“Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf.”
(Old Native American proverb)
What’s the best advice you have ever received? The best advice given to me was: ‘don’t give advice unless it’s asked for.’ Ask any parent, though, this is a tough bit of advice to follow. It seems at times that your own child will listen to anyone and everyone but you – everyone from their ‘this week’s best friend’, other parents, the coach, even the next door neighbour – before considering any vestige of advice given out by mum and dad. “Why is this so?” I hear you ask. Seriously, I don’t have an answer to this eternal question, it’s one of life’s little imponderables.
When is a good time to give advice and when is it best to say nothing at all? This is a tricky question and not easily answered. Let’s just say that life’s experiences allow us to learn along the way and sometimes we really need to be guided by our own intuition or our gut instincts. When in doubt, listen to what is being said and be reflective of what is being said, but avoid offering advice first up or sharing your own personal experience before the other person has fully explained how they are truly feeling.
A few years ago I took part in an excellent course, at the Centre for Creative Leadership in Colorado, USA. Much of the course was about developing leadership skills in executives- highly ranked officers in the armed forces, business executives and people from all walks of life. Part of the process involved getting feedback from the people on the course as well as the people delivering the course. I remember at one point we broke into groups and I was with two people, one of whom recounted being in the Trade Centre when the planes struck the buildings on September 11, 2001. It was very unnerving to listen to his account of what happened to him and I could see that he was still, almost ten years later, very emotional about his ordeal.
As we made our way back to the main room, I happened to be walking with another group and struck up a conversation with one of the men and commented on what had been shared. I made the point (thinking that I was being empathetic to the other person), to avoid bringing up September 11 with this person, which I thought was good advice at that time. He just nodded, didn’t comment and so I put the whole conversation to the back of my mind and we went onto the next session.
In the feedback session for the week long program, there was an opportunity to share observations with the other participants. Yes, some of it was ‘warm and positive’ but other comments made were more pointed and meant to be instructive of how you were perceived by the others in the group. To my utter consternation, the one man who I had spoken to and suggested not discussing September 11, told me that he too had been involved in the events of that day, but he was at the Pentagon when the plane crashed into the building there. I had wrongly assumed that he was removed from the event and my assumption had caused him some grief, in giving advice to someone who clearly did not need it.
Unfortunately it is our own assumptions and our own experiences that lead us to offer advice, whether we think people want it or not. The secret of course is to ask, “Do you want some advice?” Maybe they do, but maybe they don’t and we should respect and accept that decision. As Stephen Covey suggests, it’s better to:
“Seek first to understand, and then to be understood.”
Now I am not usually a fan of celebrity advice and take it with a grain of salt, but recently I read some extracts from speeches given to graduating students and thought that there were some real gems amongst their comments and advice to the students. Since these views were sought out by celebrity speakers to share their experiences and lesson learned, I share them with you and hope that you appreciate them too (and don’t mind too much that you didn’t ask for this advice).
“The three lessons that have had the greatest impact on my life have to do with feelings, with failure and with finding happiness.” She says that you should trust your instincts. “If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. That’s the lesson and that lesson alone will save you, my friends, a lot of grief. Even doubt means don’t.”
“Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
Apple cofounder, Steve Jobs gave an inspiring address at Stanford in 2005, revealing how his diagnosis of cancer changed him.
“No one wants to die…. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it…And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new… Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
Actor, Denzell Washington revealed that he never understood the concept, of having something to fall back on.
“If I’m going to fall, I don’t want to fall back on anything, except my faith. I want to fall… forward. At least I figure that way I’ll see what I’m about to hit. Fall forward. Thomas Edison conducted 1,000 failed experiments. Did you know that? I didn’t either because number 1,001 was the light bulb. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success. “
“For me, the most important thing in your life is to live your life with integrity, and not to give in to peer pressure… To live your life as an honest and compassionate person. To contribute in some way….Follow your passion, stay true to yourself…”
Lastly, comedian and political commentator, Stephen Colbert, in a more serious moment of reflection, offered this:
“In my experience, you will truly serve only what you love, because as the prophet says, service is love made visible. If you love friends, you will serve your friends. If you love community, you will serve your community. If you love money, you will serve your money. And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself. And you will have only yourself. Instead try to love others and serve others and hopefully find those who love and serve you in return.”
We can learn much from the experiences of others, but until we experience what they have experienced it is highly doubtful that we will learn or empathise with the same depth of understanding and meaning. Nonetheless we can glean much from others’ experiences and learn from them, be inspired by them and create our own pathway as we travel through life.
Karon Graham
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