Every now and then, I have to be introspective and check myself when I know I’m being closed minded and stubborn. I had one of those moments last week after I got two pretty solid pieces of advice from two different friends, at separate times, on the same day.
You may remember my story of The Brutal Advice That Changed My Life, and how much I attribute a single piece of harsh advice with helping me make changes for the better in my life. In short, twenty years ago, a friend of mine told me that I was the type of person who allowed things to happen to them instead of making things happen for them. Sometimes I wonder if I would have made the same life choices if that friend hadn’t essentially bitch slapped some sense into me with that brutal comment.
Back to last week though. One friend gave me career advice, and the other friend gave me love advice. Both unsolicited. These friends are trustworthy people whom I admire and value, and neither of them would have any reason to wish harm or ill will on me. But I initially dismissed them both when they (separately) offered up unsolicited advice about my life.
Why? Because sometimes I think I know everything there is to know about myself. Sometimes I’m so focused on what I’m doing at the time that I don’t notice what’s happening around me. Sometimes I’m just afraid that someone offering advice (especially unsolicited advice) is wrong — or even worse, that they’re right and I’ve been doing things wrong. Sometimes I’m just straight up resistant to change.
“There’s great value in seeing yourself from the outside in…”
Every day, at the end of every episode of my Master Your Mission podcast, I ask my listeners to leave me a review. I tell them that, “Reviews make me a better entrepreneur, and they help this podcast.”
There’s great value in seeing yourself or your business from the outside in — through the eyes of someone else.
Soliciting reviews and feedback is not a new concept for businesses. Businesses who do it right, not only use reviews for social proof when selling their products or services, but they also use reviews to find opportunities for improvement. If you aren’t already, you should be doing this in your business.
But why don’t we do the same in our personal lives? Why are we so resistant to taking advice and using it to find opportunities for improvement as individuals? If reviews and feedback can help us in business, surely it can also help us be better people.
“…feedback and advice from the people we trust in our personal lives can be as valuable as reviews can be in business.”
After initially rejecting the advise my friends tried to give me, I reconsidered and decided to incorporate both pieces of advice into my life. Both of those friends turned out to be right.
The advice that I was given last week made me realize that feedback and advice from the people we trust in our personal lives can be as valuable as reviews can be in business. When we’re resistant to that advice, we can miss opportunities to make the improvements we need to make in order to grow.
Of course, not all advice is great advice and not all advisers have your best interests in mind. Knowing when to accept advise and when to reject it is just as important as being open to it in the first place. I’ll cover how to distinguish bad advice from good advice and how to know who to take advice from in my next article.
So be open to taking advice and feedback from those people in your life who might be able to give you a view of what it looks like from the outside in. You’ll learn more about yourself than you already know, and you’ll likely find new ways to make improvements in your life that can help you get to that next level you’re trying to reach.