Tips on Giving Advice from a Master

Hi there.

Let’s talk about giving advice. In this week’s episode of Good Authority, I sat down with one of the most sought-after advice givers in Silicon Valley, Hiten Shah.

As the founder of Crazy Egg and KISS Metrics, Hiten is a legend in the Valley, and he’s widely considered an authority (and a good one!) on how to build a SaaS business, create and execute a product strategy, and generally deal with the trials and tribulations of being an early-stage founder. And while he’s a treasure trove of advice on the technicals of building a startup, I wanted you to hear from him about his internal process for giving advice.

Through our conversation, you’ll learn:

• The difference between contextual advice and sharing experience

• Why ‘hear’ advice is better than ‘do’ advice.

• The critical role of agency (authority!) in giving advice effectively

As someone who has been giving professional advice in one form or another for the last 20 years, I absolutely love this topic. If you knew me as a kid, you’d know I gave plenty of unprofessional (and unsolicited) advice well before that. I learned the hard way that being someone who is never afraid of sharing their opinion or believing they had the correct answer is a pretty lousy way to make friends, not to mention intimate relationships. I had to go through a reckoning process to accept that while it’s true that I had a gift for seeing a problem differently, my advice often cut too deep. I had to learn to tune that gift and mature as an advice-giver.

As Hiten reminds us, the difference between giving effective or ineffective advice is not only what you say but the place from which you say it.

Thanks for reading (and watching!),

Jonathan

A Thought

When you make your peace with authority, you become authority.

-Jim Morrison 

A Stretch

Is there a piece of advice that someone’s given you recently that was helpful? Make a note to go back and thank them. Even the smallest signal of feedback will deepen your relationship with them.

A Bonus

Find more thoughts on this topic (and others!) over on Instagram. See you there!

jonathanrefound

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