Sign in Subscribe
1 min read Uncategorized

Let me give you some advice

When friends are looking to vent their problems, a lot of us tend to jump straight into giving them advice. You know where they’re going wrong, so why not save them a lot of time and just tell them? The problem with this is that it doesn’t work.
Let me give you some advice
Photo by Bruno Aguirre / Unsplash

When friends are looking to vent their problems, a lot of us tend to jump straight into giving them advice.  You know where they’re going wrong, so why not save them a lot of time and just tell them?

The problem with this is that it doesn’t work.  As soon as you give the advice, you’ve created a hierarchy where you’re the sage and they’re the lowly idiot.  And despite your good intentions, your friend will mentally shut you down.  If you had just listened, you could have slowly moved your friend towards the right answer.  They would have learned the lesson on their own (or so they think), and it would have been a hundred times more powerful than you just telling them what to do.

The same thing happens in advertising.  A company tells us what to think instead of letting us figure it out on our own.  It’s patronizing, so we block it out.

That’s why marketing is different.  Advertising is forcing your message onto someone, while marketing is about listening and gently guiding people to find answers on their own.

Even if they wouldn’t have found those answers without your help.

Published by:

Charlie Hoehn

You might also like...

Jul
08
The Best Diet: It’s Not What You Eat, It’s Who You Eat With

The Best Diet: It’s Not What You Eat, It’s Who You Eat With

We like to obsess over what we eat. And we’re not wrong. Diet matters. But I believe friendship and community are more important. Take the Mediterranean diet, for example. Some nutritionists call this “the ideal diet.” Lots of vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans. Moderate amounts of meat. What they usua
2 min read
May
08
This is Why You Need to Call a Friend Every Week

This is Why You Need to Call a Friend Every Week

Four years ago, I made a really good decision: I created a Google calendar event for 2:30p on a Wednesday afternoon, to call my friend Jeff. Then I set it to “Repeat weekly.” Jeff lives in California and I live in Texas, so we rarely get to hang out. I hate email, he hates Facebook, so we rarely mes
2 min read
Oct
02
How This 27-Year Old Woman Ended Her Panic Attacks

How This 27-Year Old Woman Ended Her Panic Attacks

In the past few years, over 13,000 people have taken my free 10-Day Anxiety Fix email course. I get emails every week from readers who used the course to improve their mental health. But one email recently stood out. A woman named “Mary” sent me this message: It’s been a month! I have never been so
2 min read
Jan
10
How to Sell a Million Copies of Your Non-Fiction Book

How to Sell a Million Copies of Your Non-Fiction Book

Less than 0.003% of books published will ever sell a million copies. This article will show you exactly what it takes to be in that 0.003%.
15 min read
Sep
19
Best Reviews of Play for a Living

Best Reviews of Play for a Living

My new book Play for a Living just went live on Amazon! Ever since our Kickstarter campaign ended, I’ve been eager to get the book into readers’ hands. So far, people seem to be genuinely loving it. On a level that I haven’t seen with my previous books. There are three reviews, in particular, that h
5 min read

Member discussion