This article is dedicated to the type of people who advise you. Most importantly, it is all about why these people are wrong and you should run away and find your inner voice. As much as I like learning from experience of others, I don’t think people appreciate the importance of giving advice. It is a sacred bond between the person giving advice and the one receiving it. This takes someone being vulnerable and asking you something. Unless we treat it with utmost care, it is better not to do anything at all
Types of people who advise you
We all have various personalities in life. Even the ones we seek advice from vary depending on the state of mind. But when we ask for this suggestion, we must be aware of the type of people and their biases as well. In this article, we will talk about the characteristics of these people and what we should be aware of while seeking advice – To be yourself in a world that’s trying to make you into someone else
The Optimistic Advice Giver
Everything is going to be alright!
These people think that their job is to give empty support. Sometimes, they think that their job is to motivate you and go to the emotional extreme. If someone tells me that everything is going to be alright, I need to know how and why. Just the empty word of things will be alright doesn’t sound as support anymore. In such a type of advice, don’t forget your rational voice that keeps saying -maybe things will not be alright. But I want to make it right, what can I do about it?
The Sympathetic Ear and Listener
I like this type of people because they are interested in the problem. As long as they are actively listening to you, these people can make a difference and help you think more proactively by asking the right questions. You can also find good quality coaches who do this – 4 Types of Mentors to build your Startup. They can play a powerful role as a coach and help you figure out what to do without saying much. Hold on to them as they can guide you in the right direction.
The Punisher and I told you so
This is the tough love person – they will go to the rational extreme to prove that they warned you about the problem. They aren’t easy to deal with because they can be rational and hurtful although they don’t mean to be. But the number one thing to be careful about is that they can blame the victim in the process. Don’t look for empathy or support in this type of people who advise you.
The Social conformist – People who advise
These types of people who advise follow the rules and want you to follow them as well. They will look at everyone else, and the influence of their society and find a way to ask you to follow this route. This can be dangerous because they might add their insecurity to you – It takes nothing to join the crowd, but everything to stand alone!.
But this can weaken your position significantly if you blindly follow them. Instead, find a way to avoid them and run away if you can.
The Expert Advisor
No matter what your troubles are, I have the solution!
I have a different word for this kind of person- Egomaniac! Seriously! Come on!
How can one person have a solution to every kind of problem you face in life? They cannot have all answers or all solutions. If they did, they would never have any troubles in life at all.
These are the kind of people who will never connect to you, nor will they understand what you are going through. In other words, it is best to avoid them.
However, if you still want to consult the experts, consult the experts in those particular fields.
There is a beauty in extrapolation. If you have overcome a challenge in your life, any challenge at all, it means that you can overcome this too.
All you need is to get into that mindset, try and understand how you can use the same emotions which you used to solve something else.
And if you need to go to an expert for that, go for it. You need the solution, and your solution sometimes becomes more important than your pride!
The Empathetic advise giver
What you do speaks so loudly that i cannot hear what you say
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is perhaps the best kind of advice you can ever find in this world. The world has enough talkers, the ones who talk right from the mole to a mountain. Some people promise the world and deliver a dime! But some fascinating people have fought their way through these challenges in life.
These are the ones who understand what it means to be down and without much support. These are the people who can sympathize with you. These are the ones who can lend you a helping hand, and guide you in the right way. And these are the ones you need to hold close to cos their advice is going to matter to you! And that advice is going to make sense.
6 People Who Don’t Deserve Your Stories – Brene Brown
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The second type is the one I need sometimes … :)
He he, they sure provide the cushion effect :)
:D
We are all familiar with all the six types… :-P I’m okay with No.1 and 6…actually we need such people….others, well…you can understand.. :-D
He he.. Bingo! :D..
I would love the empathizers! There are so few of them out there ..
PS . Most importantly, I dislike (hate is too strong a word) the second type… they literally dig into your problems on pretence of help while its just boosting their own non-existent sense of self, pleased that they knew about our problems /weakness …They ACTUALLY feel better /greater by knowing about raw spots of other people … And Am trying hard not to be judgemental ..:(
He he he :D .. My dislike goes to the Experts :D .. Yeah that’s there too, it kinds gives an emotional uplift to a highly insecure person and the type who take pleasure in someone else’s misery.
It is interesting to see how emotions work in such multitude of ways. Kinda fun and kinda creepy too :D ..
:)
cool post… the types are so well defined… i am generally not seeking it as i am Always in one hole or other of my own making and have become used to it :P but i refrain from giving too as i feel very small saying something when i have not ‘actually’ experienced an ounce of what the other person must have felt…. Yes one can try to put oneself in same shoes .. still giving advice is the most humbling thing … I can only BE WITH the person… more of like ” lets face it together and ‘try’ to sort it together ” Donno :/
Thank you Kokila. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this post :). Kinda fun remembering all those faces while writing this one. I must admit, quite a lot of them came to my mind and a couple of times I even stopped writing to smile and a couple more for a hearty laugh :D ..
I completely agree and have total respect to this approach Kokila. I keep finding myself too small to give out any advice to anyone. The one thought that keeps driving me though is that I can try and think of a story or a similar experience in my life which I can share with and maybe share my understanding as well. This way if there is anything at all that is useful, then it would be a great advice. If not, it will still be a wonderful story with some laughs :). I think giving advice is a very tricky thing. If only more people thought like you, life would have been so much simpler :)
Very true and well put Vinay… First I too had a hearty laugh after reading your initial lines … just by imagining you laughing on those faces :D :P …
And you have used these words ‘sharing , similar experiences, helping .. ‘ which makes the positive side of the coin named advice. Yes this is the type i can relate to :)
Thank you Kokila :).. I have always found these human interactions very exciting to say the least and the greatness showed in each one of these simple instances have such brilliant repercussions.. Makes me find an immense amount of respect to this very quality of humanity..
Very well said. The list certainly contains those people who advice. However, Optimists do give a better mental torch to the problem and make the person see light behind the tunnel.
Thank you Fayaz. I agree, optimists sure show the way in which the effort should be focused. I do have a great amount of respect to these optimists in our life. They sure know how to look at things and how to keep ourselves in the best state of mind.
There is nothing stronger than the motivation and push of hope :)
hehe….. Enjoyed the post. Rightly said about the types of adviser. :)
He he. Thanks Ravish :).. I wonder where i would stand as a type of adviser. I would rather be a consultant :D
i am tempted to quote from Three Musketeers, “in general, people only ask for advice that they may not follow it; or, if they should follow it, that they may have somebody to blame for having given it”
Thank you I B Arora :). He he, Alexadre Dumas sure knows the reasons behind an advice. I think I do that too. Most times it is easy to say that I did this cos someone asked me to :D ..
But yeah on the other end, I think it is fun to take our own advice. There is that feel of responsibility which makes the commitment and ownership a lot stronger and easier :) .
Thank you for the quote, I really liked it :)
WOW!! This one is super good post… like always :) I guess I fall in the first type and that’s why people sometimes stop sharing their problems with me. Because, they either want super suggestions or someone who can just listen and don’t say anything. Anyways, right one suits the right ones. Thanks for spreading the awareness Vinay :)
Thank you Tara :). I personally love writing this post and I think we all have had the opportunity to meet each one of these advisers in our life and I think the best part is we can look back at them and smile and see how much we have progressed and what roles each one of them have played in taking us where we are today :).
I think we all need a very strong optimist, the hope they portray is amazing to say the least, it gives the purpose and a way out of the fear and a constant soothing feeling that somehow something is going to work our way and everything is going to be alright :)
Nice post Vinay, I do personally feel that I sometimes hate the expert types of people. I personally think that no one can be an expert of all the fields, and what goes wrong if you do accept that you don’t know about somethings? But there are some people out here who think that they knows everything and feel ashamed if someone came to know that they don’t know something…
Thank you Alok..He he.. I hate the experts too, esp when they have no idea what they are talking about and they go on ranting about what you should do and what advice you should take and what not.. Most times when these people start talking, I really keep wondering if they really mean what they say or they are just saying it for the sake of saying it. Either ways, I have found this kind of advice absolutely useless :D