I’m taking a big risk with this week’s blog entry.  I’m going to provide some advice.

Please keep reading.

Advice is a great thing in the world.  It helps people make wise decisions and hopefully avoid bad situations.  You might say it’s one of the most valuable things we have.  However, too much of a good thing is not a good thing.

Advice is no different than some of the other things in life that we cherish.  Too much of it and it works against us.  There is a difference though.  Outside of sheer volume (there’s only so much time in the day), it’s not the amount of advice, per se, that is the issue.  It’s the timing.

There are certain times where we should do less giving and more receiving.  

Wait, did I say that?!

Impactmakers, yes, you shouldn’t always give.

Mentoring

Mentor, verb:

To advise or train

We all need good mentors.  And we should all be good mentors.  After all, no one is “self-made”.  Remember what Jason Peterson from Feed off Fear said on Speaking of Impact episode 100?

If the definition of mentoring is so simple, why is the task so challenging?

It’s because you can give too much advice.  The most important part of a mentoring relationship is just that, the relationship.  

Communication is the key to a good relationship.  It’s how you understand what members of a relationship are thinking.  It’s how you celebrate the good times and work through the bad ones.  It’s multifaceted.

Any time communication becomes one sided, it’s not actually communication.  It’s the use of a medium without response - speaking without listening or writing without reading.

Saving Communication

If the absence of communication eliminated mentorship, we must save it.  Transitioning information to the next generation will always be essential to humanity.  

Perfect your communication skills and ensure that you’re a lifelong learner and able teacher.

Saving communication will be a vital concept for the coming era.  Digital tools are changing the way we think but will never replace human interaction.

In order to save communication in your own life, you have to shut up.  Sorry, that’s as clear as I can make it.  We all talk too much.

The Internet, specifically Web 3, has taught us that we should have at least a piece of ownership of everything in our lives.  We should be a walking billboard and our brand should be experienced by all who come into contact with. I wouldn’t say that’s all bad, especially if we have a positive impact purpose.  However, our brands, social media accounts, and side-hustles have taken over our purposes.  

We are all put here on Earth to do something productive for society and I guarantee you, it’s not to be popular, famous, have affiliate marketing deals, create viral posts, or share with the masses how we overcame something challenging to be the top of our industry.  Those are all potential tools to help us in a broader mission but they are not the sole reason.

I can point you to multiple courses, YouTube videos, and Tweets about personal expression, brand building, and marketing.  They will all teach you how to say something.  Ignore that for now.

A good mentor and impactmaker is capable of making an impact in silence or with very little verbal or digital expression.

Ask good questions!

That’s how you save communication.

Seems simple, right?

Questioning Questions

My favorite comedian is Brian Regan.  He does a routine about a science project that’s hilarious but also profound.  He talks about his teacher questioning his project.  The lesson is that questions have a lot of meaning beyond the words.

You can express them as a form of emotion.  Therefore, learning how to ask questions might be more important than what actual questions to ask.

I have learned over the years to question my questions - meaning, I put a pretty strong filter on what I ask and most importantly how I ask it.

This practice has seeped into all areas of life and I believe it is net positive.  But, it is most helpful in the meaningful, mentorship type of relationships.  It could be faith, family, impact, or business.  I always ask myself how I am asking before I ask.  I know.  That’s a lot of “asks”.

Questions Lead, Advice Follows

If advice is so valuable, we really shouldn’t let it fall away.  We should try to deliver it in the best fashion.  At least half of this battle is acknowledging when it’s best presented.  

This entry is designed primarily to identify advice’s place in the mentorship, teaching, learning, and legacy process.

We’ve said that you can have too much of this good thing.  We’ve said that we talk too much.  Now we focus on how advice fits into the puzzle (it really is a puzzle, meaning it fits perfectly but there’s too many parts to see it all at once).

There’s a point at which a mentor or teacher has a great enough understanding of his or her mentee or student, that they can adequately transfer wisdom.

Great questions (as referenced above) will lead to exploration, interest, enlightenment, and ultimately the aforementioned understanding needed to deliver effective information.  

The questions you ask people should be thought provoking, kind, inviting, exploratory, vulnerable, and demanding.  Yes, I didn’t just throw in demanding.

It’s possible for all of those things to co-exist.  I believe that if your question cannot demand attention and thought, it is not effective.  

Believe me.  I have plenty of experience of asking lame questions to groups of people that elicited no response.  I consider it my fault for not stimulating their desire to learn.

The good news is that if you can lock down the first five things I mentioned, your questions are bound to guarantee meaningful responses.

• Thought Provoking - makes people think about expansive possibilities

• Kind - is not accusatory or belittling

• Inviting - encourages a response

• Exploratory - seeks to find new information

• Vulnerable - indicates ones own imperfection

This is the formula for effective leadership in questioning (and remember its mostly "how” not “what”).  Don’t let your questioning lead to the situation in Brian’s comic routine.  They will lead a relationship somewhere regardless.  It’s up to you to chose the right way.  

Especially in a formal mentorship scenario, the mentee is expecting you to lead.  This is the way to do it - not commanding.  

Delivering the Goods

Once you have the questions down, you have to ask them.  That’s a no-brainer.  Or, is it?

The hardest part sometimes can be actually asking.  I find this occurs most often in those impromptu situations.  It can be hard to jump into “mentor mode” and ask the right things the right way.

The best way to improve this skill is to practice - perfect practice of course…see the September 29, 2020 E-impact Blog entry and Vince Lombardi’s premise.

It’s just something you’ll have to get used to doing in the moment.  It could seem intimidating or as if it should be reserved for professionals but I see it as more of a good habit or lifestyle.  You’re probably not a professional nor is it a professional situation, so don’t feel like you are under the pressure of needing to deliver great advice (and in turn needing great questions in that moment).  

You might have 100 scenarios where you practice asking questions before you actually ever deliver advice.  

I learned this lesson on the fly in my financial career.  The first week I was on the job, I met with some clients of my former employer and was expected to provide advice.  I stumbled through the meetings and got back to people.  I was so wet behind the ears (always wanted to use that phrase in E-Impact) that I thought there was no possible way I could advise people who had their money for longer than I was alive.  This worked in my favor as I was so pressured that I felt no pressure to actually perform.

As I gained experience, I felt more pressure to advise people effectively and I had to make a conscious effort to acknowledge what I didn’t know and get back to people.  It was a bit of a shot to my ego but it was worth it.  During that period of time I managed to not guess and provide false information to people while also learning how to ask more questions.

It was a good practice to respond to most questions with an additional question. 

Once you are in a place to ask great questions, you’ll find that there is a collision of other people’s experience with your own.  Here, you can connect your understanding of their situation with your own wisdom.  At that point, just speak your mind.  It’s natural.  

Giving More Than You Take

The counterintuitive close to this entry is that you should ultimately give more value than you take.  

I suppose the 80/20 rule applies.  You will only do twenty percent of the talking but you’ll provide eighty percent of the value.  It’s certainly not an exact science but the idea is that you have to gather as much information as possible to draw a conclusion on a single item.  

It’s similar to making a major purchase.  You’ll look at five houses and multiple lenders before applying for a mortgage and buying a home.  Consider every mentoring type of conversation where you have a huge decision.  It’s a great opportunity to make a positive impact with your gifts and skills.  It would be great if every impactmaker possesses the great questions asking skill.

I’m telling you to shut up and listen.  Take in information and stop giving it.  But in the end, you’ll end up giving more value than you take.

Advice kills conversations and questions build meaningful relationships.