How to Take Advice From Others & Your Own Intuition

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Tribe of Mentors" by Tim Ferriss. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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Do you blindly adopt or reject advice? What’s the best way to make the most of counsel?

When Tim Ferriss wanted some advice, he sent the same list of 11 questions to scores of experts, promising to put his favorite responses into a book. The result is Tribe of Mentors. The book starts with a topic that might influence how you read the rest of it: how to take advice from others and even yourself.

Keep reading for some insights on how to interpret and apply advice.

How to Take Advice

We’ll begin by explaining why you shouldn’t completely trust any piece of advice, no matter who gives it to you. Then, we’ll detail an alternative to taking advice from others: trusting your intuition. Finally, we’ll explore a counterpoint some of Ferriss’s experts offer: Continually challenge your intuitive assumptions rather than trusting them implicitly.

Don’t Fully Trust Any Advice

Some of Ferriss’s experts argue against blindly accepting any advice because no single piece of advice applies to everyone. Writer and speaker Julia Galef asserts that the exact same advice may be helpful to one person and unproductive to another who’s in a different situation. Learn to critically judge the advice you receive, tailoring it to your unique circumstances or rejecting it if it doesn’t apply to your situation.

Similarly, philanthropist John Arnold recommends largely ignoring the advice of others. He says that nearly everyone who gives advice is drawing solely from anecdotal experience. Consequently, they make statements that seem objective but are actually unique to their circumstances. There’s no single path to greatness, no matter what anyone says. Two people using vastly different strategies can both find wild success. For instance, one author may write a bestseller by forcing themselves to sit and write down every idea they have. Another may write their bestseller by taking frequent walks and only writing down ideas when they flow naturally.

Try the Opposite of Any Advice You Get

Like Galef and Arnold, psychiatrist Scott Alexander says that no advice is universally useful. However, he presents a more radical solution than obeying or ignoring advice: doing the exact opposite of that advice.

His logic is that people tend to gather in, or seek out, communities that affirm their preexisting beliefs. The advice you seek or receive is therefore likely to support your existing perspective and behavior, which is a problem if adopting an alternative perspective or pursuing a different course of action would be more beneficial. Additionally, as Arnold notes, people assume that their advice-givers’ subjective, anecdotal advice is universal wisdom, which leaves them unaware of their bias. Therefore, doing the opposite of the advice you hear could allow you to circumvent your group bias and improve your life by adding balance.

For example, imagine someone who’s too frugal, pinching pennies at every opportunity and never spending outside of their budget. They’ll naturally read money-saving blogs and books on frugal living. They’d likely live a happier life if they worried about money less and spent generously on friends, but all the advice they seek out will be the opposite of what they need to hear. In contrast, an irresponsible spender will naturally seek advice from influencers selling lavish luxury items—but they’d likely live a better life if they took advice on saving for the future.

Alexander notes that this idea doesn’t apply to all advice—some advice is good in every situation, like “always bring a parachute when you go skydiving. ” However, the thought experiment may encourage you to consider valuable ideas you otherwise wouldn’t have. This is one way you can apply critical thinking to the advice you receive, as Galef recommends.

How to Take Advice From Others & Your Own Intuition