Consider the Source Before You Follow the Advice

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My name is Julie Chenell, and I explore the raw, often overlooked truths of what it takes to succeed in business and in life.

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Hi everyone, this is Julie Chenell from Million Dollar Grit. Welcome back to another episode. Today we're talking about taking advice and considering the source before you swallow. The advice that they are giving you. The worst business advice that you will probably ever get will not come from a troll or a hater. It's going to come from someone that is an authority, that you've hired, possibly a collaborator, a colleague. It'll sound confident, it'll sound polished, and it will be completely wrong. This is the danger of taking advice that sounds like a good idea at the time, and then you look back and realize, hmm, that wasn't a great idea. And how do you distinguish that ahead of time? Can you distinguish that ahead of time? I want to talk for a minute about the idea of good things being bad ideas. I think there's a belief we all have that if something is not good for me, I'm going to notice right away because it's going to have the hallmark of badness, right? If someone comes to my door and they have a gun in their hand, I am going to very, very quickly realize that is a bad person, don't open the door. But if I go to the door and there is a police officer, and he has a gun, but he is a police officer with a badge, I'm going to say, "Oh, okay, you know, he's probably safe," but he could in fact not be safe. And that is the nature of things that truly do us harm are the things that don't look harmful. If you've ever struggled with shiny object syndrome, you'll know what this feels like. Let's say you go to bed, you can't sleep, you have this brilliant idea at 10:00 PM at night, you get out of bed, you go to your laptop, you plan out the whole thing, and then the next morning you've completely pivoted your business into this new idea. If you actually thought that idea was bad, you would not pivot. It's precisely because you think it's a good idea that you are pivoting, and then later on you realize, "Man, that was not a good idea. I shouldn't have done that." I always tell my clients that ideas are guilty until proven innocent, and I know we live in a country in the United States where you are innocent until proven guilty. I would say we need to flip that when it comes to ideas and advice. It is always wrong first before it is right, and you might think to yourself, Well, that sounds a little cynical, and I don't mean it is wrong as in write it off and don't listen, but there's far more noise than ever before when it comes to tactics and marketing strategies and business growth and those types of things. And if you don't take that, you are going to be looking at a string of ideas, a string of tactics, a string of coaches, and everything's going to look good and confident and polished and right, but there's probably really only 1 or 2 things that are right for you, which means percentage-wise, most of those things are wrong. This is why we want to go guilty until proven innocent when it comes to ideas and advice. One other thing I want to state before we start talking about solutions is that there are two schools of thought around coaches in business, right? There's one school of thought which says the coach doesn't have to have accomplish the thing you want to accomplish in order to be a good coach. And that would be kind of like a coach of an Olympic athlete. You know, possibly the coach of Michael Phelps didn't actually swim in all the races Michael Phelps swam in and didn't win all the same gold medals, but he's still a fantastic coach, right? On the other side of the spectrum, you have situations where, you know, And I would agree with this, which is like, why would you, as like, let's say a mom of 5, take business advice from someone who's never had children? That's going to be very, very difficult to assimilate. And they are going to tell you things that are not going to work with your lifestyle, and they are not going to understand why they don't work with your lifestyle because they've never lived in your shoes. And those— both these things can be true. Both— you can say, I don't want to take advice from someone who has not lived my experience,, and you could say, "The coach that I hired doesn't have to have walked my exact path in order to be a good coach," which I know is annoying because what I've basically set up so far is that most ideas and most things that harm you and harm your business don't actually look bad, and you've got two competing hypotheses about how you would take advice, and that most ideas and most advice are wrong or guilty and not until proven innocent. What are we to do here? And this is where I want to try to give some tactical, practical advice. Number 1: Never forget that confidence is the easiest and cheapest thing to fake. And it is, it is uncanny sometimes when I see the certainty in other people. I think As my personality, I tend to be a doubter. That's my natural tendency, and I struggle with confidence sometimes. And so when I'm confident, I'm right, and I believe that everybody acts that way, whereas I don't show confidence unless I'm almost 99% sure I'm correct. And there are a lot of personalities that project more confidence the more uncertain they feel. And so if I assume my personality on everybody, and I've done this, I've stood in rooms in conferences and I've listened to people talk and they speak with so much certainty and confidence, and I think to myself, I would never have that confidence unless I was certain. They must be certain. And I have been wrong. I have been wrong so many times, almost 100% of the time. I have been wrong. I have followed someone, I have taken their advice, I have spent money, and I have been wrong. That track record isn't awesome. However, what I will say to that point is, if you remember that confidence is the easiest thing to fake, the hardest thing to fake is a track record. And a track record of consistency, stability, is very, very difficult to fake. If someone has been around the block for the last 10 years, has stayed relatively stable, hasn't switched on you 1,700 times, has been pretty honest, has been the same in person as they are online, has been as transparent as they can be— that is very, very difficult to fake. And that is the signal that you want to look for. Because let's say that you find someone like that, and you're like, "Okay, I'm going to listen to them," but maybe they haven't done exactly what you want to do, but because of all of those other things, you know that they're a trustworthy advisor because they'll tell you when they don't know, or they'll tell you, "Hey, I'm not sure about this, so let's try this." Right? And that is one thing I wanna say is confidence is cheap, track record is expensive. And think about that. The second thing that you wanna ask is the difference between data and feeling. When advice comes at you from a coach, are they creating a feeling inside of you, or are they presenting you with some sort of data? Data is usually worth a look. It doesn't mean you have to take the advice, but it is worth a look. A feeling with no data is oftentimes some sort of projection, and you do not have to act on projected feelings onto you that are not actually yours. That's usually a sign that that confidence is getting kind of projected onto you to evoke some sort of action. Whereas data that comes with a feeling is very different. Okay, let me give you an example. Let's say that I am working with a client and I am trying to explain to them that the weekly webinar is one of the highest leverage activities they can do. I am very confident in this, and I'm all— and I also have a track record. I have both of these things. I am not going to say this unless I'm very confident that this is in fact a very high-leverage activity. If all I do is do that, I'm going to project a feeling. They maybe will be excited, or maybe they'll be resistant, or whatever feeling, right? I'm going to project a feeling. But if I can come with data and I can say, here's this person, here's this person, here's this person, here's my data, now there is more stability behind that confidence. That's that track record we're talking about, and it's going to be worth a look. And so even if you're uncomfortable,, it may be a sign to move through. The second thing, or the third thing I think at this point, that I suggest you do is just create a 24-hour hold. If there's a conversation that you have with a client— not a client, a collaborator or a coach— and it rattles you, just let 24 hours go by. I read somewhere don't remember where, that emotions, if you don't attach stories to them, last about 90 seconds. I don't know if I believe that because I've had emotions that lasted way longer than 90 seconds. But the theory goes that an actual emotion, a feeling, anger, sadness, fear, all that will really only last for a couple minutes unless you attach a story to it. If you attach a story to it, which is most of us do, we have a thought behind it, we catastrophize, we make a judgment, right? If we attach something to it, then that emotion can last for decades if we want to. But the idea is, if you are having a conversation with someone that's activating you and you give it 24 hours, that gives enough time for that initial feeling to sort of settle. And if you can work really hard to not attach too many stories to it, you're gonna be way more clear the next day than you will be in that moment. But it's very hard if you're the type of person who wants to take action quickly or wants to take action to avoid feelings. You're going to want to act immediately. Okay. The other thing that I would say when it comes to advice is that competing advice can get very confusing very quickly. Once you have sussed out who has got a good track record versus just confidence, you've had some experience, they've brought data to the table, not just feelings, you have maybe occasionally been activated in conversations, but you let the 24 hours go by, at that point, competing advice can get very, very confusing. And I'm thinking of a client who all of a sudden was in a situation where they were getting lots of financial and legal advice from a lot of different directions. And all of that advice felt very urgent and like, oh my gosh, you better do this, you better do this, you better do this, right? That urgency is always a tell. Uh, and in her case, I would say you pick one single advisor that has a track record, that has data, right, that has, uh, the right kind of confidence and not just confidence for confidence' sake, and take their advice and mute or unfollow everyone else. If you start to collect advice, what's going to happen is you're just going to lose your own read. You're going to lose what is actually yours. If it's just two people, you have your feelings and then you have the other person's feelings, and that can generally be navigated. But if you have your coach's feelings and your feelings, and then you have three other advisors speaking to you, now it's going to be very hard to know what is you and what isn't you. Trusting your gut can help here, but it still incomplete because if you are marinating in somebody else's certainty, you are going to lose your own sense of what your gut is. And that is why I think confidence is one of the most dangerous things to make a decision on, and it's the one thing people use to convince you they're right. Anyway, I hope that was helpful. I hope it gives you some stuff to chew on, and I'll talk to you soon.

And there you have it, folks. Another dose of Million Dollar Grit. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired, equipped, and ready to face your own entrepreneurial journey with resolve. Remember, until next time, embrace the struggle, harness your grit, and keep pushing forward. You're stronger than any challenge you face. I'm Julie Chenell, and this has been Million Dollar Grit.