anything goes with emma chamberlain - advice on taking advice [video]

Episode Date: August 27, 2023

[video available on spotify] we are all constantly receiving advice whether we asked for advice or not. we can receive advice from people that we know, like our family, friends, teachers, or bosses. we can also receive advice from less intimate sources, like random people on the internet, like me, or authors of books or writers of movies. we're constantly being thrown advice from all angles, and as a result, we're constantly sorting through advice deciding what the fuck to do with it. and a lot of that happens subconsciously because the giving and receiving of advice is such an automatic part of interacting as a human being. there are a lot of variables when it comes to this type of social interaction, but today i wanna zoom in on a specific type of advice interaction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are all constantly receiving advice. Whether we asked for the advice or not, we're constantly receiving a steady stream of advice from various sources. We can receive advice from people that we know, like our family, our friends, our teachers, our bosses. We can also receive advice from less intimate sources like random people on the internet like me or authors of books or writers of movies we're constantly being thrown

advice from all angles and As a result, we're constantly sorting through advice And as a result, we're constantly sorting through advice, deciding what the fuck to do with it. And a lot of that happens sort of subconsciously because the giving and receiving of advice is such an automatic part of interacting as a human being. And the giving and receiving of advice can come in many different forms.

For example, sometimes we ask for advice, and advice is given. Sometimes we don't ask for advice, and advice is given. Sometimes we're open to advice, and we're in a place where we can truly internalize and digest advice, but sometimes we're in a place where we're actually close-minded and we can't receive advice at all. Sometimes the person giving advice has good intentions. Sometimes the person giving advice has bad intentions. Sometimes the person giving advice is a deep thinker. Sometimes the person giving

advice tends to look at things on a more surface level. There are a lot of variables when it comes to this type of social interaction. But today I want to zoom in on a specific type of advice interaction. Now close your eyes unless you're driving then don't because then that's bad. If you can close your eyes, just close your eyes for a moment and really imagine this scenario, okay? You are the receiver of advice, you listening, you're the receiver of advice. And you're in a place where you really want advice.

Maybe you're going through a hard time, maybe you're dealing with an experience that you've never experienced before and you don't have any past knowledge about this specific type of scenario and you just want wisdom from other people, you want guidance. You're in a place where you really want advice. This scenario tends to happen when we hit a roadblock in life that we don't know how to handle. Whether it's because we don't have past experience to help guide us, as I mentioned earlier, or we don't trust ourselves to make the right decision. Maybe we're lacking a level of confidence, and we just don't believe that we can figure it out alone, or because we want to hear a different

perspective. Maybe we have a vague idea of how we want to problem-solve, but we're like, how would other people proceed through this challenge? And a lot of times that can help us feel more secure in our decision making if we get some sort of reassurance that other people would handle it a similar way that we would, or maybe we're seeking a perspective that we had never even thought of, or maybe we ask for advice to make us feel comforted. You know, when we're going through a difficulty, we can feel like, oh my God, this is never going to get resolved. How is this going to get resolved. How is this going to get resolved? And asking others for advice

is comforting in a way because hearing the way other people have solved the problem similar to yours helps give you hope that you're going to also get through the issue and be okay, right? There are many different scenarios that will lead us to a place where we want advice and we need advice. Now, in an ideal world, when you find yourself in a place where you need advice, all the advice you're given is profound and deep and aligns with your moral compass and will lead you to success. But the truth of the matter is there's a lot of bad advice out there. Okay, there is a lot of bad advice out there. Not because there are a lot of bad people out there, because there are a lot of bad people out there because there are a lot of great people out there too, but because advice is tricky. At the end of the day, the only person who can make the right

decision for you is you. No one else is in your brain and body. Nobody else is living your life. So advice is just by nature a little tricky. There's no specific outline for what makes advice good versus bad. But I did my best to put it all down on paper. You know, what are some characteristics of good advice and what are some characteristics of bad advice?

It's complicated because there are many exceptions, but I did the best I could. I would say good advice is usually open ended. The person giving you the advice says, listen, I would say good advice is usually open-ended. The person giving you the advice says, listen, here's what I might do in this situation, or here's what I think you should do in this situation, but I don't know for sure, and you're the only one who could truly figure this out. Like I think when somebody's able to give advice and say,

here's what I would do, but I don't know if that's gonna work for you. What do you think? You know, what do you think about your situation? I feel like that's usually a sign of good advice when it's sort of open-ended. It's not like, hey, this is what you need to do. When it's more like, this is what I know, now do what you want with it, right? When that's how advice is presented, it tends to be absorbed in a really healthy way,

where the person receiving the advice is like, oh, I feel open to taking bits and pieces of this advice that apply to me in throwing the rest away. And I don't feel like anyone's going to be mad at me, you know? Sometimes people give you advice and they're like, you need to do this exactly like this or else everything will blow up in flames. And when somebody gives you advice like that, it's hard to make it your own. And at the end of the day,

that's kind of what you have to do with advice is take the bits and pieces that work for you and really just make it your own, right? I also think good advice is always heavily contemplated and analyzed by the person giving the advice. Good advice comes through the analysis of life experience. The giver of advice has to have lived through a challenging experience and truly analyzed how they got through it in a way that was healthy and in a way that inspired growth within themselves in order to give good advice. You know some people

go through a challenge and come out the other side, but they don't necessarily analyze what happened on a deep level. They maybe just understood what happened to them on a service level. Now, there's no morality attached to this, okay? It's not like people who deeply analyze what they've been through are better people than those who don't deeply analyze what they've been through. There's no moral, good or bad there. Everybody handles their shit different.

Everybody digests what happens to them in life different So I don't want to demonize people who don't deeply analyze their life experiences But when it comes to giving advice I think Giving advice is a big responsibility, right? because you're

giving a vulnerable person a chunk of your wisdom and knowledge, and as the giver of advice, you should feel confident in that, and you should feel like you have a full understanding of the advice that you're giving, otherwise things could go wrong, right? So I think when you're a giver of advice that you're giving, otherwise things could go wrong, right? So I think when you're a giver of advice, you should be somebody who's deeply thinking about the experiences that have led to the advice that you're giving or else the advice may be shit. And as the receiver of advice, you know, you can sort of tell how deeply someone understands

the advice that they're giving. And that's something that should be paid attention to. Good advice is deeply analyzed. I also think good advice comes from a combination of personal experience combined with a general understanding of how the world works. Because we all have our own individual experience in life. And I think good advice, combines one's own personal experience with one's own view of the world. And that combination creates good advice.

When advice is too biased and too based on personal experience, it's really hit or miss whether it's going to be good. Because it's like, okay, yeah, this worked for you, but every individual is so different that it could work for you, but it might not. Good advice has this balance of, this is what worked for me, but this is what has worked for the rest of the world. And here's the middle ground of that.

And here's my advice. You see what I'm saying? And last but not least, good advice is morally sound. Now obviously, we all have different moral compasses. There are so many different variables. Religion plays a role, our upbringing plays a role. The culture we live in plays a role. The automatic way that we see the world plays a role. There are so many variables. No two people have the exact same moral compass. It's pretty rare to find. Maybe it's possible,

but it's pretty rare. Despite that, I think that there are some things that we can all agree on, or most of us can aground, you know, like it's wrong to kill people. It's wrong to hurt people. It's wrong to steal from people. I think good advice aligns with your moral compass to an extent and doesn't involve stooping to a level that is below what you think is morally good. And again, that means something different for everyone. Now, here's what I think makes advice bad for the most part. Sometimes there are exceptions, but I think advice rooted in revenge or anger is usually not going to be good advice. So I'll give you an example. Let's say you're going through a breakup

with your significant other and you go to a friend and you're like, I just don't know how to get through this breakup. Like I really don't know what to do. I'm so overwhelmed by this feeling of pain that I just, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I need to do something. I don't know what to do to feel better. And your friend says, let's go egg your ex's house. Let's go buy a dozen of eggs and throw them at your ex's house. And then after that, we're going to find you a rebound immediately so you can post something on your Instagram of you with a new significant other. That's advice from your friend that's rooted in Revenge and Anger. I don't really ever see a scenario where that's good advice. To me, that's cheap advice. I strive in my life to never seek revenge ever. And it's hard sometimes.

When someone hurts you, you want to hurt them back. But that shit bites you in the ass eventually. In my experience, the only way to truly resolve an issue is to handle it in a way that you respect long-term, a challenge gets resolved through actions that align with what your moral compass is or what you wish your moral compass was. That's how you resolve an issue in a way that truly resolves it. Sometimes bad advice can feel satisfying. Revenge is satisfying in the moment, but long term, not good. I also think cliche advice is usually bad advice. Because I think any sort of cliche lacks depth. For example, let's use the

breakup example again. Let's say you're going through a breakup and you're like, I'm so sad, I'm so depressed. I don't know how to feel happy again. I don't know how I'm ever gonna feel happy again. What am I gonna do? And then somebody gives you the advice to find happiness within yourself. And they don't elaborate.

They just give you that advice. That's bad advice, that's useless. Because there's no explanation about how to do that. There's no personal experience being provided. It's just this sort of empty statement that might even make somebody feel worse about themselves. Because they're like, wait, I don't even know how I'm supposed to do that. Advice that's not deep or is simply a cliche is bad advice. Now it's interesting because the advice can be true and even helpful, but when it's not well thought out by the giver of the advice, it will never be effective and it

will never have the desired impact that it should. And sometimes you can receive bad advice like this, you know, advice that's not thoughtful, not deep, etc. And you can sort of create depth yourself by doing research or asking other people to fill in the blanks for you. But I would say for the most part, this is bad advice, and you shouldn't feel bad about yourself if you're like, I don't know how to even take this advice. Well, it's because it's merely advice. It's merely advice. It's empty. Advice that is forceful is also bad advice.

When somebody is saying you have to handle a situation like this, this is how you solve the problem. And if you don't solve it just like this, then your problem will not be solved. Bad advice. Because any person who truly understands the nature of humanity will not give advice like that.

Because every individual's experience is different. There are always going to be 10 good ways to solve a problem in 10 bad ways. And what is truly perfect for a given individual is beyond our comprehension. We can never, we could never come to that conclusion, especially when we're not the person going through the challenge I hand. So advice that's given forcefully is bad advice. It's almost weirdly self-serving to the person giving the advice. When advice is forceful, it's usually a sign that the giver of the advice is gaining some sort of power by having you follow their advice. It gives them some sort of ego boost, it gives them some sort of feeling of power.

And that's not what a healthy exchange of advice should be about. It should be about wanting to provide a new perspective to somebody because you want to help. Bad advice is also too heavily based on somebody's own experience or bias. I vaguely mentioned this earlier when I was talking about how good advice is based on personal experience combined with wisdom of how the world works. Advice that's too heavily based on someone's own experience in bias can sort of lack the Dimension that good advice has, you know good advice is not just solely based on

personal experience It's also based on worldly knowledge in wisdom too that combo It's also based on worldly knowledge and wisdom too. That combo, delicious advice, okay? And last but not least, advice can be bad just simply because it doesn't fit your life. It can be that simple. Advice can be bad even if it's morally sound, based on somebody's personal experience combined with their worldly wisdom.

It can have every good trait, but it can still be bad just because it doesn't make sense for you. It just doesn't align with how you work. I'll give an example. Let's say you're trying to decide whether to take a job in Los Angeles or New York City. And let's say you asked somebody for advice. How do I choose between the two? Both jobs look like great options, but I don't know how to choose one over the other.

Somebody might say, you should choose whichever option has the best social life. Like, do you prefer the social life in Los Angeles or do you prefer the social life in New York? Now, that's great advice, you know? It's important to move somewhere where you can find community, but that advice just might not apply to you because you might be somebody who's more introverted and On your list of priorities your social life is kind of towards the bottom and so you need to find a different Factor to base your decision on that advice is good, but that advice Just doesn't make sense for you.

Therefore, it's bad advice. If you were to follow that advice, you might not end up with the decision that makes you the most happy. And the reason for that is, it just doesn't click with your life, but it's not that the advice is bad because for some people that advice would be great. Like for me personally, I'm in a place in my life where my social life is very important to me. And if I were to have to choose between two jobs in two separate places, I would heavily consider the sort of social life, social scene situation of the place that I'm moving. Because I get majority of my social interaction from extracurricular activities, you know, outside of work. You see what I'm saying? It's one thing to analyze the advice itself. But let's take it a step further in discussing analyzing the source of the advice.

Because a lot of times by simply analyzing the source of advice, we can actually determine whether their advice is good for us as individuals or not, just based on the source itself. It's important to consider the lifestyle of the source of advice. Do they have a life that you admire? You know, people who have a life that you admire have had to make decisions along the way to get them to where they are today.

And there's a good chance that someone who has a life that you admire is going to give you advice that's going to lead you in a direction that you want to go in anyway. Whereas somebody who lives a life that you don't admire is going to give you advice that doesn't lead you in that direction that you want to go in. You also have to question their level of life experience. Advice from somebody whose your age who has a similar level of life experience

to you is less likely to be useful, whereas advice from somebody who's older and wiser than you is more likely to be useful. Now it's weird because you can't necessarily base life experience on age because you might meet somebody who's 50 years old. Who has had a pretty easy life hasn't had to deal with a lot of challenge. And as a result, they don't have as much worldly wisdom. You might meet somebody who's your age,'s been through some shit who gives phenomenal advice. It's not necessarily based on age. It's based on life experience. I would say more often than not, someone who's older than you is going to have more life experience, but that's not always the case.

And you can't always base it on age. You do have to base it on life experience and wisdom. You also have to consider your relationship to the source, because this will impact the quality of the advice. Now, with your closest family and friends, you can almost guarantee that the advice has good intentions. Your closest family friends' confidence will almost definitely try to help you. And so that you can rely on. But just because they have your best interest at heart doesn't mean that their advice is going to be good. And so you can trust one part of their advice, you know, the intention. But you can't always trust the advice itself because you kind of have to ask yourself about their lifestyle.

Which leads us back to the first point, you know, you have to consider the lifestyle of the source. Do they have more life experience than you? Do they have a life that you admire? Yes or no? Just because they're your close family, close friends doesn't mean that they have a life that you admire, doesn't mean that they have more life experience than you do. It doesn't mean that they're gonna give you good advice. Now, if you're receiving advice from someone you admire, there's a really good chance that you'll receive good advice. You know, as I mentioned earlier, they've had to take steps and make decisions

to get them to where they are today. And those decisions and steps could be very helpful to you, but it's still not guaranteed that the advice is going to be right for you. You may have somewhat of a competitive relationship with someone. That type of relationship does not usually bear great advice from either side because whenever there's competitiveness involved between two people, a good advice exchange is almost impossible at that point. Now you could be competitive with a family member, you could be competitive with a friend, a significant other, appear, you could be competitive with anyone. But if that's present in a relationship,

the advice to me is unreliable, because there could be some sabotage happening there. Last but not least, you could receive advice from a complete stranger. You have zero relationship with the person you're receiving advice from. Now, at times, this could be great advice because the advice from a stranger is usually pretty genuine because they don't have anything to gain by giving the advice. Like, they have no personal ties to you. It doesn't really impact them how you decide to resolve the situation, whether

or not you take their advice, kind of, sort of doesn't matter. But at the same time, advice from a stranger could be completely off-base because not only does the giver of advice have no context about your life and the advice is actually not personal to you at all, but also you have no context about their life or you may have very little, you might not have enough to fully analyze whether there's someone who's trustworthy. whether there's someone who's trustworthy. Now, we can analyze the quality of the advice that we receive. We can analyze the source of the advice that we receive. But at the end of the day, what I think is most important is how we choose to internalize any piece of advice, good or bad. We're going to receive a lot of great advice in this life,

and we're going to receive a lot of bad advice in this life. It's just going to happen. And we all know that, you know, we're all fully aware that we're going to receive both good and bad advice. But in the moment, it's so hard at times, especially at vulnerable times, to determine what advice is good and what advice is bad. I think the best way to internalize advice for the best success rate is to sort of hear advice and then put it in a little holding room in our minds. Before we digest it fully and cement it in our minds as fact, and you have to interview it and interrogate it and imagine what it would be like to follow that advice before you can truly decide what you want to do with that advice. Advice should never be taken at face value.

I don't think. And we should never be in a rush to take advice too quickly because we need time to decide what's truly going to work for us and it's rare that someone gives us advice and it's perfect for a situation and it doesn't need any tweaks or personalizations to make it right for us. It's very rare that that happens. So taking advice at phase value is rarely going to work perfectly for us. We need to deeply analyze the source of the advice, deeply analyze the morality of the advice, deeply consider whether the advice fits with our personality, deeply analyze whether the advice is going to lead us in a direction that feels fulfilling to us, deeply analyze how vulnerable we are to advice at a given moment. Are we desperate for advice? To a point where we'll take bad advice and just do it because we don't have any other

sort of guidance at the moment. Do you see what I'm saying? After analyzing all of these factors, we can eventually figure out how to proceed with the advice. And sometimes it takes 24 hours to analyze advice. Sometimes it takes two years to analyze advice, but it should never be taken at face value because there's a lot of bad advice out there. And only you know what you gotta to do. Only you know. I would argue that all advice is somewhat useful

because even bad advice can help to spark an idea of how to solve a problem that can be life-changing. I think whenever advice is given with good intentions, something of value can be found there. But it's up to the receiver of advice to make the most out of the advice that they're given, and to be critical of it, because in the moments when we need advice, the most, were the most vulnerable to taking bad advice. the most were the most vulnerable to taking bad advice.

You know, in the moments when we need to be the most critical, because we're dealing with the most vulnerable problem, we're most susceptible to taking bad advice, right? And so it's important to be critical of every piece of advice, not take it at face value, and put it in that little holding room in your brain before you truly file it away in your files in your mind. That's all I have for today. And you know, there was a little piece of irony in this because it's like,

I'm kind of giving you advice on how to analyze advice. I don't know, there's something sort of meta about it. But I hope that you enjoyed this episode. I hope that you got something of value out of it. If you did, tune in to anything goes every Thursday and Sunday. You might find something else you enjoy. And I just appreciate you listening and hanging out. I always have fun with you.

Even if the topic sort of hurts my brain, it's always a pleasure. You can check out anything goes on Instagram and anything goes or you can check me out on Instagram and Emma Chamberlain. You can also check out my coffee company Chamberlain coffee. Go to Chamberlaincoffee.com if you want to pick up coffee, tea, accessories, whatever. I really love and appreciate all of you and I'm so grateful that you

decided to come and hang out with me today. It really means the world to me. And I just hope all is well with you. That's all I got. Bye. And I just hope all is well with you. That's all I got. Bye.