WEBVTT

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So I caught up with a friend
of mine the other day.

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I love her.

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She's smart, she's brilliant, 
she's talented.

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And after we grabbed our coffees
and we did the usual warm-up chitchat,

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Shannon looked at me and said,

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"Michael, you're a good guy.

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I need your help.

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I need your advice."

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And my Monster was delighted.

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(Laughter)

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She started telling me what was going on,

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and I started to pretend to listen,

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because quite frankly

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my Advice Monster already knew exactly
what it wanted to tell her.

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(Laughter)

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But I'm pretty good
at the fake active listening.

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You know, you tip your head on the side,

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you nod, you look engaged,
yet caring, yet concerned,

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small, meaningless words of encouragement,

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"Mm-hm. Yeah, sure. Mm, yeah, right.
Oh, you go, girlfriend."

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and "Exactly."

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But honestly my Advice Monster's like,

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"Could we just hurry this up, please?

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'Cause time is short."

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Finally, Shannon finished,

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so finally, I was able
to share my brilliant advice.

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And make no mistake, it was brilliant.

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Shannon tipped her head on the side,

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looked engaged, yet caring, yet concerned.

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(Laughter)

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Started nodding, making small,
meaningless words of encouragement,

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"Mm-hm. Yeah, maybe. OK. Yeah. Nice idea."

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Honestly, my advice, my help
was going nowhere.

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My Advice Monster had sabotaged
the conversation - again!

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Now, this isn't just a Michael thing.

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It's not even a mansplaining thing.

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You! All of you!
You know your Advice Monster.

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Somebody starts telling you
about something.

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You don't really know the situation,
you don't really know the people involved,

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you certainly don't have the full context,

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you definitely don't have
the technical specifications,

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and after about 10 seconds,
your Advice Monster's like,

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"Oh! I've got something to say here!"

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(Laughter)

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You know, research tells us
that medical doctors' Advice Monsters

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tend to interrupt their patients
after about 11 seconds.

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But that's not really a medical thing,

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it's a human thing.

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Now, I can see some of you
are looking at me

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and you're thinking to yourself,
"Michael, it's true.

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Other people's Advice Monsters?

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Very annoying, really pretty irritating.

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(Laughter)

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But my advice? My advice
is honestly pretty fantastic!

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And what's wrong with advice anyway?"

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Well, look, there is nothing
wrong with advice.

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Advice is a key part of civilization.

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I mean TED, TEDx,
it is one large forum for advice.

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The problem isn't with advice.

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The problem is when giving advice
becomes our default response.

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And we all have this ingrained
way of behaving.

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For most of us, it's become a habit.

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It's become an advice-giving habit.

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Or -

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"Agh!" for short.

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(Laughter)

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And it turns out there are three ways
that advice-giving goes bad.

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The first two are kind of connected.

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Here's the first challenge
with advice-giving:

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you're busy solving the wrong problem.

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This happens all the time.

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We get seduced into thinking

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that the first challenge that shows up
is the real challenge.

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It almost never is.

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It's people's best guess;
it's their first hypothesis;

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it's a stab in the dark.

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But it's really rare

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that the first challenge
is the real challenge.

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But let's just say
for the sake of argument

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that somehow miraculously

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you are finding and working
on the real challenge.

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Here's the second issue
with advice-giving:

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your advice is not nearly as good
as you think it is.

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(Laughter)

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And if you're thinking to yourself,

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"Oh no, Michael, no, no,
my advice is magnificent."

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Well, I'd encourage you to go watch
all those TED videos on cognitive biases

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that will explain just how bad
your advice normally is,

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particularly if you think
you give good advice.

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But with those first two
are just you kind of wasting people's time

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and life and resources and money.

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So you know, no big deal.

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(Laughter)

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The third issue about giving advice
cuts a little deeper and cuts both ways.

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If you are on the receiving end of advice,

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if you're on the receiving end
of somebody's Advice Monster,

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you're constantly getting the message

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that you can't figure this out yourself.

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And that cuts away
at your sense of competence

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and your confidence,
and your sense of autonomy.

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And if you're on the other side 
of the equation,

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if you have an Advice Monster -

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and if I can be clear,
you all have an Advice Monster -

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well, forget about the fact
that you're disempowering people.

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Forget about the fact

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that you're a bottleneck
to everybody around you,

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just that added responsibility
of having to have all the answers,

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and to save the person
and to save the day,

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it's exhausting, and it's frustrating,
and it's overwhelming.

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Now, I can see you looking at me
and going "Yeah, Michael, point well made.

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We get this. I get it.
I understand, fair enough."

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And I know you do get it.
It's straight-forward.

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You get this, in theory.

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In practice, this is still 
how you're showing up

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on an everyday basis.

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That.

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(Laughter)

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So what's going on with that?

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Well, it's your Advice Monster.

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You keep feeding it and it is insatiable.

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Somebody starts talking,

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and your Advice Monster
looms up out of the dark and goes,

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"Oh, I'm going to add some value
to this conversation! Yes, I am!

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Here I go."

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(Laughter)

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You have to learn to tame
your Advice Monster.

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And to tame it, you have to understand it.

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And it turns out your Advice Monster
has three different personas,

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and if you listen up, you'll hear the one
that resonates most for you.

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The first persona
of the Advice Monster is "tell it."

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Tell it.

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It's the loudest of the three.

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It has convinced you
that the only way that you add value

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is to have the answers.

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To have all the answers.

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To have all the answers to all the things.

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If you don't have all the answers,

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then you fail.

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Anybody kind of know this one?

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Yeah, I thought as much.

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The second Advice Monster,
a little more subtle,

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is called "save it."

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"Save it" has put its arm
around you and gone,

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"Your job, your only job
is to rescue everybody.

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Don't let anybody stumble,
struggle, have a difficult time.

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Don't let anybody fail.

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If anybody struggles at all, you fail."

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Anybody know this one?

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Any parents in the room, for instance?

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Exactly.

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The third of the Advice Monsters,
the sneakiest of the three,

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is "control it."

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"Control it" has convinced you
that the only way you win

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is to maintain control at all times.

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Don't let go the grip of anything.

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If anybody else takes over control,
even a little bit,

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then you and they will definitely fail.

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Anybody know "control it?"

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That's my favorite one personally.

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And in fact, there's something
that connects all three of these personas.

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And this is an important point:

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in that singular moment,
when your Advice Monster is in control,

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you are saying that you are better
than the other person.

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You are better than the other person.

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You're saying that they're not up to it.

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You're saying they're not good enough.

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You're saying

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they're not smart enough, wise enough,

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fast enough, moral enough,
experienced enough.

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You're basically saying
that they're not good enough.

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But it's not only the other person
that is diminished in this moment

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when your Advice Monster is in control.

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You're diminished as well.

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Because when your Advice
Monster is in control,

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you lose that connection to your humanity.

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You lose that connection to your empathy

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and your compassion 
and your sense of vulnerability.

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You start using
your answers as your armor.

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Now, I was going to give you a quick talk
about the power of empathy

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and compassion and vulnerability,

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and then I thought to myself:

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Brené Brown

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or the Dalai Lama

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or Jesus.

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OK, I think this ground's been
pretty much covered.

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So -

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(Laughter)

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Rather than that,
let me give you a quick primer

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on how you might go about
taming your Advice Monster.

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And what you're looking to do
is replace an old habit,

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the advice-giving habit, with a new habit:

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Can you stay curious a little bit longer?

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It's as simple and as difficult as that.

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Can you stay curious a little bit longer?

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How do you stay curious?

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Well, questions
are the kindling of curiosity.

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They're the light that holds back
the darkness of the Advice Monster.

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So let me share with you
the three questions

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I wish I'd asked Shannon
when we were in that café together.

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The first question is this:

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What's the real challenge here for you?

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What's the real challenge here for you?

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It's the focus question.

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It recognizes that at the start
of a conversation

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neither of you really know
what's going on.

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You just both think you do.

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So not only does "What's the real
challenge here for you?"

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keep your Advice Monster at bay,

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it repositions you to say,

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"The most important thing 
I can be doing here

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is to help you find
the really important issue,"

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not to provide the fast wrong answer,

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which is what happens right now.

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The second question that I wish
I'd asked Shannon is: And what else?

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And what else?

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So the acronym is A-W-E.

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It's literally an awesome question.

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And "And what else?" has it as the insight

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that the first answer they give you
is never their only answer,

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and it's rarely their best answer.

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So when you ask, "And what else?"

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not only does it tame your Advice Monster,

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but it helps you go deeper and further
on any question that you ask.

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Before I give you the third question,
which I think you're going to like,

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let me just show you how
these two can play really well together.

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We're going to do something live,
right here with us.

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So here is what I want you to do:

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think of a real challenge 
that's going on for you right now.

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It can be big; it can be small;

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it can be about life;
it can be about work;

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it can be about a project;
it can be a person.

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I don't mind what it is.

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Take your best guess.

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This is a real thing,
so actually, think of something.

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You can write it down if you want
or just keep it in your head.

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And now you've got that challenge in mind,

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I'm going to ask you a question.

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Here it is.

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Thinking of that challenge,

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what's the real challenge here for you?

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What's the real challenge here for you?

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Yeah, I can see people working.

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I can hear brains ticking over.

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This is great.

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Stuff's opening up for you
as you think about that.

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You are like, "OK, I think
I've got the real challenge here for me."

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That's nice.

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But we're not done yet.

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Let me ask you another question:

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And what else?

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What else is a real
challenge here for you?

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Because I know there's more
than one thing.

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So what else? What else
is a real challenge here for you?

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Just notice how that's popping up

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and how stuff is opening up for you,

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which is lovely.

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But, of course, we're not done yet.

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I have another question for you:

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What else? What else
is a real challenge here for you?

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Because there's still more
to be unpacked here.

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Some of you are like, "This is amazing!
I didn't know this was all here.

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Where is this all coming from?"

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Right.

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I've got one final question for you.

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I'm going to step
to the edge of the red spot here,

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just to make it really dramatic.

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(Laughter)

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Now that you've considered all of that,

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and you've done some thinking,

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"What's the real challenge here for you?"

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(Laughter)

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Exactly, your head explodes.

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You are like, "Oh my god.
What's happened here?"

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And for some of you, you're like, "Wow!"

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This is really in a minute or less

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just opened up a new way of seeing this.

00:12:47.736 --> 00:12:50.148
But actually, here's a really
key part of this.

00:12:50.328 --> 00:12:53.734
You'll notice that your answer
to the first "What's the real challenge?"

00:12:53.734 --> 00:12:56.728
and your answer
to the final one was different.

00:12:57.014 --> 00:13:02.094
And why that matters is if I've been busy
trying to solve that first challenge,

00:13:02.094 --> 00:13:04.504
I'd be offering up
my slightly crappy advice

00:13:04.504 --> 00:13:06.644
to solve the wrong problem.

00:13:07.434 --> 00:13:10.540
And honestly, that's
what's happening all the time.

00:13:11.842 --> 00:13:15.437
The third question that I wish
I'd asked Shannon back in that café,

00:13:15.583 --> 00:13:17.856
it's a difficult question
but it's so powerful.

00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:20.020
The question is: What do you want?

00:13:20.136 --> 00:13:21.836
What do you want?

00:13:21.952 --> 00:13:24.212
Because when you get clear
on what you want,

00:13:24.352 --> 00:13:26.530
it becomes the foundation for action.

00:13:26.530 --> 00:13:29.250
It becomes the foundation for progress.

00:13:29.679 --> 00:13:31.059
When you know what you want,

00:13:31.059 --> 00:13:34.404
you get to step towards
that autonomy and that competence

00:13:34.404 --> 00:13:37.150
and that confidence
that we were talking about before.

00:13:37.392 --> 00:13:42.092
And when that happens your Advice Monster
really has not much chance.

00:13:43.741 --> 00:13:45.602
So that's the challenge in front of us:

00:13:45.602 --> 00:13:48.112
to replace an old habit,
the advice-giving habit,

00:13:48.212 --> 00:13:51.862
with a brand-new habit:
staying curious a little bit longer.

00:13:52.152 --> 00:13:55.568
Because when you do that,
you begin to empower people,

00:13:55.568 --> 00:13:57.295
not by giving them the answer

00:13:57.475 --> 00:14:00.059
but by helping them find their own answer.

00:14:00.409 --> 00:14:02.609
Not by rescuing them,

00:14:02.609 --> 00:14:04.815
but by helping them find their own path.

00:14:04.975 --> 00:14:07.505
Not by holding onto control on everything

00:14:07.505 --> 00:14:09.003
but by giving up some control

00:14:09.003 --> 00:14:12.440
and inviting others to step in
and to step up.

00:14:12.630 --> 00:14:16.970
And all of that becomes possible
when you tame your Advice Monster.

00:14:17.215 --> 00:14:18.345
Thank you.

00:14:18.375 --> 00:14:21.365
(Cheering) (Applause)