A professor once gave me similar advice when I was trying to get into grad school. I repeated a bunch of advice I had heard from other students who were struggling with the same thing, and he said “Why are you listening to them? Go ask the grad students here who have already gotten into grad school.”
It was such obvious advice in retrospect, but it was eye-opening for me at the time, and I’ve applied it to many other parts of life.
There is a difference between “advice” on how to do something vs. “advice” on what to avoid or how not to do it.
I would gladly take advice on how to do something from someone who succeeded, and I’d equally gladly take advice on what not to do from someone who failed.
Rich person’s guide to getting rich: “It’s fairly simple. All it takes is a little bit of hard work, dedication, and an initial investment of five million dollars. I did it, my father did it, and his father and grandfathers did it before him. I come from a long line of self-made millionaires. It must be in our genes.”
It’s not my definition either, just riffing on a common trope.
Sometimes people who are considered successful at something are bad at teaching it, especially when they faced lower barriers to entry, whether for socioeconomic reasons or because the landscape has changed. A person who entered the workforce 10 or 20 years ago wouldn’t really be able to give good advice for finding an entry-level position in today’s job market. Another classic example is boomers telling millennials to work hard and buy a house.
Sometimes it is because a talent comes so naturally to someone that they don’t know what it’s like to have to struggle to learn it. Can you imagine taking music lessons from Mozart? He’d be like “Just play it! What do you mean you can’t?”
I know I could never tutor anyone in math. People used to ask me to explain how to solve something and I couldn’t comprehend what they didn’t understand about it, so I didn’t know how to start. I would just show them how to solve it, and they’d be like “all you did was solve it, that didn’t make things any clearer.” Well then I don’t know how to help 🤷♀️
A professor once gave me similar advice when I was trying to get into grad school. I repeated a bunch of advice I had heard from other students who were struggling with the same thing, and he said “Why are you listening to them? Go ask the grad students here who have already gotten into grad school.”
It was such obvious advice in retrospect, but it was eye-opening for me at the time, and I’ve applied it to many other parts of life.
There is a difference between “advice” on how to do something vs. “advice” on what to avoid or how not to do it.
I would gladly take advice on how to do something from someone who succeeded, and I’d equally gladly take advice on what not to do from someone who failed.
They are both invaluable.
Rich person’s guide to getting rich: “It’s fairly simple. All it takes is a little bit of hard work, dedication, and an initial investment of five million dollars. I did it, my father did it, and his father and grandfathers did it before him. I come from a long line of self-made millionaires. It must be in our genes.”
You and I have differing definitions of success. 😂
It’s not my definition either, just riffing on a common trope.
Sometimes people who are considered successful at something are bad at teaching it, especially when they faced lower barriers to entry, whether for socioeconomic reasons or because the landscape has changed. A person who entered the workforce 10 or 20 years ago wouldn’t really be able to give good advice for finding an entry-level position in today’s job market. Another classic example is boomers telling millennials to work hard and buy a house.
Sometimes it is because a talent comes so naturally to someone that they don’t know what it’s like to have to struggle to learn it. Can you imagine taking music lessons from Mozart? He’d be like “Just play it! What do you mean you can’t?”
I know I could never tutor anyone in math. People used to ask me to explain how to solve something and I couldn’t comprehend what they didn’t understand about it, so I didn’t know how to start. I would just show them how to solve it, and they’d be like “all you did was solve it, that didn’t make things any clearer.” Well then I don’t know how to help 🤷♀️