Advice is Nothing if You Don't Use It

Hello and welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am the host, Thomas Anglero, and my mission for this podcast is to share with you those private thoughts and reflections that I have being one of the top keynote speakers around the world on technology, motivation, and innovation. I hope you truly enjoy all the lessons I share, all the dots I connect that sometimes are just really difficult to get out but it's all for you. I truly hope you enjoy this episode.

Welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am Thomas Anglero, and let me ask you a question: why is it that we don't take people's advice? You know, advice is only as good as the person who receives it and does something with it.

If you don't do anything with advice, if you ask someone for advice and you don't do anything with it, the advice is worthless. It also was a waste of that person's time. I went to a meeting and I sat down with this group of people who asked me for my advice on their company, on how they could leverage COVID, situate themselves in being this premier company that actually brings love and comfort and brings togetherness and intimacy to everyone, the things that we're missing and desperately want in society because it's been ripped out of society. I gave them an entire business model, marketing plan, everything. 2 hours of work.

They didn't write down one note. And throughout the whole time they're going, this is amazing, this is great, this is— this makes complete sense.

They didn't write anything down. Not only that, But at the end of the 2 hours, one of them got up and said, I gotta go pick up my kid.

And yeah, she never wrote anything down.

I don't understand why is it that we get in life great advice and don't do anything with it. I know so many people— how many times in your life have somebody, someone given you great advice and you didn't do anything with it? Let's start off with something simple. They gave you great advice on buying a stock, the Tesla stock? How many of you thought about, 'Hey, I should get that Tesla stock. I read an article. A friend of mine bought some. Friend of mine advised me. A friend of mine has a Tesla. I should buy that Tesla stock.' When it was at, at $30, when it was at $300, now it's at $2,000, approaching $3,000. You never bought any stock. You got the advice, you didn't do anything with it. How many of you ended up with a boyfriend or girlfriend when your friends tell you don't do it?

Don't, don't, don't go with that person. Just don't.

You did it anyway. Are you happy now? It's a mess, isn't it? Not all you, some of you. You know what I'm talking about, in your past, right? You get advice and you do nothing with it. I remember I was on a job interview. I know this is crazy, I'm animated today because I'm just— I don't understand it. People go out of their way to give so much effort. I go, I give everything I got And people do nothing with it. I went on a job interview many, many years ago, and I know this is crazy, so take it, take it with a grain of salt. I know I'm out of my mind. I wasn't out of my mind in this job interview, but I was in one way. I'm sitting down with 12 people, the top 12 people in the company, in this telecom company, and I asked them, please explain to me in details your business model and revenue model, which they did in all of 2 minutes because it was so simple. We have one customer. We sell them voice over IP services and that's it. And we have a 60% markup margin because we sell them software services. And I go, and when does that contract end? Oh, in 2 years, but they'll sign again. They've been with us for the last 10 years and they'll keep on signing. And I go, but voice over IP is dead. You guys need a new business model. You got to go in a new direction. You got 2 more years of milking that cow, but in those 2 years you got to innovate. I tore that thing apart. They then asked me to leave the room. They thought— the CEO says, "Do you know who I am?" I go, "I know who you are, but irregardless, you have 2 years of life left. You got to do something." They said, "We are not going to hire you." And I was like, "No kidding?" I didn't mean to be offensive, but I couldn't understand. We have 12 plus me, 13 competent people in the room, and you only got 2 years of life left. As then one person reluctantly escorted me out of the room, the rest just said, can you believe this? All the arrogance, this person, who do you think you are? Oh, sir, sir, sir, we're so sorry he insulted you. You're a living legend. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Almost 2 years to the day, 2 years to that day, I was coming off the stage, keynote speaker in front of whatever, 800 whatever people.

Right, standing ovation, blah blah blah blah.

Did my thing.

I come off the stage, there's this woman waiting for me, and she goes, Thomas, you probably don't remember me. I was there in the room when you interviewed with this company, the company I just mentioned. She goes, I just want to let you know something because it always bothered me. You were right. We went bankrupt. We went bankrupt. And our CEO and all of us in the room, we did nothing. 100+ people lost their jobs, families stressed out, 100+ families, kids, wives, husbands. And it all could have been avoided if you'd have took The advice. How many times you got precious advice from someone? Someone went out of their way to give you advice. How many times, you know, you get advice from a friend and they say, hey, listen, this—

I do this with my friends all the time.

What I call it is calling their bullshit. Excuse my language. And I go to a friend, listen, man, When's the last time you bought your wife something? When's the last time you bought her a flower? You were spontaneous and took her out to dinner.

I do this also with women that I know. When's the last time you took care of your husband?

When's the last time you surprised him with something? When was the last time you rekindled the romance? I think you should do that now. I think you should try this, try that, try this. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Don't take the advice. How's that marriage going? How's that relationship going? How's it feel to be divorced? I'm looking out my window right now at a really good friend's neighbors. He just told us they divorced during the COVID times. Didn't take the advice. Listen to me, when you get advice from somebody— from someone, excuse me, better English—

You are to reflect on that advice. If that advice makes complete sense or makes no sense, reflect on it. I think the main reason why we don't take advice is because things are too comfortable. Let me give you the formula. If life is too comfortable right now, this is why you should be taking advice from people, asking people advice, and then acting on it. And not just acting on it, but Complete it to fruition, till the whole damn thing is done. Because when life gets rough, that is not the time to ask for advice. It's too freaking late. You ask for advice when things are smooth, so that when things get rough, it doesn't get rough because you already made the investment. You already made the right turn, the left turn. You already put the— invested the money. You put the money out. You left the relationship, or you put more money and time into the relationship. You do that when things are good. You don't do that when they're bad, because when things are bad, you're too stressed out, you can't think straight, and you can't act on that advice because you don't have the time, nerve, or attention span. Act on advice. Why do you not act on all the advice you're getting in life? You get advice from the TV set, probably that's the worst advice you could possibly get. But every once in a while you get advice from somebody you trust. You, somebody you find interesting. Maybe you get advice from damn radio. It's advice. It may not be good, but what do you do with it? But when you get advice from someone you trust, you get advice from someone you, you know, say, hey, let's have a cup of coffee, let's have a meeting, and you don't act on it, you screwed yourself. I'm sick of it.

I'm, I'm sick of it.

I'm sick of seeing people hurt themselves, and that's what's happening. You're hurting yourself, and then when everything goes to hell, you go, "I want sympathy." You play the victim card.

"I need people to cry for me," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ask for advice and then see it to fruition. Not just act on it, but complete it.

The biggest and most valuable thing you can do for yourself Right now, in these times of COVID where everybody, everybody's in trauma, everybody's in fear, people aren't doing anything. Let me tell you something. You want the secret of success?

Do something and do it to completion. Nobody's completing anything now.

Everybody's using an excuse of, oh, this, oh, that's happening, oh, the world sucks, oh, the elections, oh, I'm scared, oh, this person don't have a mask. Every time I hear negativity, I immediately flip it and go, so where the hell's the opportunity? The opportunity is do things, complete it to fruition, ask people for advice. People love giving advice. Ask 10 people, take a little bit of this one, a little bit of that one, a little bit of this one. Altogether, you got the best advice possible, and then do it all the way till you're done so that when life gets really bad it's not bad for you.

It's a big bump in the road.

You got it? Advice is nothing if you don't do anything. Take people's advice, ask for advice, and then do something with it. But do not ask for advice, listen to it, say thank you very much, and then go pick up your kid from kindergarten.

What the hell is that crap?

Just getting real because Life is very stressful, and that the bottom line is you probably brought it on yourself, most of it, because you didn't act on the advice from long time ago. And you know what I'm talking about. When a teacher you trusted, a teacher you respected, a friend, a colleague, a boss, someone gave you advice and you didn't do it, and now you're in the situation you're in. It's your fault. Start a new chapter.

Ask people for advice, but this time you go for it and you do it.

Not all of it, but the stuff that resonates with you so that you're not in this situation ever again. Promise? Promise?

Cool.

Go forth and spread beauty and light and act on the advice from those people that you trust and go and go with your passion, your heart, man. Go all in. All, all, go everything, everything, everything, everything. I cannot tell you how much it means, how wonderful, how good it is for the body, the spirit, the soul, your immune system, and your body to be all into something. Even if it's the wrong thing, you did something so amazing for you. And then when you realize, wow, I invested all this time and everything in the wrong thing, but you know what? Look how much I learned. Now let me make this turn and go left, let me go right. And you haven't lost any traction, you haven't lost any time, you didn't lose any money. You learned so much because you went all in. You acted on advice. He took care of you. Take care of you. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go! Time is now. Got it? Okay. Time is now. Time is now. Time is now. Time is now. Time is now. Time is now. I love you. Kick ass. Seriously. I'm all in on you. Until next time.

Thank you for listening to that episode. If you want to contact me, you can contact me on my website at anglero.com, and you can also subscribe to the newsletter, or you can find me anywhere on social media with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Thank you so much, and I hope to hear from you very soon.