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.
You'll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.
What is the next step, the practical application? —I will answer that the absolutely vital thing is to consolidate your understanding, to become capable of enjoyment, of living in the present, and of the discipline which this involves. Without this you have nothing to give.
We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it's all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.
understanding the true nature of instinctive decision making requires us to be forgiving of those people trapped in circumstances where good judgment is imperiled.
I know, perhaps as well as anyone, what depression means, and what it is to feel myself sinking lower and lower. Yet at the worst, when I reach the lowest depths, I have an inward peace which no pain or depression can in the least disturb. Trusting in Jesus Christ my Savior, there is still a blessed quietness in the deep caverns of my soul.
Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.