Contradictory Advice vs Contextual Feedback

1/ On Linkedin you can’t avoid seeing advice people have for business, health, leadership, etc…and please let me emphasize (or foot stomp) that this is a great/wonderful thing. This website/platform is a place of positivity. The advice however can be contradictory and so my advice is that most advice is good advice but the best advice is contextual and focused on the individual/company and the environment.

2/ I’ve been thinking more about how to properly give advice now that I’m trying my best to help my two kids (or as I sometimes jokingly refer to them our biological startups) grow up. As a quick aside, the traits I try to constantly remind them to embrace are the 6Hs. I jokingly tell them that if we had a Hsia family crest it would include these H-themes:

- (Embrace) Hard work
- (Live a) Healthy life
- (Be) Humble
- (Be) Honest
- (Use your) Head
- (Have and use your) Heart

On the flip side, I’m constantly seeking advice/feedback and on the occasion that someone asks for my advice, I typically do two things: 1) provide a healthy bit of disclaimer on what I recommend and 2) try to ask questions to better understand the nature of the advice they are seeking.

3/ On Linkedin and in my own readings I’ve seen the following contradictory advice from people that I respect or admire:

Good is the enemy of great - Jim Collins

But on the flip side, there’s “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week” — George Patton.

Or what I have often muttered to myself: "Done is better than perfect.”

4/ There are also these viewpoints from billionaires on when and whether to be contrarian: 
“The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.” - Peter Thiel

“You just have to remember that contrarians are usually wrong.” - Jeff Bezos when talking about Peter Thiel (https://lnkd.in/gwuWhYkc)

5/ Then there’s also contradictory advice as to when to give people a second chance or not.

“When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” - Maya Angelou

There are a good number of aphorisms/quotes about giving people a second chance or hoping that others give you a second chance. Another fantastic quote from Maya Angelou from the perspective of all of us who are constantly trying to improve ourselves:

"I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better." - Maya Angelou

6/ I hope others find Linkedin to be a fantastic source of inspiration and advice. But I also encourage everyone to think about the opposite viewpoint when the advice is very generalized to best understand when certain feedback applies to the situation at hand.

#startups #leadership #business #context #linkedin #bestadvice #people #work