A Spell for Eschewing Advice

There is a world of difference between sharing a perspective

and counseling someone about what they should do.

Good coaching should always start from the premise that

you are the expert on you and you and your situation,

and focus on helping you uncover what works best for you.

Whether you’re receiving or giving support,

this spell will help you identify the approach that will

open up a curious, expansive, and empowering dialogue.

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Make Magic:

An outside perspective can be valuable, but only if

it is co-creative with your understanding and truth.

If someone is telling you what to do

instead of asking thoughtful questions,

they’re not respecting you and your experience.

Transcript: A Spell for Eschewing Advice

NATALIE MILLER: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here.

Hello, my love. Welcome to the show. Welcome to today's episode, which is a spell for eschewing advice. I love the word "eschew." [laugh] So a spell for eschewing advice is inspired in large part by a conversation I had with another podcast guest. I was just on Amelia Hruby's podcast, Off the Grid. That episode will be out soon, and I'll be sure to share it on my socials and in my Sunday Letter.

And on Amelia's podcast, she asked me a question about best practices. We were talking about shoulds, actually, and she asked about best practices. And I said—and I wanted to expound on today—that when I hear about best practices, the first thing I think, the first thing I ask is: best for who? For whom is the practice best?

Because the reality is that we are all different. All of our companies are different. All of our families are different. Even when we share similarities situationally, right—like I'm a divorced mother with two teenagers; you're a divorced mother with two teenagers. Or I'm an entrepreneur with a coaching practice; you're an entrepreneur with a coaching practice—still you and I are very different.

We have different backgrounds. There are different variables at play in our situations. Even if we have a lot in common, there are certain things that work for you that don't work for me, and certain things that work for me that don't work for you.

So today I'm offering my own view, my own perspective on advice culture. And advice is very cultural, so I acknowledge that I'm coming from both a Western, white-dominant, patriarchal culture, and I am coming from an intersectionally feminist counterculture as I'm saying all this, yeah?

So of course, you know, I went to the good old etymological dictionary, and I wanted to see the origins of the word "advice." And what I found was that originally, like in the 13th century, advice meant to give perspective or to give a viewpoint. And then by the end of the 14th century, advice meant counsel, right? And there's a big difference between those two. There's a big difference between sharing a viewpoint, sharing a perspective—I'm all for that—and counseling, that is, telling someone what to do.

Now, of course, I was super curious about that evolution of that word, because the 14th century was a horrific time in human history, right? The 14th century was Hundred Years' War and bubonic plague, and it was very tough times in the world from which the word "advice" came. And I can't help but wonder how fear and scarcity contributed to that sort of shift from sharing a viewpoint to counseling someone, yeah?

OK. Let me not digress. [laugh] Let me say that, for me, the problem of advice is summed up in one of its most common prefaces, and that's this. If I were you, if I were you, blah, blah, blah. Perhaps, obviously, you are not me. Like I said before, you and I, we are different. We are not the same. Even as we share similarities, we are not the same.

When Amelia on her show asked me about best practices, I gave this example of my Sunday Letter, right? So I've figured out a way to have a sustainable writing practice in which I connect with you. So maybe you receive my Sunday Letter, and if you don't, well, I heartily invite you. Just go to my website. It's right there on the front page to sign up.

Anyway, so just imagine for a moment if I declared my way of doing my Sunday Letter as a best practice. Imagine if I said, dear entrepreneurs who want to have a regular newsletter going out, here's what to do. On Sunday mornings, because Sunday mornings are generally quiet and peaceful, on Sunday mornings, sit down and write in real time a letter to your people.

You can have an idea that you've been kind of cooking during the week, or you could just sit down and write completely extemporaneously. Now, that's the key to regularly sending messages to your email list. I mean, to me, this sounds absurd. [laugh] It just sounds so wild that I would imagine that you and I have so much in common, that our households work the same, that our creativity works the same, that our inspiration works the same.

Listen, I will happily share my way of regularly communicating with my people, but I would never imagine that that exactly will work for you. And so if you as a friend, if you as a client, if you as a colleague came to me and said, "Natalie, I really want to communicate regularly with my email list, but I can't seem to figure it out," I will never begin with, "Well, if I were you…" I will never begin with, "Well, here's what I do." I just won't.

I will begin and I will proceed with questions, with questions so I can understand better things from your perspective before I offer my own, right? Because, again, I want to be really clear, I don't think there's any problem with offering our viewpoints with that original definition of advice. From my perspective, I think that's great, right?

But even if there is something that I've figured out for myself, I'm never going to assume that I know what's best for you, right? You are the expert of you, even if you are still figuring it out. Even if you are new to an endeavor or a situation, you are still the expert of you. You know so much more about the situation or the problem than I do because it's yours. It's coming from your life.

That doesn't mean my perspective isn't valuable. My perspective can be valuable but only when it is co-creative with your understanding and your truth. Now, again, from my perspective, far more useful than advice are really good questions, because really good questions can elicit your own expertise in a new way. Really good questions can expand your perspective. Really good questions can help me to see the problem or the situation from your point of view, can introduce the variables that I perhaps am not considering.

And this, of course, is why I love coaching so much as a modality. I love coaching because coaching, true coaching, is all about asking really good questions, and expanding perspective. As a coach, I almost never give advice, and I never ever, ever give unsolicited advice. And, my friend, I want you to know that if you are getting advice from your coach, you don't have a coach; you have a consultant.

If your, quote, unquote, coach is telling you what to do, they are not coaching you. They're advising you; advising in the sense of counsel, yeah? And, listen, I know that sometimes that feels like the thing we want. It's like, ugh, can you just tell me what to do? In fact, my clients will sort of say in the same breath, "Ugh, I just want you to tell me what to do, and I know you won't," which, of course, I'm very proud and happy to hear. [laugh] I'm so happy to hear that they know I'm not going to give advice.

Even better than that, though, is when my client will say, "OK, I got stuck in this situation, and I asked myself not what would Natalie say or what would Natalie do? I asked myself, what would Natalie ask me? What's the question she would ask?" [laugh] That just fills me with joy because that is what I love for coaching to do.

I love for coaching to start to open up these more curious and expansive dialogues within ourselves, right, and to open up a curious and expansive and ultimately, I believe, empowering dialogue. Whether it's a dialogue between people or a dialogue inside you, an inner dialogue, the way that we open that up is through really good questions.

Now, I want to just acknowledge how deeply countercultural this is, and actually as a person who trains coaches, this is very often, for a lot of people, this is a huge hurdle to overcome, is the knee-jerk impulse to give advice. A lot of people come into coaching because they want to help people. And, for me, unfortunately, in our advice culture, the way that helping is modeled is often through giving suggestions, telling people what to do.

So whether you're a coach or not, maybe you are a parent, maybe you are a mentor, maybe you are a friend, and you're wanting to share your perspective in a way that isn't paternalistic, in a way that eschews advice, then here is, in my view, here is my way of doing it. And even right there you can maybe hear part of what I'm trying to do is to own that this is what works for me, this is what I've found is helpful.

So where I start is by asking questions. I always begin by asking questions. And actually, that's a way that if I'm a person who's got experience in this place or if I'm a person who's been in similar—not same but similar—situations, then I can ask really good questions, because I understand the territory.

I don't imagine that what you are dealing with is exactly what I've dealt with. It's not that. It's more like, oh no, I've been in these streets. I've been in this deep, dark wood, and so I know some things that might be helpful to ask about. Notice: might be helpful. I don't know. I'm in this curious, inquisitive place. So first, I'm going to ask questions, right?

Now, if a moment comes where I really do want to share my perspective, I want to share an idea or I want to share my thoughts, I'm not going to do the shitty thing of asking leading questions to try to kind of like find a way to insert the idea or the thought into the situation, right? That is even yuckier. It's so manipulative. It's worse than "if I were you," from my perspective, yeah?

So instead, what I will do is ask permission. I'll say, "Hmm, I have an idea. Can I share it? I have a thought. Are you interested?" Right? What is worse than unsolicited advice? Ugh. So if there hasn't been a solicitation for advice, I'm going to ask before I offer even an idea, yeah?

And then, again, I'm not going to say, "If I were you," because I'm not you. I'm going to say, "So, from my perspective, blah, blah, blah," right? And then—and this is the most important part—immediately after that, I will ask a question that puts the ball in their court, that reminds them and reassures them of their power.

And so that question might be something like, "How would you edit that approach? What happens in your mind or what happens in your body when you hear that perspective?" So my hope here is that asking that kind of question, basically asking them for their perspective on my perspective, right, my hope there is that I haven't offered counsel so much as I've offered a more expansive way of seeing the situation.

So let's say someone comes to me, and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I've got this email list, and I really want to write to them regularly, but I haven't been able to figure it out." I am not leading in this situation with advice. Now, I'm not saying, "Well, what you need to do is batch your content, or what you need to do is choose a day of the week to write your letter or what you need"—no, I'm not going to do any of that. I'm going to ask questions.

I'm going to say, "Well, What do you think is in your way? What have you tried? Why do you want to write these letters? What's your experience with writing? When you sit down to write what happens in your body? What do you feel when you think about writing? How does it feel in your body?"

I might get super coachy and [laugh] say, "OK, if your email list were a place, what would it be?" And then go into the whole metaphor of that, right? I'm going to ask a lot of questions, and almost never will there even be any need for advice.

Now, I'm again going to begin with questions, even when someone expressly asks me for advice. But if in this conversation we come to a moment where I'm like, "Ooh, really, I have an idea that might work for this person or in this situation," if I'm in that place, I'm going to (a) say, "Hmm, OK, I have an idea. Are you interested?" Right? Or, "I have an idea, and I'm curious how you'll respond to it." Right?

So, again, I'm not trying to insert my idea into them. I'm trying to offer it to them, to co-create with, yeah? So once I've asked permission, then I might say, "OK, from my perspective, this might work," and then immediately after that, a question. "What happens in your mind when you hear that? What do you like about it and what don't you like about it? How would you customize that to you? What would you change about it? What would you do instead?"

I might say, "Push off of that. If not that, then what? What instead?" Right? The idea isn't intended for them to adopt. It's not advice. It's simply something for them to respond to in creating their own next step forward.

OK. Let me walk my talk here at the end of the episode. There it is, my perspective, my spell for eschewing advice. I'm going to assume, because you pressed play, and because you continued listening, that I have your consent here, and now I want to ask: what do you like about this and what don't you like? When you think about your own relationship with advice-giving and advice-receiving, how does this spell hit for you? Like, what do you get out of it? How would you make this your own?

And, listen, whether you're into it or not into it, what I really hope is that this episode and, really, my love, all my episodes are expansive for your perspective, and help you better to tap into and to evolve your own wisdom. OK. Thank you super much for listening. Bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world.

Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time.

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