[cjmb]

One additional thought on advice that I didn't read in Alexey's piece:

- the best advice, in most domains, is never given freely or publicly, so if you are seeking advice, seek it in private

- the best advice tends to have pain associated with it for the recipient (Alexey notes this in section 4)

- the best advice-givers are aware of the effect that giving their advice would have on a typical recipient

- the best advice-givers will tell white-lies privately, even to people they love and respect, if the advice-seekers don't send ultra-clear ultra-proactive signals that they will not be hurt by the advice they seek

- the best advice tends to give you a new "lens" or "perspective" through which to view the world, unlocking second- and third-order insights of your own

- sometimes you really have made a mess of things, and no amount of "advice" can save you from the necessary task of working through all that mess

This is all the same thought, just expressed 6 different ways.

[dietrichepp]

> - the best advice-givers are aware of the effect that giving their advice would have on a typical recipient

I’ve started to think of advice as a moral dilemma. Someone asks a simple question and I start thinking, “oh god, what is gonna happen if I start mouthing off right now?”

Over the past few weeks I’ve had people tell me that thanks to my advice, they have either decided to continue trying to work on a problem (that they were going to give up on), or the reverse. I think this happens by accident when you are a subject matter expert in a field—no matter how narrow that field is, no matter how little of an expert you are, you know that 1) you can push someone new to the field in almost any direction you want, and 2) if you don’t push someone in a direction on purpose, you or someone else will just push them in a direction by accident.

That, and when you want advice you are rarely able to formulate the question correctly. Like if someone asks, “Can I do this?” the literal answer is, far too often, “Yes, but let’s have a discussion about whether you want to do that.”

[IggleSniggle]

This is what makes parenting so exhausting and so rewarding. Action/inaction, advice or advice withheld, you are constantly setting the environment that will shape your child’s entire life.

That said...I can remember phrases that my parents said in passing that for whatever reason stuck deep in me that I carry to this day, while doubtless advice they gave countless times I have no recollection of.

So, the stakes are extremely high, but the variance is also so high that it’s important not to let it paralyze you.

[nonbirithm]

> Action/inaction, advice or advice withheld, you are constantly setting the environment that will shape your child’s entire life.

I don't want to believe this is entirely true. I want to outgrow the coping mechanisms my upbringing forced me to learn in order to adapt, which are now actively harming me. If some things we impart on children truly are irreversible, then it's as if I'm trapped consciously aware of how my parents influenced my life and still there isn't enough I can do to move on. And I didn't choose my parents, so I could not consent to being raised in the ways they chose.

[IggleSniggle]

I believe we are all fundamentally malleable, and that you can “escape” your past. Certainly, maladaptions can often be reverted and reformed. Still, regardless of where you end up, your childhood environment affects your trajectory as a whole.

Optimistically, perhaps by overcoming the things that currently hold you back, you will later have greater insights and advantages from having to have had to rework that part of yourself.

[guzey]

>the best advice-givers will tell white-lies privately, even to people they love and respect, if the advice-seekers don't send ultra-clear ultra-proactive signals that they will not be hurt by the advice they seek

I think I tried to communicate this when suggesting asking for outrageous advice, but I think you're making this point better. Anyway, I added you comment to https://guzey.com/advice/#best-comments :)

[cjmb]

:) Thanks! And yes, I did read that part, and it is true, but I think it was getting at something slightly different.

"What are you not saying because you're scared I'll blame you if it fails" implies that the advice-giver has a certain mental model that didn't quite resonate with me.

Mostly I try to avoid hurting people who ask me for advice. A) because I care about them, and B) because very often the "right" answer could reduce their will-to-action in a completely counter-productive way.

(As a hypothetical relevant to HN -- 9 times out of 10, the "correct" advice to give your friend on their startup/product is to deliver a completely filter-free structured rant about all the ways their startup/product is complete and utter dogshit. "Correct" in the sense that their startup/product will be bad and need iteration, but also in the sense that founders/creators almost always have a Parent-Child-esque emotional connection to their creation, and without some external emotive-"knock" they will often rationalize away the need to make changes.

But of course that is incredibly poor form as a friend, which is your foremost relationship with this person, and not as a product-reviewer! And so you'll tend to give some nice comments and then some highly-couched "constructive" critique that signals you know they want some negative feedback, but don't trust them to handle it -- and as a result they won't really know where their product stands, and nothing improves.

As a prospective advice-seeker, you really can't over-signal your commitment to getting the other person's raw & emotional thoughts. "Swear" words tend to be one good way to signal this sort of thing in the English-speaking professional environment, but ultimately humans evolved to be master-tier readers of their friends' inner emotional state and if you feel a tightening in your gut when you get harsh advice, the advice-giver knows you feel it)

[CPLX]

> 9 times out of 10, the "correct" advice to give your friend on their startup/product is to deliver a completely filter-free structured rant about all the ways their startup/product is complete and utter dogshit.

But see it's more complicated than that.

I would say it's way more likely that the best advice you could give someone working on a new startup or product is to to convince them to stop being so negative and stop thinking everything they're doing is dogshit and to summon the self-confidence and charisma that comes from really believing in what you're doing, since that tends to have self-fulfilling effects.

Unless, of course, the person has delusional self-regard already, and are more likely to make the opposite mistake.

One reason why giving advice is so challenging is that it's always extremely context-driven.

[cjmb]

> But see it's more complicated than that

:) exactly!