This is the third lesson in my series of 16 lessons learned from 16 years in business. Read the introductory lesson here.

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My Story

Over the course of the life of my business, I have gotten lots of advice. Most all (I assume) well meaning, sometimes profound and timely, other times confusing and often contradictory. I've gotten advice from friends, family, and clients. I've gotten advice from other consultants. I've gotten advice from experts. seminars, magazines, books, blogs, podcasts, CDs, and tapes (hey, 16 years is a long time).

I have, of course, given lots of advice too - that is part of what I get paid to do, and I'll give you some more before this post is complete.

So I've thought alot about advice, taken some and rejected some, and here is what I've learned:



Our Lessons

There are really four pieces of advice in that short sentence, let me talk briefly about each and how to apply them to your personal and professional endeavors.

Listen to it all

To be a learner, to be in a mode of growth, we need seek it out and listen to want we find. Please read broadly, please ask people what they would do, and search for ideas, solutions, and approaches. Be a sponge to these ideas, take them in with open arms and an open mind.

Listen to your heart

Some of the advice you may not like and may not agree with. Don't dismiss it out of hand - give it time to percolate in your mind. Some of the advice will be recurring - if you hear the same thing over and over, maybe you should listen a little closer. And some of the advice will seem immediately accurate and agreeable to you. While this might be more pleasant it also requires you to reflect on it a bit - while it may be comfortable, it might not be right.

Decide what to do

All of this is preamble to deciding. Advice and counsel is great, and in the end you must decide which advice to heed and which advice to ignore or delay. You can't do everything - even if you received 5 pieces of great advice, you might not be able to apply all of them at the same time. Decide what you will accept and use right now.

Move on

In the end any advice, counsel or feedback is only valuable if you take action! This is part of "moving on." The other part of "moving on" is letting go of the advice you haven't chosen to take now. You've decided and taken action - don't let the naysayers or other competing options you didn't choose weigh you down. Move on!

This is my advice on receiving advice. There are lessons for giving advice inside of this post as well, but for now I will leave you to ponder those for yourself. (Sometimes the best advice is simply pointing people in the right direction, and letting them own the ideas).

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