The Road to Hell Is Paved with Other People’s Advice
I am so pleased with myself.
My great friend and coauthor of my last book, Ashley Goodall (he’s a man, because, well, British), has called me up to ask for my advice about how to record an audiobook, and I have given him the very best nuggets.
See, our book Nine Lies About Work is, coincidentally, my ninth book, and so I’ve got this audiobook-recording thing down.
“It’s actually rather a tricky thing to do,” I warn him. “They’re going to stick you in a recording studio, put all the pages of the book on a music stand, shove a honking microphone in front of your mouth, and then tell you to speak as warmly and as smoothly as you possibly can. Listening to an audiobook is an intimate experience, and so you’ve got to find a way to modulate your speed and your tone so that you fit snugly into the listener’s ear.”
“Don’t worry,” I say, “I’m a bit of a pro at this. Here’s the trick: look over the top of the music stand, catch the eye of the producer through the glass, and then make believe you’re just telling them a few fun facts and stories over a drink or a cup of coffee—this way you’ll come across as friendly and conversational. Whenever you feel yourself getting lost in the manuscript, return to that mental image of you and the producer having a wee chat, and, Bob’s your uncle, you’ll breeze through this.”
The next day I go into the studio myself to record my half of the book—we’re alternating chapters. I use my just-a-chat visualization exercise and the session flies by. They’ve set aside three days to record my part. I get it all done in one afternoon.
As I said, I’m a pro.
I call Ashley one last time in advance of his sessions the next day, and re-anchor my advice: you’re having a drink with the producer. Make eye contact, imagine a beverage of your choice in your hand, let it flow.
I congratulate myself. I’ve thought something through enough to be able to convey to my friend not just the kind of recording we’re after, but also a very specific technique for creating this outcome. Yay me. Coach extraordinaire.
At the end of the next day, Ashley calls. He’s done. It’s his very first audiobook recording, and what should have taken him four days has whipped by in only one day.
“Wow,” I say. “Well done you! Bravo! So, did it work out? The visualization exercise?” I wait for his affirmation, glowing with pride in us both.
“No, ’fraid not,” he says. “I walked in and it was initially just as you’d said—music stand, book, honking great microphone. But then when I sat and tried to look at the producer, I couldn’t see him around the music stand without craning my neck, which clearly wasn’t going to work. And then when I tried to catch his eye he looked right down at the console, and so the whole thing felt completely weird and unnatural.”
“Oh! Really? So, er, how come it all worked out for you? They told me that, as a first-time reader, we would probably need to do multiple takes over multiple days.”
“Ah, well, see, I stumbled on a trick of my own. As a pianist, I’m used to sight-reading. And the thing about sight-reading is you have to get used to looking four or five bars ahead of what your hands are actually playing, so that you can plan for what’s coming next and how you want it to sound.”
“Oh,” I said.
“So, I started reading, was awkwardly and desperately trying to catch the eye of the producer, who kept looking the other way, and the whole thing was going terribly. Then all of a sudden, I felt a familiar pattern—reading this book out loud was like sight-reading. I needed to be looking four or five words ahead of what my mouth was actually saying, so I could plan for how I wanted it to sound. If I could settle myself into the rhythms of sight-reading, then I should be able to sail through this as though it were a Chopin sonata. So I did. And I did. Sail through it, I mean.”
“Oh,” I said again.
I wouldn’t say I was churlish, but there was definitely a twinge of disappointment. I wasn’t the coach I thought I was. Ashley had figured it out for himself, and in a way that was much more natural and authentic for him than any well-intended technique of mine. Of the one thousand possible nuggets of advice I could have given him, “Pretend you are sight-reading a Chopin sonata” would have been one thousand and one. And yet it was the very first tactic on his list.
My advice hadn’t freed him. It had smothered him, with me.
You will undoubtedly have similar experiences. Some well-intended person—your dad, perhaps, or your teacher, or your team leader—will want you to do well at something and so will give you the “benefit” of their advice. To stay true to yourself, please do everything in your power to withstand the temptation to do what they say—no matter how smart they might be.
The Golden Rule states that you should treat people as you would like to be treated. While this is tremendously well intended, the problem with the rule is that it presupposes everyone has the same loves you do, and thus that everyone wants to be treated the same way you do. Happily, this isn’t true. Ashley’s entire approach to doing, thinking, learning, speaking, performing is meaningfully different from mine, and so any advice I gave that worked for me would almost be guaranteed not to work for him.
These days you hear a great deal about how you should be open to feedback and advice from others. And yet, for the most part, their feedback or advice will only serve to muddle you up, and distort who you really are and what you can really do.
The only time someone’s feedback or advice will prove helpful is when they are correcting a fact you got wrong, or when you missed a predefined step in a rote sequence of steps. On other occasions their feedback and advice is worse than useless. No matter how carefully it is framed, when laid bare what they are really saying to you is, “You would do better at this if only you did it more like I do.”
Here it’ll be super-helpful for you to draw a distinction between another person’s “feedback” and their “reaction.” Their feedback—try this, do that—is compromised by the fact that they aren’t you and so are incapable of knowing which action or technique will help you—not them—do better. Whenever anyone says, “I have some feedback for you,” politely close your ears. You are about to be—well intendedly—smothered.
However, in direct contrast, you should definitely pay attention when someone shares their reaction with you. Their reaction is a much humbler gift. A reaction is not a prescription—it’s not saying, “Do more of this, less of that.” It is merely a response to something you said or did or wrote. So, if you send an email and the other person says, “I was really confused by this email,” that is their reaction, and they are the 100 percent owner of the truth of their reaction. I suppose you could argue with them by saying, “Well, you shouldn’t have been confused,” but that’s just daft, isn’t it. The fact is, they were confused by your email. Their reaction is real and trumps anything you might say to persuade them that they weren’t, in fact, confused.
In the same vein, if someone says, “I found myself bored by your presentation,” then you can’t really confront them with, “No you weren’t!” Because they were. They felt it. And they, not you, are the owner of their feelings.
So, yes, pay close attention to other people’s reactions. These reactions will be excellent raw material to help you understand the dent you are making in the world. When someone’s reaction wasn’t quite what you wanted, honor their reaction and then think through which actions of yours they were reacting to.
Even more important, when someone’s reaction was exactly what you wanted—they loved your call, your email, your presentation, your singing voice—spend a ton of time being curious with them about their reaction. Ask them why they felt the way they did, what worked for them, when they leaned in, what grabbed their attention. You’re doing this not to fish for praise, but to learn more and more about who you are when you are at your best. You are using their reaction to what worked to become ever more expert at turning your loves into contribution.
But whatever you do, don’t listen to others’ feedback and advice. Well, you can listen, just don’t act on it. You will always be your most productive and attractive when you’re inside your own skin. When you squeeze yourself inside someone else’s, you’re just plain scary.