How to Give Good Advice

By recognizing how communication actually works

Advice is a tricky thing to give. In an ideal situation, the advice giver says something that is good, accurate, and actionable. The advice receiver then internalizes the advice and uses it to their advantage in whatever situation that calls for it. This almost never happens, because advice is wrapped up in multiple layers of human psychology that makes it extremely unlikely to be followed.

Every now and then, you’ll come across an article that claims that the actual words in a conversation will only comprise some small percentage of what’s actually being communicated, and that’s true, even if we can’t determine exactly what percentage that is. And of course that percentage doesn’t hold constant for every single conversation.

“I love you” is one of the most recognizable and simple sentences out there. But depending on who you are, who the person you’re telling that to, and the situation in which you say it, the actual thing being communicated can differ wildly. That three word sentence means something completely different when a mother says that to her child as opposed to a lover saying that to their paramour.

Even in the same romantic relationship, “I love you” can mean different things depending on the stage of the relationship or the situation that the couple finds themselves in. Two young lovers in the beginning, when things are new and exciting and not bogged down by the inevitable realities of their situation could mean “I’m really excited to see where our relationship goes”. A year later with that same couple near the end of their relationship, “I love you” could very well mean “please don’t leave me”.

Context and Subtext Are More Important Than the Actual Text

The actual words being said only make up a small percentage of what’s actually being communicated. Or sometimes the actual words will be in direct contradiction of what is being communicated. “You’re such an asshole!” can be said in admiration and amazement, or it could mean exactly what those words are supposed to convey. It all depends. There’s so many factors to consider when it comes to communication that can change the meaning of what is literally being said. Let’s list them off:

1. The identities of the people within the conversation

2. The general mood in which the conversation is being had

3. The relationship of the people within the conversation

4. The tone in which the words are being said

5. The setting in which the conversation is taking place

6. Whether the conversation is taking place in private, in public, or in a semi-private place

By no means is that an exhaustive list, but you get the idea. I can tell certain friends “you’re such an asshole!”, and depending on how I say it and when I say it, it could be taken as a compliment. But, if I tell a complete stranger “you’re such an asshole”, they’ll probably take those words negatively, even if I had the exact same intent in either conversation. Same words, different interpretations, and possibly different meanings.

As you’re reading this article, everything I’ve said so far will either have been tremendously obvious or some kind of revelation. Or somewhere in between. I have some friends who take everything being said extremely literally, and some friends who don’t even really pay attention to what’s actually being said, and are much more in tune with the context in which the text is taking place rather than the actual text itself.

When people talk about socially awkward people or those with autism being unable to pick up on social cues in conversation, the unspoken assumption is that the literal words being spoken are much less important than just about everything else that exists within the conversation. Context, relationships, tone, situation, identity. All of these things play an important role in communication, but we all have different awareness and evaluations of these factors. That’s why communication is so hard.

Communication is hard, and giving good advice is even harder. Because good advice is persuasive communication. It’s much simpler to convey an idea or intent to another person, but to persuade another person to do something differently is an order of magnitude harder and more complex.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

At times I wonder about the effectiveness of my writing. The intent of this blog is to get you, the reader, to think more intentionally about yourself and the people and things around you. Maybe a lot of what I’m writing is obvious to you. Or maybe the people who really need to listen and internalize what I’m writing won’t ever sit through one of my two thousand word plus articles and I’m either just preaching to the choir or shouting into the void.

Writing can be effective and persuasive. The Bible, The Communist Manifesto, Harry Potter book series, How to Win Friends and Influence People, all of these written things have been tremendously influential and persuasive to vast swaths of the population across the decades. But lots of people can’t be bothered to read. For some people, effective and persuasive communication doesn’t include written words beyond the length of a slogan.

The Soviet-Afghan War is, in contemporary American culture, at most a footnote. The most famous and recognizable thing that came out of it, in most American minds, is the Afghan Girl.

Steve McCurry

That overwhelming feeling of tragic beauty within the photo captivated people across the country in a way that a thousand thinkpieces and news articles could never have done. A war raging halfway around the world, something a person might be barely aware of, suddenly takes on a new dimension when seeing that photo. Persuasive communication isn’t just words on paper or a conversation. It can be an image. A video. Or even an action.

Love Your Enemies

One of the least understood and internalized tenets of Christianity is to love your enemies.¹ It’s something that most Christians are aware of, but their understanding of it is similar to most American’s understanding of the Constitution, which is based more on a general vibe or feeling rather than an understanding of what the Constitution is or what it says. That is to say, we can recall the verse, but the intent and actual meaning of what it’s trying to communicate doesn’t really get through to us.

Proselytization is one of the core functions of any successful religion, and loving your enemies is one of the most effective ways to proselytize. Love goes beyond knowledge and empathy. Love is both of those things plus recognition and action. Being able to do something positive for a person who hates you does two things. You humanize your enemy and you are humanized by your enemy. That lays down the groundwork for persuasive communication.

When Mormons go on mission trips to destitute and remote places of the world, they do so to proselytize. And how do they do it? By doing things for the people they seek to convert. They build schools, churches, infrastructure, things that benefit the people within their mission (as hilariously portrayed in the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon).

Associated Press

Of course, the Mormons aren’t the only ones who do this. Every major religion has large sections of their church devoted to charity. The Catholic Church oversees the largest charity in the world. But what each of these religions understands is that persuasion and advice is not given in a vacuum. You have to have something more than the actual advice (or the good word, for that matter) to give for somebody to take you seriously.

Once in a Blue Moon

It’s a truism, but people are different, and the situation always shifts and changes. What works on one person won’t on another. Maybe it’ll work for them today, but it won’t work tomorrow. Being persuadable is a transitory phase, and the effectiveness of advice depends just as much on the person receiving it as the person giving it. There’s so many factors that go into it.

In the vast majority of instances, we’re more likely to trust our parents than a complete stranger. But sometimes a complete stranger can be more trustworthy than our parents. A stranger giving you an unsolicited compliment on your appearance is going to register a lot more for you than one from your parents. And in many instances, we trust our friends more than our parents. There are some things we can only talk about with our friends. There are some things we can only talk about with our partners. There are some things we can only talk about with our parents. How can you get through to all of them? Or any of them?

Maybe you need an impressive credential, or a deep and meaningful preexisting relationship, maybe you have to be the right person in the right place at the right time, or maybe you just need to buy the guy a subsidized vacation. But you can’t just bring the advice. Because otherwise you could just be concern trolling, or manipulative in some way that the person can’t quite put their finger on. I can tell my friends and family to invest in low cost, broad market index funds all day every day, but many of them will only do so when told by a financial advisor that they paid to see.

Ultimately, the key to giving good advice is to realize that it will only ever happen a handful of times in your life. It is damned difficult to convince somebody to do something else than what they’re currently doing even in the best of circumstances. You can certainly maximize your chances of giving good advice by taking into consideration all that I’ve written above, but it’s something that is incredibly difficult to do because it involves something that is out of your control: other people.

1. I’m agnostic, by the way. I’ve never read the Bible nor practiced Christianity. But I’ve come to my own understanding of the religion and how it’s practiced based on what little scripture I have read, the literature that has come out of Christendom, and the actions of Christians both nominal and devout.