On seeking advice and being an adult
What successful CEOs and meditation teachers have in common and why you shouldn't listen to them (or maybe you should).
Everyone wants advice, answers, shortcuts and hacks. Every other post on LinkedIn is advice of some kind — I’m told it works well. Same in the non-fiction section of a bookstore. Most book covers (including mine) scream: I’m an author, and I know what to do; therefore, buy this book so that you don’t feel lost.
As startup founders, we seek advice, and we give advice. I would like to share a reflection on when it’s appropriate, what it has to do with being an adult, and the parallels with teaching meditation.
And, since I like meditation, let’s start there.
All advice is context-dependent
This week, on a meditation teacher training course that I’m taking, Emily Horn invited us to reflect on why different meditation teachers have such wildly different styles and conflicting instructions.
Some teachers emphasise strict practice and discipline. Sit long hours! Don’t move! Work diligently!
Others emphasise connecting to joy and happiness. Meditation should be a joyful experience! Don’t punish yourself! Stop meditation before it turns into a chore!
Others offer maps and milestones. First, you do this and you experience that. Then, you do something else and when you experience something new, it’s a sign you’re on your way to enlightenment.
Yet others are adamant that even talking about enlightenment or striving for progress is wrong. You should just practice without any expectations of anything. Practice is the path and the goal, now and forever!
I can make three observations:
Esteemed and experienced teachers contradict each other a lot.
Their methods work as evidenced by their students’ progress.
There is a method to each approach. It’s not randomness.
Enough meditation, back to startups. These three observations also apply to how different founders run their companies:
Successful leaders contradict each other a lot in their advice.
Yet, they are clearly successful in various ways.
They all have their method; it’s not random stuff.
So, what’s going on, both in meditation and in the startupland? Who should you listen to and should you listen to anyone at all?
Both meditation and building startups are skills that are learned and applied in an infinite variety of contexts, starting with the person practicing the skill. This means that these skills are very hard to break down into smaller parts. They work well when approached and applied as a single whole within the specific and unique context of the person applying them. And this takes a lifetime to develop.
Should you continue reading? It depends
So, what it means for you? The implication is that the correct answer to whether any particular piece of advice will help you is “it depends”.
Should you raise VC money? It depends.
Should you put intense pressure on your team? It depends.
Should you fire fast? It depends.
Should you trust your gut or your data? It depends.
Should you use the lean startup approach? It depends.
Should you quit your business? It depends.
Take pretty much every piece of startup advice and you need to make a judgement on whether it is actually going to help you. That’s the hard bit. So… why listen to anyone then instead of thinking for yourself?
The reason to listen and learn from others is to see how they arrived at their lessons and how those lessons fit into their business, so that you can see how to arrive at your own lessons and understand why they work for you.
(Incidentally, this is why coaches generally refrain from giving advice: you’ll learn more and grow more if you find your own way forward).
Responsibility, humility and adulthood
The attitude you want to cultivate when listening to others’ advice combines responsibility and humility.
Humility comes from remembering that we know very little and have plenty to learn, in the grand scheme of things. It’s the opposite of arrogance of a know-it-all who thinks they’ve got all the answers. Intellectual humility allows us to be curious and learn faster.
Responsibility comes from remembering that you’re ultimately responsible for your life and your business. It’s so tempting to hope that some expert will give you the correct advice and you won’t have to be responsible for figuring out the answer.
Meditation teaches these two lessons in a direct way. The more you meditate, the more you realise how little you know about your mind — that helps with humility. And, you learn to drop the expectation that some mind state or experience, even enlightenment, will solve your problems — that’s responsibility. In a way, you sit for thousands of hours trying to get somewhere only to realise you won’t get anywhere. But that realisation is progress.
Something similar happens in coaching sometimes. A client pays lots of money to the coach hoping that the coach will do the hard work for them. The coach doesn’t do that work for the client. If the client leaves the coaching relationship having realised they’ve got to do the work themselves, that’s a big step forward. If they don’t realise it, they’ll be frustrated they paid money for “nothing”.
These two traits — responsibility and humility — separate adults from the young people. As a young person, I thought I knew how the world worked and was hoping someone else — parents, politicians, bosses, etc — would solve my problems. Becoming slightly older, I started to learn that I know very little and no one will do my work for me.
In conclusion
So, here are a few takeaways if you’re skipping to this part.
First, scrolling LinkedIn fantasizing that you’re getting smarter reading bite-sized, context-independent advice from someone else is a waste of time as you already suspect anyway.
Second, learning from experience of others matters, but understanding the context of their lives and work is crucial. Read books and longer case studies if you want to understand someone’s context. Ask deep questions during long conversations. Reflect on how it might apply to your life and why.
Third, take full responsibility for your life. Learn from others, but the moment you’re fantasizing that some book, or some course, or some advisor, or some coach, or someone other than you is going to actually do your most important work, you’re deluding yourself.
Fourth, remember that different approaches work equally well in different circumstances. Just like there are many ways to teach meditation, there are many ways to be a leader, run a business, make money, be happy — or whatever. Study them, and then find your own — back to responsibility. This is one of the ways to understand timeless advice for leaders from Warren Bennis:
Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself, it is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.
What you said is very correct, while advice can be valuable, it's not one-size-fits-all. We all need to navigate our own paths, taking responsibility for our decisions and staying humble about what we don't know. It's about finding our own way, even if it means learning from others along the journey.
What would you say Evgeny