Not too long ago, The Grasshopper offered this perception:

“It’s Not Advice, It’s Input.”

I stopped giving advice a number of years ago because it too often seemed to fall on those who couldn’t hear. Then I discovered input.

I found that advice doesn’t give the receiver the sense of choice. Your advice is often perceived by them as “the only way,” and meant for someone else, not them.

Advice has a top down quality to it. It comes from “on high” which frequently translates to low value by the intended beneficiary of your “divine” wisdom.

Input is perceived more as a suggestion, rather than an edict. I often preface any input with the computer axiom of “garbage in, garbage out.” In other words, here’s something you can try on for size. Either it fits or it doesn’t. That makes the receiver the chooser, rather than the modern day Moses on Mount Sinai.

It’s my experience that input has more of a chance of getting through, whereas advice runs into built in barriers of resistance.

“If I were you” is advice; “Here’s something that worked for me” is input. This may seem like semantics on the surface but one registers more deeply than the other.

I would advise you to start using input but that would only be me giving you advice. I find it works better if you decide to try it on your own.

All the best,

John