The Best Way To Give Advice Without Offending 😨

It's always easy looking from the outside in to know what someone else should do. Taking from me, I'm a counselor. It's what I get to do all day, every day. But you don't even need to be a counselor to be good at this. It's just easier to see problems from the outside. And if you're watching a loved one, a friend, family member, really struggle with something, it's hard not to just jump in there and want to either fix it or tell them how to fix it. But that can be a landmine of a situation. You've probably stepped in it before. I know that I have. Because when you offer someone advice, there's a particular way that you need to do it. Otherwise you're going to come across as a know it all or judgmental or critical or you're just going to get the Charlie Brown. They're not going to listen to you anyway. So in this video, I'm going to talk to you about how, when, what for formula to use to actually give someone a piece of advice in a way that's going to feel helpful and supportive and not critical and judgmental. Now, for those of you who are new here, this is Put the Shovel down, the YouTube channel that's all about helping you to recover your life and your loved ones, your family, from addiction. But this video is going to apply to pretty much any kind of advice that you may want to give someone. Maybe you want to give someone a piece of advice on how to fix an addiction or to another family member because you've been there yourself. These techniques work in pretty much any kind of situation. And as always, I want you guys to leave this video with some actual useful, practical pieces of advice that you can actually put into action. Not just theoretical stories or something like that want you to actually come across with something valuable and practical. Okay, so let's get to our formula. First and foremost, literally, if you get no other part of this formula, get this part. Really, I'm serious. This is the most important part. You have to wait until someone ask for your advice or opinion. Otherwise, if you're giving it out and someone's not in, that mindset of being receptive to it is probably not going to land well. At best, they're just going to blow you off, and at worst, they're going to see it as a criticism or a judgment. And then not only are they going to blow off your advice, but they're going to build a little bit of a wall between themselves and you, which is the opposite of what you're trying to do. So timing is exceptionally important when it comes to offering advice, no matter how obvious it seems, no matter how dire the situation seems. And if they haven't asked for it and just feel like you have to give them a piece of advice or a suggestion, then you need to somehow ask if that's okay with them first. So you're almost like asking permission, hey, I've got some ideas. If, if you'd like to hear them, just let me know and I'll, you know, I'll share with you or something. Because you're, you're opening the door saying, hey, I have some suggestions, but I don't want to force it on you. And when you do that, you're, you're giving them some control of a situation which is going to help them be more receptive to your thoughts and ideas. Now, the second piece of this formula, which is also really important, maybe not as important as the other one, but pretty close, is you want to ask a lot of questions before you give a piece of advice. And there's a couple of reasons for this. One is because you probably don't know enough details about their situation to give helpful, effective advice. If, if you haven't asked enough questions yet, you want to ask a ton of questions like, man, how long has this been going on? Or what have you tried in the past? Or who's been helpful? Or what kind of things have been helpful for this? Or, you know, how are you feeling about it? Anything. Just ask a lot of questions because that's going to give you the piece of information you need to actually be able to give strategic, helpful, effective piece of advice. So ask those questions. The second reason why you want to ask those questions is because it helps the person feel like you're not rushing to a judgment and that you took the time to really, like, accurately understand their situation. If you do offer a piece of advice and you get a roadblock, like they say, oh, I've done that before, it didn't work for me. Then ask some questions about that because you can figure out maybe what it was about that that didn't work for them. And you can kind of hone in your suggest suggestion for them. But ask lots and lots and lots and lots of questions before you offer a suggestion. The third thing that you want to do or keep in mind when you're giving someone a piece of advice is when you get ready to actually give the suggestion or the piece of advice, you want to wrap it up in a lot of humility and don't worry. I'm going to give you some examples. I'm going to tell you what I mean by that and how to do it. But this is important. So you don't come across as a know it all or if I was in your situation, here's what I do, you know, with the attitude and the I know everything. Because if someone's struggling with a problem that's bad enough that you want to give them advice, it's probably a sensitive subject, okay? And guess what? They've probably tried to fix this problem in a number of ways already. And maybe they've tried what you're going to say already. So don't come across like, this is the one thing that you can do. You know, you got to do this or you got to do that, because it's really just off putting to the other person. So how do you couch it in humility? It's actually pretty easy, honestly. One thing you can do is you can put I wonder if right on the front of it. I wonder if you would like this. I wonder if they'd respond to that. I wonder if this would be helpful. If you literally say that part out loud, you're leaving some humility. You're not saying, you need to do this. You ought to do this. This is what works for that. You're just saying, I wonder about. And when you say it, it literally, like, helps soften the wall before you say the next part, because they don't feel like you're forcing it or that it's a have to or that it's like a black and white, this is right and this is wrong kind of thing. I wonder if it's a very easy thing you can do to get that piece of advice to slide in there a little easier. Another thing you can do, if y' all see me looking down because I'm looking at my notes, you. Another thing you can do is put on the front of your sentence or piece of advice, you can say you might like or you might be interested or, you know, something like that. And it's kind of. It's. It's almost like putting a maybe on the front, which again, helps a person feel like you're not cramming it down their throat and that they have some option to consider. And literally, some people are so oppositional if they think that you're being direct in any kind of way, they won't even listen to what you have to say. In fact, they'll just immediately go against you. How many of you know someone who's like that. It's like you could be giving them a million dollars, but they're just gonna fight you on it because they're just that kind of person. They're just oppositional. So you got to. You got to figure out how to not hit those buttons in people. Another thing you can do is you can say, you know, I've heard other people say, you know, here's some things I've heard from other people. I don't really know if that's gonna work for you, but I heard this before again, it's couching it with some humility. Helps it go down. And the other thing you can say is, I'm not sure if this is gonna be right for you, but this helped me. Or I'm not sure if this is really the right thing for you, but I found that this was helpful or that this helped someone else I know. Or that other people have talked about this whatever resource or whatever that could be helpful. So it's. It's just all about coming at them in a way that doesn't make you sound so sure that there's only one clear answer to something and that you know what it is and they don't. It really, what it does is it if you do it the wrong way, it makes it seem like I'm up here and you're down here. And if you do it the right way, it just seems like you're on an equal playing field and you're sharing information with each other, Almost like brainstorming together, trying to figure out what a solution might be. I'm telling you, when you do this, it's just going to be received so much better, you know? This reminds me, some of you guys know this about me already, but I like to listen to, like, true crime stuff, and I'm all the time listening to, like, real life, like, recorded interrogation videos. Anyways, I was watching this interrogation video last night, and this guy, I can't even remember. I don't even know what the crime was, but this guy was in this interrogation room. He was just, like, so oppositional. He would literally say something and then argue with himself about it. Like, he was oppositional in himself. And he was talking about how him, the girlfriend or whatever would fight all the time. And I was like, no wonder. That's what I was thinking. And he. He talked. He was trying to tell this police officer how his girlfriend or whatever would just get mad and crazy and just start hitting him and just lose it and all this kind of stuff, but he's like, man, you just say one wrong thing, she just gets upset, and she goes crazy. And then he's just, like, explaining and going on, and he says, I mean, you just say, I don't like the way those pants fit you, and she'll just lose it. And I thought to myself, I was like, I cannot think of one single situation where it would be a good idea to tell a woman that you didn't like the way her pants fit her unless she asked you. And even then, I'm not even sure you should say that. And this guy, to me, was. Is like, why is this guy surprised that she lost it over that, right? Like, I don't even know if you could say that to your own kid. Like, and you're like, in the dressing room trying to find the right fit. Seriously, like, unless someone is asking your opinion, isn't always wanted, and if you're in that kind of situation, just be supportive. Just be kind. Literally, letting someone just talk with you about their situation and just being a sounding board for them will help them. You don't have to know how to solve their problem. You don't have to have the perfect piece of advice. You know what I tell my clients all the time? I say, let me tell you why counseling is the best job ever is I just sit here and listen to you, and then you figure out the problem, and then you think that I did it. You know, you think that I help you because you're just so happy and you figured out your own problem. That's why counseling is the best job ever. That's the whole secret to it. People usually know, like, deep down inside what they need to do or what they at least need to try next. People know deep down inside that there's this one little thing that they haven't been wanting to do and that they've been resisting, that they know they need to do, you know, to. To make their life or their situation better. It's in there. And that's why when you give a lot of advice, they've already thought through a lot of that already, and they kind of already know. And just letting them talk through their own thoughts helps them to overcome their own resistance to solving their own problem. I mean, have you guys experienced that before? How many times have you kind of known deep down what you need to do about a situation? You just couldn't get there. You couldn't do it for some kind of reason or. Or you were scared or there was some kind of roadblock in your way, or maybe it was a conversation that you were just too nervous to have but you knew deep down inside that's what you need to do. Just listening will help someone get the strength figure out. Like if you can just get them to say that out loud to the chances that they can then do it go way up. So it's just a lot simpler than you might think, just letting them talk. You don't have to have a piece of advice, but if you are going to offer a piece of advice, make sure you do it in this formula that I'm telling you. How many of you I want to hear from you. Have you ever had someone give you a piece of advice that you didn't want or that felt offensive to you? I know I have. I'm pretty sure most of you guys have like someone who was either telling you something, they either thought they knew what they were talking about, but they didn't know nothing. You know, like it's like you don't even get it and it's just annoying or that you didn't ask for their advice. It doesn't, it doesn't come across well. So make sure you're using this formula if you know what I'm talking about. Give this video a like it helps to support this channel and helps get this video out to more people. In fact, if you want to support this channel, there's actually a lot of really easy ways to do that. And if you're watching on YouTube and you look in the description, you can see a list of ways the things you can do, super easy things to help support the channel. And if you're really worried about a loved one that has problem, whether it's addiction or any problem really and you're trying to influence them in the right direction, like this is a pretty big issue, it's an ongoing issue and you know, you're worried about what's going to happen if they don't do something then you might want to look at my workshop. I call it the Motivational Master class which gives some more like in depth information about how to kind of gently guide and influence. I call it the recipc method from et it's like you put down one rec. You kind of lead them there a little at a time in a way that actually feels kind and supportive and helps them come up with their own solutions. I'll put a link in the description for that as well. If you're watching on YouTube you can find that it's the, I think it's called the motivation master class but you can check that out. Doesn't cost anything. You can. You can download it for free and. And look at it. All right, let's take a look and see who's here with us. I'm hoping that some of you guys have got some stories out there about somebody gave you some advice that really wasn't that helpful, because I know I can think of a lot of times like that. Hey, Saska and Terry and Deb. Queen Logic. Let's see who's here. Nancy. And then, oh, here's a different name. It's called Cachet Property Management Consultants. Oh, that's a big, fancy name. Hey there, Paloma. Ebony. Oh, here's a good one. Ebony's got one. Can I tell my fiance, I wonder if he moves out? Getting sober would be easier. I like it. She's got a little smile emoji because it's a little passive aggressive. Actually, I think you can. I know you're kind of being a little silly with that question, Ebony, but I actually think that you can. There's a way you can say it that won't sound necessarily sarcastic, but there's a way you can say it that would make it. It's all in the tone and the way that you come at somebody. I mean, I've certainly said that to clients before. Like, I want. You know, I wonder if, like, this environment that you're in just isn't the right environment for you to be able to do it. Maybe that's why it's not working, because, like, it's just a setup for failure. Maybe we need to do something different. Putting that maybe on there or that. I wonder if, you know, not during an argument, Evan, you can't wait till you're mad and be like, I wonder if it'd be easy if you did that. Not living here. That won't work, but you can't make it work. All right, we have Islam here, Terry. See, Annalisa says, love this. Trying to get my husband to understand his delivery comes across as a. Know it all. So much better to start with these intros and changes in tone. I'll share this video with him. Okay. You're going to give him some advice on giving advice. Let me know how that goes. Here's what I might suggest to you, Annalise. You can say, man, I saw this super great video today. Is it okay if I send it to you? At least get the permission. Otherwise, he'll see it as. As a jab, and he won't be receptive to the video. Although I appreciate you sharing my videos, I Always like that. Deborah says it makes sense when you explain it, but it seems like game playing. It's hard to be patient. You're right, Deborah, it is hard. And it does feel like it takes longer, but actually it makes things happen a lot faster. Because I'm telling you, when you come at someone super direct and you don't follow this formula, you're just beating your head against the wall and you feel better because you said what you wanted to say, but it wasn't effective. So you've gotta, like, it's almost like plowing the ground a little bit to help. To help it accept what you're about to put in. Like, if you're going to plant flowers or something, like, you gotta make the soil ready first. And you can be like, oh, yeah, it's faster. Let me just plop this plant down in the ground. But it won't live. The roots won't take. It won't stick. So it's not faster. Although I will tell you, I've been guilty of doing things like that. If you saw my yard, you'd know it. All right, let's see. Luana says, please guide me. Is it good to go AA meetings with him if he hasn't gotten detox yet? He went twice without me, but the guy said, first detox and then come back if. If you're not in. In recovery, Luana, like, if you're in recovery and you're. And you're going with your person, I don't know who this person is. If it's your spouse or kid or whoever or friend and they want you to go, then go. If you're not in recovery, it really probably is not the best thing for you to go. Regardless. A lot of. Especially aa. A lot of AA meetings are closed, which means it really is only for people who think they have an alcohol problem. So for sure, you want to check on the schedule to see if it's a closed or open meeting. But overall, I don't think it's a good idea if you go. I understand what you're saying, though. It's like he went twice without me. And then the guy said, you need to go to detox first. And you might be thinking, did that really happen? Should you really say that? Like, if I was there, I'd ask some questions, but I understand, like, you're wanting to sort of know that and be in the know so you can kind of find out how to support best. It's just. It's just not all that. It won't be looked On. Well, I guess it's not. It's not good. Not good etiquette. I would say to do that, you can go to Al Anon sometimes you can find those meetings in the same places. Although I made a video last week about not to make people go to Alanon. I'm not making you go. I'm just saying if you want to be supportive in that way of going to a meeting, you can do that. If you went to aa. Usually AA doesn't like, tell you advice that directly, although that could have happened. He could have talked to one of the guys after the meeting or something. And if he's having trouble getting sober and it's alcohol and he literally can't stop drinking, he's going to be sick. Someone could have given him advice. Not that he can't go to aa, but more that he's probably not going to be able to stop if he's really physically dependent. And it could be dangerous for him to do that. So it's definitely possible he got that piece of advice. Next question from Alana says, what advice do you say when people get detox at a hospital if the withdrawals are bad and he can get a heart attack? I'm trying to get him to detox, but he has to want it. How can I talk to him? You could say, I wonder if it would be like a lot easier if you, like, had some medication to help taper you down. It might not feel as uncomfortable and it might not feel as scary, especially with your heart. Heart condition or something like that. So again, use the formula and you can throw it in there. But if you put it out there, I should have put some formula. Dang it. If you put it out there once, you can't keep harping on it. Because after that, even if you use the formula after you say it, you can't just keep saying it. Otherwise you. You've undone everything. So I had a. I can remember this mom. She asked me, like, can I, like, at least just tell them this one thing? I'm like, yeah, you can one time tell me anything you want one time. And that's it. Because after that you've moved into nagging territory and they're just not going to listen anyway. Cindy says, for my loved one, I've been thinking if he moved out of his current dwelling where a very unhealthy relationship occurred, it would be better for his recovery. This is a really common one, Cindy, because a lot of times people are like, in some kind of living situation where it's just Like, I mean, I see this all the time. People are trying to get clean sober, but so they got roommates, but all their roommates use. I'm like, this is not gonna happen. But you have to be careful about how you say that. Especially if the person they lived with is like a romance, like a partner, like a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a spouse or something like that. That's really delicate territory. He just started recovery for drug addiction. They gave him a million pills and sent an assessment. Is therapy not a must to recover? He goes back for more meds, but hasn't mentioned therapy. Ebony, there's a couple of questions there. One thing is, is therapy necessary? Therapy is not always necessary. A lot of people get sober without ever going to see a therapist. Although I'm a fan, I think it can be helpful, but it's not a requirement for everybody. Secondly, wherever your loved one is going, if they're getting medications, it's. It's quite possible that they're going to a doctor or a psychiatrist who. Who really only does the meds and not the therapy. And I know on TV it's like the same person like to do the meds and the therapy, but in real life, it's not. One person does the talking part, the working through stuff, and one person does the medication part. It's usually not both. So it could just be that he's going to a person that really only does the medication part. I hope, hopefully, that's helpful for you. All right, now, what I want you to. What I want you to watch next is I have a video I did a little while back called how to Get Someone to Actually Listen to You. And it's going to give you some more techniques that you can put with this formula to actually get them to hear, especially if it's like, something, a conversation you've been trying to have with someone, maybe a loved one, where y' all keep running into the same conflict over and over. And you've been. You have the same argument or fight, and you just need to get them to listen to you and actually hear what you're having to say. Watch that video next. Getting someone to actually listen. I will link it up here for you at the end. See you guys next Thursday.