Advice

ENTJ

Hey all, Al here.

Throughout my long (and I mean LONG) journey with the LSAT, I've come across this specific issue more times than I can count! I'd like to give my own personal thoughts on this topic.

Fellow LSAT students (non-7sage included) have reached out to me time and time again about this recurring topic: advice. I think it's safe to say that many (if not most) people think advice is inherently good. It is after all rooted in the premise that advice helps to inform and guides those that are lacking in certain information that can help others in the long run. And in many respects, the right advice can provide an enormous positive impact on the person receiving it.

But what's rarely talked about are the devastating effects of bad advice. Bad advice can lead us to do things that we normally wouldn't consider and the negating effect can be as substantial as any good advice. Not only does it deviate a person from one's initial trajectory, but it can undo a lot of the progress they have made on their own.

But what really is the distinction between good and bad advice? Here's what I think are the major distinctions:

1. Advice is inherently subjective. What may be great advice for one person maybe horrible advice for another.

2. Good advice has specificity, whereas bad advice is openly vague. The LSAT is a great example of this. So many of the nuances embedded within concepts can be very hard to absorb and the advice provided has to not only be logically congruent within the parameters of the LSAT...it also has to make absolute sense to the person receiving it. I've seen many people (including myself many times) THINK they have an understanding of a certain tidbit of advice but really have no understanding at the core of it.

3. Good advice more often than not takes time, whereas bad advice is usually impulsive. I've noticed this for myself when I've been asked for advice. When I have the time to really think about a problem, I more often than not have something worth telling the person asking for advice.

I have been the benefactor of both great and bad advice. All three of these tenets that I've mentioned applied to me. Yes, it does suck when we get bad advice. But the onus cannot be entirely on the person providing the advice...the onus is on the one receiving it. At the end of the day, it's all about personal responsibility and knowing what truly works and what doesn't work for you.

Just food for thought.