Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

As someone who mastered few skills in his life (or at least tried to), I’ve always sought advice from the ones who were a couple of steps ahead of me, in order to cut layers off of my learning curve and improve my results. I never let my so-called male ego get in the way of me becoming a better man. At least most of the time -this however is easier said than done.

The funny thing about giving advice though, is that you’ll find a lot of people (not experts, just people) who are willing to jump in and give you one, especially if you are like me and you ask a lot of questions.
Most of the time, I take an overall look at these people and the way they go about their lives, only to find out they don’t really know much about whatever they’re talking about; their results are the only criteria that counts for me.

What makes things worse is that most people don’t have the experience or the critical thinking to differentiate the good from the bad advice.

Since I always want to be the guy who criticizes but then offers an alternative, I came up with a rule of thumb that I am going to share with you:

The only ones who should give an advice = the ones who are too busy to give an advice in the first place.

This is called The Paradox of Good Advice, a name invented by yours truly.

Whenever you feel the urge to give an advice, be honest with yourself: are you rich enough to give a financial advice? Are you fit enough to give a fitness advice? Are you a Casanova to give a dating advice?
Take a look around you, whether you’re in a classroom, at the gym, on the dance floor or any arena you’re interested in, the ones who you should seek their advice are the ones who are too busy and too involved to stop and give you one.

Now is time for the tricky part, walk over to that person, tap them on the shoulder and give them a compliment on how good they are at whatever they’re doing and ask them for help.

This might change your life.