Ramit Sethi explains how to give non-confrontational financial advice to friends: be measured and persistent, simplify recommendations, and use repeated, gentle questions and conversational examples over time to involve friends rather than tell them what to do. He emphasizes asking simple questions, letting friends feel like the expert, and bringing up resources indirectly (e.g., mentioning a blog) to encourage action.
The thing is, you have to be really, really non confrontational. I used to go to my friends and say, these are the three things you need to do and nothing ever got done. And people would say, well, you're giving them the right advice and it should work, should. And the answer I would say is apparently not. You have to be measured on results. And one of the things that I've done with people is really try to figure out how to simplify for them. I ask them questions, very simple questions, and I do it like a week apart. So, you know, hey, have you been, you know, I've been thinking about money. Like, I'm kind of worried. There's a lot of layoffs going on and stuff, you know, what about you? Boom, that's done. A week later, you bring it up again. You ask them questions. Hey, you know, I have this question about savings accounts. What do you do with your money? Ask them, don't make them defensive. Ask them, let them be the expert. And then three, four, five times you can say, oh, I'm reading this guy's site. We're neat. I will teach you bridge. He's a weirdo. Maybe you should check it out. Or, hey, I just read this thing on another blog and what do you think? Do you think it's a good idea to put my interest on minimum while my payments on minimum for my debt while I set up a high interest savings account? What do you think about that? Get them involved, don't tell them what to do.
