective to figure out if we’re overlooking something. Sometimes the answer is obvious on the outside.
I don’t consider myself a paranoid person, but if there is one thing that often sits in the back of my mind when making an important decision or working out a complicated problem, it’s the understanding that I don’t know my own blindspots–the “unknown unknowns,” so to speak. This could be empirical knowledge or, more likely, one of my biases.
Two ways we can hope to solve this are 1) constant learning and reflection and 2) a fresh perspective from someone else. The main problem with Option 1 is time; personal growth in this manner can be a long road. Sometimes we need that wisdom now. Option 2 helps with that, even if it is often imperfect.
All this to say that I’m closer to the mindset of approaching advice with caution. You know, “approaching. . . with caution” makes it sounds like advice is a dangerous beast. Perhaps the better way to frame it would be to consider advice while understanding that it may not be spot on or, to borrow another adage, take it with a grain of salt.
In our gut, we know this. Otherwise, people would always listen to their lawyer’s advice.
OG Listicles, LOL!
I once asked a friend who had just "broken up" with his girlfriend because of the difficulties of being long distance, "How's the once and future girlfriend?" I think that elicited the nastiest look he ever gave me. To be fair, they are now married.
Don't refer to her as the "once and future wife."