Bad Advice | “All you have to do…”

This episode of Books for Men introduces “Bad Advice”—a new segment where I debunk advice that I think is given far too often. This edition speaks to the foundation of crappy advice. Listen for more!

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Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So maybe you are wondering what this episode is going to be all about. So I thought about a lot of different ways to change the podcast in 2023, and some of them I'm still kind of working through and potentially going to do some of those new iterations, whether it's interviews or conversations or just random book talks with different people and different individuals about their reading and what they're reading and some of the more impactful books in their life. And that's one idea that I'm kind of trying to work through right now. I'm probably going to run some different stuff through the podcast here and see what sticks and what is getting better engagement. And on that note, I noticed that when I reviewed my year-end numbers, a lot of my early entries when I was doing more of a diary type of podcast before I switched it over to Books for Men, that those episodes actually got a significant amount of listens.

(01:18)

And so there were some of my more popular episodes, and that might just be because they've been there longer than the other ones. But I think that there might be something to that. And so I said, let me kind of play off that idea a little bit. And so that's what brought me to this new potential episode format, which is just me debunking advice that I think is bad, that I hear readily given on a regular basis. So the genesis of this really goes back to when I was hosting, It's Not What It Seems, which was an interview podcast with some of the world's leading non-fiction authors, really. And at the end of every episode, I would ask a series of rapid-fire questions. And one of them was always a variation on this question, what's the worst piece of advice that you hear given on a regular basis?

(02:08)

And of course, everyone would give a little bit of a different answer. And it was actually one of the best parts of the show for me, mostly because everyone is really quick to say what you should do in life, but they are not as quick to say what you shouldn't do, because that would mean that you're refuting somebody else's idea or general idea. And that brings up confliction. And people don't really like confliction, which is something that I may talk about at a later date because I feel like conflict is not something that you should ignore in life, and it's not something that you should avoid in life. And doing so is only going to be a detriment to you as you try to walk through life and do different things in your life. Conflict not only builds toughness and resiliency, but it also gives you the opportunity to learn something new.

(03:03)

So if you're not exposed to it, you are going to have a really tough time dealing with it simply because when you're trying to achieve anything, you're going to encounter conflict. And so you have to understand how to deal with it. And this isn't supposed to be an episode about conflict, but I think it ties really well into the whole idea of debunking bad advice, right? So I'm going to look at, advice that is readily given. Some of it might be obvious, some of it might not be so obvious, or might just be something that you'd hear your friends say to you or family members say to you. And I'm going to say, no, no, no, this is the whole other side of the coin and maybe you should look at life this way instead. And I think that that's a really, really important thing because fundamentally when it comes down to it, everything in life has an upside and a downside, a positive and a negative.

(04:00)

There are trade-offs with every single piece of advice, every single action, every single decision. There is no one size fits all solution. And that's why I thought that the perfect episode to start this with is what I call, all you have to do is this. So we've all been there, we have a problem, we have some kind of dilemma in our life, and we seek out advice for that, whether it's professional, whether it's personal, it doesn't matter. And if you've been on social media at all, it is covered with a litany of all you have to do is this. And of course, that's just a variation on certainty. Everybody is so certain about the direction, the action, the decision, the thing they think you should do to solve your problem, solve your dilemma. And look, I get it, and many times the intent might be good, and other times the intent might not be good, and that's a whole other thing that you'll have to learn to decipher.

(05:07)

But what I always feel, and I wrote about this in the gap, is that when you're faced with certainty, I believe that you should always challenge certainty because the people that you want to seek advice from to get advice from, to follow, to model, they will be able to articulate the downside of that advice. One of two things happens when you challenge certainty. Either the person that is giving you the advice in a very certain manner hasn't thought about the downside at all, so they can't articulate it to you, or they have thought about the downside, they know the downside of the advice, but they're intentionally trying to hide it from you. Now, obviously, the ladder of the two is worse than the former. The former just might be the fact that they haven't thought through what they're telling you in a deep enough manner, whereas the ladder might indicate that they're trying to manipulate you in some fashion.

(06:16)

And obviously, neither of these situations is great, but that's why what you're really hoping for is option number three, the individual who can articulate the downside, the negative, and the problems that may be inevitable with that path. And then you have to decide whether those downsides or negatives or drawbacks outweigh the positives in the upsides or vice versa. What you should come away with this understanding, or I hope you come away with this understanding, is that there are always going to be negatives, downsides, and problems to whatever you do in life. And so I couldn't think of a better way to start this series than with the advice of all you have to do is this. Because to me, it couldn't be farther from the truth. It couldn't be worse advice than to suggest to somebody that all you have to do is, this is probably one of the big reasons why I dislike advice in general because unless the individual is really taking the time to understand your situation on a nuanced level, it is very, very hard to give good advice.

(07:42)

More times than not, advice is really just somebody telling you how it did or didn't work in their life and in their situation. And you could see this by the way that they respond. One of the more common responses is, in my experience, let me tell you how this or what I think is da, instead of asking more questions to understand your situation. So I guess this is a good time for me to say the concept that I just explained to you about challenging certainty. There are downsides to that as well, right? In that, if we pull it all the way back to the beginning of this episode, when I started talking a little bit about conflict when you challenge certainty, there will be confliction. And I'm not suggesting that you go around challenging people all day long, but people aren't also giving you advice all day long either.

(08:36)

I'm only suggesting that you do that in the face of somebody giving you advice or somebody telling you all you have to do is this challenge it. You're more likely to do that though if you are okay with conflict. Cause anytime there is conflict, there are two things that could happen. You could or you could grow. We're hoping to do the latter, but the former can also happen just as easily. And I would hate to see that happen ever because conflict and disagreement are really important to growth. And actually, I believe that the destruction piece only happens when you encounter those charlatans, right? They get really, really offended when you challenge them or offer up a little bit of a different opinion because they can't articulate that downside. And so they're really insecure about that idea. And rather than just accepting that insecurity, accepting that idea, that new idea, and taking it into consideration and then moving forward, they'd rather get on the offensive and be aggressive about it.

(09:44)

All I'm suggesting is that when you're faced with the inevitable person who says, all you have to do is this, that it's a load of crap. And maybe you already knew that, and if you did, that's great too. All right, so this episode is a wrap. I want to thank everybody who has listened to this first-ever edition of Bad Advice. I hope that we can have some fun with this episode. I think I'm going to, I don't know how often I'm going to feature it maybe once a month, and we'll see how things go. If you enjoyed it, please remember to share it with family, friends, or anyone at all that you think might enjoy it. And of course, remember that there will be your standard book episodes, fiction, and non-fiction. I am not doing away with those. Obviously, that is the core of the show.

(10:32)

And our main mission is still the same and always will be. And that is to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. And if you want to double down on your support for the show, then please remember to subscribe or follow, rate, or review on whatever podcast platform you listen to this on. That would help immensely. If you want more information, you could visit BooksforMen.org where you can also sign up for the monthly newsletter, which is a roundup of all the books and authors that you hear on the podcast, as well as a few additional book recommendations that you'll get of books that I read in real-time from that month. So these are not books that'll ever be featured on the show, but they are books that I think you will enjoy. And again, you can get more information and sign up for that newsletter at BooksforMen.org.