Some Good Advice
What I read: The Best Advice You’ve Ever Received (and Are Willing to Pass On) by David Pogue. Published in The New York Times April 30, 2019.
Advice on how to live a better life abounds. Some if it is crappy. Some of it is good. Some of it is great. Interestingly, into which of those three categories it falls depends to a great extent on who is receiving the advice and their current life situation at the time. One size does not always fit all.
But some advice seems to resonate more strongly with large numbers of people. These are the quotations and aphorisms that rise like cream to the top of the advice pool because their applicability seems universal. These are the ones that fascinate me most.
In the article by Pogue, he offers numerous bits of great advice from those he queried. Two of the suggestions from the Work Life section jumped out at me.
“Your job is to make your boss look good.” According to Kim Fitzsimons, “It’s amazing how well this works in guaranteeing a smooth and trusting working relationship.”
Good advice, but I’d take it a step further.
Your job is to make your boss and your entire team look good. As a manager, I know I’m nothing without my team. My job is as much to make them look good as the other way around. Most of them have far deeper knowledge about many of the intricacies of our organization’s day-to-day job functions than I do. As for my boss, I want to make him look good because he’s a good manager and respectful of me. It’s an empowering reciprocal relationship. All good work relationships should function this way.
“Greet people with their first names. They’re delighted.” That advice came from Gail Steele’s father, “a much loved and deeply respected dentist. I try to practice this wisdom day to day, in my work as an occupational therapist and among my friends and acquaintances.”
So true! I recall first reading this advice in Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People.
Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
It’s true. When someone remembers my name, it makes a positive impression. Without fail I’ve noticed a pleased expression on someone’s face when I remember their name after time has passed from our first meeting. We do indeed like to hear our own names. However, as someone who has historically found it difficult to remember people’s names, there are two strategies I abide by.
First, if the situation allows, upon first meeting someone I try to repeat the person’s name at least three times during our initial conversation. After being introduced to Bob I might say “Bob, in what part of the city do you live?” or “I agree with you Bob.” And so on. I’ve tried every trick in the book to remember names and this one seems to work best for me.
Second, I try to honestly admit when I do not remember someone’s name. I will try to couch my request for their name so that it’s clear I really do want to remember it. “I apologize, we had a great conversation when we first met but I do not recall your name. Please remind me so I don’t forget again.” I’ve yet to meet someone offended I did not remember their name when asking for it again is done politely and with sincerity.
The article is worth a read and contains some great life advice.
Part of my fascination with life advice generally is learning what advice my friends and acquaintances find the most compelling and useful. To that end, I recently posted the following to my social media followers.
Tell me the best advice you have ever received. Your response may be part of a future article but without quotation attribution to ensure anonymity for those who want it.
I received more than 400 responses! Turns out just about everyone has some advice they’ve received that has served them well. There were so many great words of wisdom among the post’s comments that it was difficult to cull a standout few to present to you here. But after scanning the responses I picked out a few that resonate with me. Perhaps you’ll find them equally noteworthy. I’ve annotated each with my own thoughts.
Here’s one that I need to take to heart myself.
Never give up the opportunity to keep your mouth shut.
I’m a talker. Someone might have a difficult time getting a word in during a conversation with me. It’s an awful habit and it’s an ongoing struggle to restrain myself from spewing forth words before the other person has finished their thought.
And it’s not just about letting the other person have their due time in a conversation. Typically, you’ll learn more about a person, problem, situation, or whatever the conversation is about if you listen more and talk less. People appreciate knowing others have an interest in what they have to say. It’s human nature. So, I’m trying to shut up more often.
If you wouldn’t take someone’s advice, don’t take their criticism.
There have been times when someone’s criticism of me stings. Yet, when I think about the source of the criticism, sometimes I don’t even respect the person criticizing.
For example, think about all the trolls we see on social media. How many of them do you truly respect? Are the same few consistently harsh people commenting negatively over and over, regardless of the topic? We’ve all seen this happen. So, only consider criticism from people you respect. Let the rest, to use a phrase I first heard said by the fabulous drag queen Jinkx Monsoon, roll off you like “water off a duck’s back.” (Merriam-Webster definition)
Expectations are planned failures.
At first, this one might be confusing. We all have expectations. Are they all failures? No. But I think the point of this advice is important when we dig a little deeper.
For those of us who do a lot of planning, we often set goals we want to reach. Reference any of the plethora of the avowed self-improvement experts and many, probably most, suggest the settings of goals to get ahead in life. The problem arises when life takes us on a different path. Few paths in life are straight lines. At best, most of life is a meandering road, with many possible forks, which may or may not land us at the destination we originally envisioned. Sometimes the goals shift, or changes entirely, and that’s okay.
The same can be said for any type of plan. As the rephrased saying from Robert Burns’ poem, “To a Mouse,” suggests, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
People we know exist in our lives with preconceived notions we have about them as well. Rather than decide upon specific expectations of a person, get to know them before formulating such impressions. Often our initial expectations about someone don’t serve us optimally. Take a pause before deciding what you expect from someone.
Hold on to expectations (goals, plans, impressions of people, and so on) lightly or you will feel like a failure when those expectations invariably fall short.
Here’s one more.
Friends will get you through times without love much better than love will get you through times without friends.
When I read this one, I immediately remembered a wonderful article I recently read in The Atlantic, What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was At The Center Of Life? In the article writer Rhaina Cohen contends that perhaps our culture has the lovers versus friends priorities backwards and that maybe we should elevate friendships to a higher priority. Cohen suggests that maybe it’s the deep friendships in our lives that can best sustain us long term. As I reflect on my own life, I agree with this sentiment.
Cohen writes the following about two people who avoided the norm of building one’s life around romantic relationships and instead built theirs around friendship.
A friendship like theirs, which has spanned nearly their entire adulthood and functioned as the nucleus of their support system, raises a fundamental question about how we recognize relationships: On what basis do we decide that a partnership is “real”? It’s a question the journalist Rebecca Traister poses in her book All the Single Ladies, when she examines the central role that friends often play in single women’s lives. “Do two people have to have regular sexual contact and be driven by physical desire in order to rate as a couple? Must they bring each other regular mutual sexual satisfaction? Are they faithful to each other?” she writes. “By those measures, many heterosexual marriages wouldn’t qualify.” At the same time, people who have intimate friendships are eager to declare their devotion. The social theorist bell hooks writes that women who have such close friendships “want these bonds to be honored cherished commitments, to bind us as deeply as marriage vows.” Companionate romantic relationships and committed friendships appear to be varieties of the same crop, rather than altogether different species.
Hopefully the few bits of life advice I plucked from my post’s comments were interesting to you. Since there are hundreds more, it’s likely I will offer more of their wisdom in future posts. For now, whatever advice you follow, may it lead to a happy and fulfilled existence on our planet.