Whether it’s friends, family, colleagues, or strangers, everyone likes to give advice, but not everyone wants to receive advice. Dr. Carrie will share communication tips on giving advice and how to know when to deliver the advice.
The speaker opens the live by describing her role as a coach who gives advice and explains that she personally dislikes receiving unsolicited advice, sharing anecdotes about pride and conflicts with her mother. This chapter frames the problem and why giving advice can be sensitive.
Using a friend example, the host explores reasons people feel compelled to give advice—such as personal insecurity, past regrets, or wanting to feel better about someone else’s choices. Viewers are encouraged to reflect on whether their motives truly serve the other person.
The speaker advises assessing whether advice needs to be given immediately or can wait, warning that poorly timed input can damage relationships. She stresses being careful about timing to avoid defensiveness or lost friendships.
The host outlines a practical approach: ask if the person is in a place to receive advice and give them the option to decline. She explains how asking permission can reduce defensiveness and ensures advice is received respectfully.
The video closes by recapping the three key tips—know your motive, pick the right time, and ask permission—and thanks viewers for joining the live. The speaker invites comments and suggestions on being more approachable when giving or receiving advice.
Welcome everyone, just waiting for people to join me on the live video today. All right, let's get started. As a coach, I have the unique opportunity where I get to give advice to people all day long on coaching calls. And unfortunately, because of the nature of my job, I get to do this, but not everybody likes getting advice. And a lot of people like giving advice. I can tell you that I'm actually one of those people that doesn't like getting advice, especially unsolicited advice. I used to struggle with a lot of pride, and so when somebody would give me advice...
I would feel like I was failing at something and it would really hit me to the core rather than taking what they said at face value and maybe instilling it to do some personal development. It just hit my ego really hard. You can ask my mother. She loves giving advice and she actually has a lot of really good advice. But over the years it's caused a lot of conflict because she just likes to give me her advice without me asking. And so I've had to have a lot of growth in this area. And thankfully, I get to give advice to people all day long in my job.
But I want to give you some tips about giving advice because in general, most people don't like receiving advice, especially unsolicited advice about their decisions, about their lifestyle. But oftentimes when we're talking to friends, colleagues, family members, and we really want to give them advice about something, especially when we know they're doing something detrimental to their future or you're just like, oh my gosh, I really want to point something out to you but I don't know how to say this to you.
I want to give some advice to you today on how to deliver that advice. So first thing to remember when you're giving someone advice is realizing where is the root of why I want to give this advice. So I recently had a friend ask me, Carrie, I have this friend who is just totally screwing up her life, right? Like she's sleeping with this guy, she's got little kids at home, all this stuff. Like I want to give her some harsh advice, but kind of bring her to reality and say like, hey, you're kind of making some poor decisions here.
How do I give this friend advice? So I told this friend, I said, first of all, why do you want to give her that advice? Is it because it's bringing up something in you that's making you go, oh my gosh, if I had made those decisions, my life would have been horrible. Or maybe you did make those decisions and things turned out badly for you. Maybe it's not actually going badly for her with those decisions in her life. So understand kind of like the root or the issue for why you feel so compelled to give someone advice.
Because oftentimes it's pointing to some sort of insecurity inside you, or maybe it's something you have personal experience with. But a lot of times we want to give people advice because it's going to make us feel better. Like we're almost carrying the weight of their decisions in life. And when we give them advice, it's like, it can be off my shoulders now. you screw up your life. I at least said something and I can sleep better at night because I told you my two cents. So there's like this personal component for why we want to give someone advice because it's going to make us feel better at the end of the day.
But is it really the right reason for giving someone advice? So that's my think about that. What is the reason you want to give this person advice and is it pointing to anything inside of you? Secondly, I want you to think about why do I want to give them advice right now? Like is there an urgency or can this wait for a specific time? And so when you're giving someone advice, it's really important, especially if it's something hard and you're pointing out like, oh my gosh, I think you're making horrible decisions in your life, which is often something we want to tell our friends and family.
wait for the right time. Think about that. Like why is there an urgency right now? And I can see Sean just posted, I've lost friends giving unsolicited advice. Yes, this can be a really hurtful thing, even if it's coming from a friend. So being careful about when you deliver that advice. So first, remember the root of why you want to give the advice. Secondly, delivering it at the right time. And lastly, this is the technique that works best for me and one of my friends. has done this multiple times with me.
I'm trying to get my mom to work on this with her unsolicited advice. But to ask that person, can I give you some advice? Like give them the opportunity to say no in case they don't want to hear it. Say I would really like to give you my thoughts and my opinions and some advice on something in your life. are you in a place to receive that right now? And maybe they say, no, not right now, because they get defensive just by you asking that question. And I can tell you that one of my friends has done this to me, and I'm just like, no, I don't want to hear this advice.
No, I know what you're going to say, and my brain just went to the worst place, the worst scenario, so I'm not ready to hear it. So give me like 5 minutes, and I'll calm down, and then I'll be able to receive the advice. But asking them and giving them that opportunity to say, no, I don't want to hear it. Because I have given some advice to friends over the years, and I've asked them, hey, I'd like to give you some advice and I want to be really careful and I want to do this in a way that's honoring to you and let you know that I care about you and I love you and that's how I want this to come across.
Are you in a place to receive that? And if they say no, I need to honor that decision that they made because they're not in a place to receive it and it's just going to make me feel better at the end of the day to get it off my chest and it has nothing to do with actually looking out for my friend. So Those are my 3 tips for you. Again, recognizing why you want to give the advice, choosing the right timing, and three, giving them the option to not hear your advice. And I just want to thank you guys for joining me on the live today.
Thanks, Sean and Alec for tuning in. It's great to be present and there for folks. Thanks for joining on the live stream, giving your comments. Love to hear more about what you guys hear on this topic or think about this too. As someone who doesn't like to receive advice, I'm always open to suggestions too on how to be more approachable in this. So Share those with me too. Thanks. Have a great one.
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