Advice is unfriendly to learning, especially when it is sought. Most of the time when people seek advice, they just want to be heard. Advice at best stops the conversation, definitely inhibits learning, and at worst claims dominance.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the paradox of seeking advice, suggesting that it may hinder true learning and communication.
Peter Block's quote emphasizes that when individuals seek advice, they often are not looking for guidance but rather a space to express their thoughts and be listened to. The act of giving advice can disrupt the natural conversation flow, potentially stifling deeper understanding and preventing personal insights from emerging, and in some cases, it can create a dynamic where the advisor is seen as more knowledgeable, thus claiming dominance in the interaction.
In practice
In a workshop about leadership, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of listening over simply giving directives.
Invitation is not only a step in bringing people together, it is also a fundamental way of being in a community. It manifests the willingness to live in a collaborative way. This means that a future can be created without having to force or sell it or barter for it. When we believe that barter or subtle coercion is necessary, we are operating out of a context of scarcity and self-interest, the core currencies of the economist.
Relationship and connectedness are the pre-condition for change. Every meeting, every process, every training program has to get people connected first. Otherwise the content falls on deaf ears. So small groups are an essential building block to any future you want to create.
Good questions work on us, we don't work on them. They are not a project to be completed but a doorway opening onto greater depth of understanding, actions that will take us into being more fully alive.
The goal is to balance a life that works with a life that counts.
How do you change the world? One room at a time. Which room? The one you're in.
We need to tell people not to be helpful. Trying to be helpful and giving advise are really ways to control others. ... Advice, recommendations, and obvious actions are exactly what increase the likelihood that tomorrow will be just like yesterday.
A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.
You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.
I made an oath to myself: as long as I live as long as my soul remains in this body I won't deviate from the right way but later I looked to my left and then to my right and I saw our beloved everywhere how could I make a wrong turn?
My regret was immediate and permanent and useless.
The spiritual path is one of falling on your face, getting up, brushing yourself off, turning and looking sheepishly at God and then taking the next step.
Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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