What is the proper way to give advice when people ask me for it?

[Dan Arnautu]

So, a lot of people started to come to me (friends, family, people on the internet) for advice these past two years, as I've grown tremendously. Even though I know that their problems are solvable and know how I WOULD SOLVE THEM, I rarely know where to begin when it comest to THEIR life situation, because people are such complex creatures.

They also resist the solutions and come up with many excuses not to do it. If I bring up meditation to solve drepression for example (and first explain how depression really works and their mental filter that assigns meaning to situations), they come up with things like: "It may work for your personality type, but not for mine" or "there is x and y reason" etc.

More often than not, there is not just one thing to be fixed, and as the fixing is also not easy, it's hard for them to follow up on the advice I give them.

One method I figured out can be used effectively in this case is let them suffer until they are willing to listen. And that makes me avoid many headaches.

 

Now, regarding the problem of where to begin when people come to you with a difficult situation, should I start to learn life coaching and ask more questions instead of giving people techniques to solve their problems? I don't aim to be a life coach, but people often come to me for help.

I genuinely want to help people when they come to me for advice and not just give them a technique and then they don't understand well enough or that they forget about and drop one week later.

@Leo Gura Would appreciate your input as you are a certified life coach. 

Edited November 26, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Serge]

Try to make them think and contemplate.

Instead of spoiling the answers to them and giving the 1-2-3-4 step techniques - ask them questions. When you ask a person a question, you make his mind work. When you tell a person the answer - you make him remember the sound of the words. It's like instead of teaching the child to solve math problems, you give them the number of the page at which he can find the answers.

So your dialogue might look like:

FRIEND: Can you help me leave smoking?

YOU: Why do you think you want to leave smoking?

FRIEND: Because it's unhealthy.

YOU: And you smoke anyways. Why you've come to me if you already have a reason to quit smoking ?

FRIEND: I don't know. It just doesn't work (shows desperation).

And THIS is the moment when he is much more open to listening than before. You have to learn to feel when your words are going to penetrate his mind and when they're not. There are certain states of mind when we're truly listening and embodying information, not just hearing words and trying to integrate them into our current paradigm. If you want to help someone, you have to make them want to change their paradigm.

Because you see, you tell him a technique and how he should do it, but he doesn't have the DEEP understanding of that technique. He's just going to follow your advice as a matter of how he has adapted it into his paradigm. And it will never work! Because the paradigm remained the same!

Edited November 26, 2017 by Serge

[Dan Arnautu]

@Serge Thanks for the answer. All sounds good. Should I read some life coaching books to know which questions to ask when?

EDIT: Nevermind. I read the reviews Leo made on the life coaching books (from his book list) and found out what to read. Should have done that before posting. But any other advice is still welcome.

Edited November 26, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Joseph Maynor]

As Leo says in one of his videos: Often it’s not knowledge that people lack, it’s the motivation to take the actions that they know they should be taking that people lack.  Can you help them with that block?

Edited November 26, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Dan Arnautu]

@Joseph Maynor That's the hardest lol. I would argue that what people need is discipline, not motivation. 

[Joseph Maynor]

19 minutes ago, Dan Arnautu said:

@Joseph Maynor That's the hardest lol. I would argue that what people need is discipline, not motivation. 

Dissolving blocks is where the sustainable work happens.  I still have blocks that I am working on myself.  But I have way fewer blocks than I used to.  A block is an internal resistance, often a combination of limiting-beliefs, fear, and laziness.

Edited November 26, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Dan Arnautu]

@Joseph Maynor Yup. That's why I said it's hard to give advice. You don't know where to start. People have many blocks you may not know about.

[Source_Mystic]

Most teachers do not teach directly and there is a very good reason for that. They want the student to come to the conclusion themselves. They give the student processes that points them in the right direction.   When the student comes to that realization it is valued more because it is their direct experience and it is internalized. In this way they trick your ego into thinking it was your idea.

 Giving people the answers rarely works because even if they know what needs to be done the subconscious mind has built in all types of defenses and offenses to trick the person into the same patterns of behavior.   They will rarely see through that take action even if they do it is short lived. 

Masters , Gurus , life coaches , mentors and guides teach from  from example then engage the student in a processes that brings him to realizations then and only then do they try to motivate the student and give training.  Most teaching is  a lot of repetition  to get a realization.  Until that happens it is a shit show.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Source_Mystic

[Matteo]

On 11/26/2017 at 2:54 PM, Dan Arnautu said:

So, a lot of people started to come to me (friends, family, people on the internet) for advice these past two years, as I've grown tremendously. Even though I know that their problems are solvable and know how I WOULD SOLVE THEM, I rarely know where to begin when it comest to THEIR life situation, because people are such complex creatures.

They also resist the solutions and come up with many excuses not to do it. If I bring up meditation to solve drepression for example (and first explain how depression really works and their mental filter that assigns meaning to situations), they come up with things like: "It may work for your personality type, but not for mine" or "there is x and y reason" etc.

More often than not, there is not just one thing to be fixed, and as the fixing is also not easy, it's hard for them to follow up on the advice I give them.

One method I figured out can be used effectively in this case is let them suffer until they are willing to listen. And that makes me avoid many headaches.

 

Now, regarding the problem of where to begin when people come to you with a difficult situation, should I start to learn life coaching and ask more questions instead of giving people techniques to solve their problems? I don't aim to be a life coach, but people often come to me for help.

I genuinely want to help people when they come to me for advice and not just give them a technique and then they don't understand well enough or that they forget about and drop one week later.

@Leo Gura Would appreciate your input as you are a certified life coach. 

I found that many times, people don't ask me directly for a solution or a technique. Nevertheless, I have the impulse of giving them solutions that I think could work for them. The more I realize that I don't really know in what specific way people should help themselves, the less desire I have for giving them solutions. Then, I usually try to ask them the kind of questions they may not ask to themselves (without being too invasive), so that they can realize something on their own.