Viewing entries tagged

The Bad Thing About Good Advice

Good advice is seldom understood or appreciated.

And, I think that there's a good reason for that. The reason is that what makes for good advice is often viewed as a "bad" thing. 

Seth Godin recently wrote about the attributes of good advice. 

I was drawn to the posting I guess, because "good advice" is what I envision that I do.  And, because I am naturally inclined to learn and I can always benefit from good advice, so I read the posting to see what the takeaway would be. 

No matter what you do, be it advisor, parent, teacher, mentor or leader, I think that this piece has in it, a few "gems" I think we can all benefit from;

  • Good advice is not what you want to hear but what you need to hear
  • It is not imaginary, but practical
  • Not based on fear, but on possibility
  • Not designed to make you feel better, designed to make you better

Those points resonated with me. 

The problem however, remains this 

  • People are prone to want to hear what they want to hear, not what they need to
  • Absent a degree of "social" or other proof, fallacy masquerades pretty well as "fact" allowing for the imaginary to crowd out the practical
  • Avoiding fear prevents a relationship with the possible
  • Feeling better is usually going to be preferred over "making you better"

I see it all the time. 

If the original blog were the reality, there'd be more people planning their lives based on what needs to done, what's practical, what's possible and what will make them better. 

There just isn't much of that going on. 

There needs to be more. 





4 Steps to Better Decision Making


So, what are the four steps; 


The authors use the acronym WRAP

  • Widen your options
  • Reality test your assumptions
  • Attain distance before deciding
  • Prepare to be wrong

Sounds easy, but we almost never do it.  









Is What You "See" What You Get?

"Does goal setting work? Yes, but not the way most people seem to understand it. In my experience, the real value of defining desired futures is not so much in the world we describe, but the change in perception the process of setting goals fosters."  David Allen, Productivity Coach and founder of Getting Things Done (GTD) from is weekly email "Productive Living"  

I couldn't agree more. 

Build powerful visions of your future; that will help to make them a reality. Then go build it.&nbsp;


Wealth Management takes on many forms. For most of the profession and the public, (unfortunately) it's an effort to figure out why you should buy something and exactly what that purchase should be. It's a process that has at it's core when applied in this way, something that you need. Implicit in that mode of operation is the embedded notion that a product is going to solve your problems. "Purchase this and it'll set you free!"  Really? If buying financial products solved the problem, we'd have a lot more 1%'ers than we do. You see, the 1%'ers are the people who built the stuff that you should buy. You purchasing their stuff has made them wealthy, not you

When you can focus your energies working with someone who relies on you to enunciate the life that will make you happiest; then you are the center of the process. "What would you do differently today if money weren't an object?" There's nothing to buy...only the belief in change. 

Many will say that it does little good to ruminate in wishful thinking of that sort. And yet, we are, what we think. When we focus on life as we want it to be a subtle change takes place; we begin to open ourselves to the possibility that our dreams can in fact be our reality. Maybe not immediately, but over time. If you are what you think (and you are) then thinking that you're destined for greatness is going to attract a lot more positive outcomes than any of your other options. I don't know about you, but contrasting buying something and feeling "insured" as opposed to "on my way to making my dreams a reality" I'm voting for my dreams. 

"The reason for long-term goals is the permission they give us to identify with the greatest value we can so it changes our filtered perceptions. The future never shows up (have you noticed?-- it's always today!)"

That's another quote from David Allen who was talking specifically about Getting Things Done. 

As am I.