The power of giving & receiving advice

Reyna, what is the most unhinged thing that you sincerely believe? I can just be annoying about grammar. I can't not get annoyed by certain kinds of grammatical errors and I think it's like not a great thing about me, but I can't fix it, but it would be nice if people knew how to use like I and me and went to say like she versus her, so yeah, I guess the internet would come at me. Got dating trouble? Maybe your family's getting on your last nerve. Or maybe you want some insight on some friendship drama. Don't worry, you're in luck. Starting on Mondays, September 28th, through Wednesday, September 30th, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern each day, I'll be giving advice live at WNYC hosting a pop-up show called Please Advice. I am so excited to hear from listeners like you, but first, it is my turn. Today, NPR Embedded Producer and author Reyna Cohen joins the show. She wrote the other significant others, reimagining life with friendship at the center, and she's giving me some advice on giving advice. When to ask for it, how to handle it when it's given unsolicited and how opening up about our problems brings us closer. Reyna, welcome back to it's been a minute. So happy to be here. Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Loose, and you're listening to it's been a minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture, and why it doesn't happen by accident. So, Reyna, you have written extensively and reported extensively on the value and importance of friendship and all sorts of things that pertain to friendship. How important is advice to building or maintaining friendships? I think advice is often a really potent way for people to connect. If you're having something going on in your life where you feel like you don't know the answers and a friend has gone through that kind of experience that that really is a form of closeness, there can be ways that it can be disconnecting or create ruptures if you're getting unsolicited advice and that feels like judgment. But it does feel like a pretty huge part of a role that a lot of friends play for each other and maybe not everybody that's important, but I think probably for quite a lot of people. It's kind of one of the most significant things that they're bringing to friendships. How have you seen advice giving affect the relationships that you've examined in your reporting or your writing or even your own life? I think that when people talk about growing because of their friendships, it's often because their friends help challenge something for them and maybe the way that they were living or their values. And sometimes I can come in the form of direct advice or just asking questions that you might not feel as open to hearing from a stranger. I was thinking about how you can get the same piece of information and depending on who is giving it to you, you might respond really differently. I think about if I'm getting advice from somebody who doesn't maybe share my values or doesn't know me well or isn't my family and feels like they can therefore have a right to tell me how to live versus somebody who I have chosen as a friend and who might be different from me, but who I have like really, really deep respect for, that I might take in that information really differently. And I think I have certainly found in my friendships and then the people that I've reported on that if they have a trusted friend in their life, that that person or those people are really kind of capable of moving the needle in the kind of decisions that they make in their lives. Okay, so on the one hand, like giving or receiving advice can be way to form or strengthen connections, but on the other hand, if you are prone to over advising or giving lots of unsolicited advice, which honestly, I do very frequently. I was going to say, well, like, it sounds like you know what the consequences of unsolicited advice are. Being annoying everyone in my life, you know, we know that doing that could be detrimental to, you know, our relationships. What's the best approach to take then when a friend asks for advice? And what if someone doesn't ask for advice, like, when is it okay to weigh in? I mean, I think actually often the situation is that people aren't asking for advice and that you can feel really compelled to give it like the unsolicited advice that you're talking about. And if someone's asking for advice, I think it's actually often more straightforward. If someone's asking you for advice and you think that the what you're going to suggest for the to them is going to be really uncomfortable, then there's, you know, how do you choose language that is not going to, you know, really inflame them or feel like it's completely invalidating their choices. So I guess if someone is asking for advice, it's worth taking stock of, do I think they actually want advice or do they just want validation for how they've, you know, are actually doing things already? And if you feel like, you know, the person is maybe doing something that's not serving them well, it's at least been my practice to just try to ask questions or tell people, you know, this is what I have found valuable or this has been my experience. I think that often just both as a receiver and a giver having sharing and exchanging experience and rather than saying like, this is what I think you should do, often leads, I lead just to be more reflective and kind of take things in more rather than feeling like, well, now that you've given me advice, I feel like if I don't follow this, that you're going to feel like I didn't respect your, you know, what you thought, that it feels like there might be some judgment for not taking it as opposed to if it's like, this is what I found helpful or this is how I think about it, it gives, you know, gives a person on the receiving and more room to kind of choose what they want to do with that. So interesting what you said about very often people don't ask for advice, but people, but people like myself jump in to give it. Where's the line between giving advice and maybe trying to control someone else's life? I think one way to answer this is to step back and try to understand what your motivations are because I like you feel tempted all the time to give it advice and I, and sometimes it's just like, I got this great recipe or whatever and I just want to share it. And it's like, you're just, I just become very excited about like, I found something that works. You should enjoy this too. Yeah. But I think it's, you know, it's worth asking like, why do I feel so compelled to suggest something to this person? Is it really about them or is it about me? And I think, you know, a version of this might be somebody is behaving in a way that's different from what I would do and does that feel unsettling to me, threatening to the decisions I made? And, you know, one example that happened a couple months ago is that a friend of mine was saying that she, what she really wanted to leave the neighborhood that we were in, which is just like really beloved, close knit, very walkable neighborhood and she said something to the effect of, you know, if I could get a bigger house for the same amount of money, why wouldn't I? And, and, you know, I was like, well, there are, you know, that's a lot of people's logic around how they, how they decide where to live. But, you know, I, I thought, actually, there are lots of reasons that you would make maybe a different decision. But I, I really was trying to be careful in that conversation to not impose my own values. And I found it, you know, it was, it was a little tricky because I was like, on the one hand, we have really different social preferences. So, I don't want to say, here's my advice about what you should do and have it be like, I know the right way and I want to make sure that everyone's doing what I'm doing. I think that would not be like a very, you know, a motivation that I feel good about. But, you know, I think if it's coming from a different place of, well, I have, I have seen in my reporting in my personal life the way that, that people make these really big life decisions and sometimes overlook certain kinds of downsides, then, you know, that can come from a place of like, I actually have information that maybe this, this friend of mine does not. And I can, I can offer that as information and, and I really tried again and again to say, like, I get we are really, you know, we have different things that we care about. But here, here are factors to consider. So, you know, I don't know if I did my best there, but I did try to make sure that I was coming from a place of not trying to justify my own, you know, kind of my own decisions, but really like what made sense for this person and then she could sort of choose from there. We're going to take a quick break, but first, if you're a long time listener or brand new to it's been a minute, be sure to come back every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday for brand new episodes. And did you know you could make it even easier to get new episodes by hitting the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast? app, whether you're a new friend or a loyal bestie, join the team by subscribing today. Coming up after the break, there's connection that can come in what you're receiving and also in the future by giving that permission to other people to turn around and have that same kind of connection themselves. Stick around. I wonder about the other end of the spectrum, I mean asking other people for advice all of the time, all of the time. I mean, that can get a bit messy too. I've personally been in a situation where I'm like, girl, maybe it's just time to watch how to video to get through this situation because you have asked me every single question that could be asked about every single possible outcome, like this scenario could yield. Let's try to just try something into the next step. Where's the line between asking for advice and outsourcing your decision making? Yeah, I mean, this is the kind of flip side of control that you're asking about. So like some people give advice because they want to control another person. And then I think some people solicit advice because they want to seat control and want somebody else to make the call. And I completely understand this as somebody who deliberates way too much and like consults a lot of people about things and yeah, so I really, I really get the impulse. But it, I mean, I think one way to have it be helpful is, are you thinking about people sort of making decisions on your behalf or advising you? Like you have a kind of, you have an advisory council or an advisor and then it is up to you to figure out what to do. And if you feel like I would just find it easier if somebody else took this out of my hands, then that kind of gives you a sense of why you're asking for what you're asking for. And sometimes it's okay to just tell, you know, I have friends who had an entire vacation where friends made decisions for them about like every leg of the trip and that that was like a fun, a fun thing and sometimes it's just nice to not have to make a bunch of decisions. But if you're not conscious of it, then I think it's worth becoming conscious of in making that actually like a choice to not choose. I'm wondering. I'm wondering, okay. So we talk about people who like to give advice, talk about people who like to get advice and all the things that people like to vent. I also like to do that, complain, mow them a little bit. But I wonder, what advice do you have for the people who never ask for advice? Like sometimes I have noticed that I can be like that. Like not wanting to burden other people with my problems or I'll think that like no one will care about the thing that's bothering me or that, you know, whatever I'm going through is something that I have to figure out myself without asking anybody else for input. What do you think is behind the impulse to avoid asking for advice? And what are the downsides to doing it all yourself? I think you've laid out a lot of the reasons that people don't reach out to others. That underlying, I think what you're saying is a fear of rejection or a fear that you are going to be seen in some kind of negative light like you're not capable or there's like a lot of kind of negative imagined judgments that I think that you sort of laid out here that I think is true for a lot of people. And that it is easier for so many of us to offer help than it is to ask for it. And because it in our minds signals some kind of weakness even if we would not actually see it that way if the shoe was on the other foot. And you asked at the beginning about the kind of role that that advice plays in friendship and one of those things I think is connection. So what you are losing out on by really trying to go it alone, never ask for help or guidance is that you're losing opportunities to connect with people. Whether you ask for advice explicitly or you just sort of explain a dilemma, people often will respond by sharing a personal experience, what they learned, what they wish they knew, what they regret. I mean, the things that are pretty like intimate and so it's an opportunity to learn that. And it is also an opportunity to get closer to people by demonstrating the kind of behavior that you think is okay for them to do. So by asking for help, by asking for advice, you are telling them it is okay for you to ask this of me as well, like this is not something that's embarrassing. There's connection that can come in what you're receiving and also in the future by giving that permission to other people to turn around and have that same kind of connection themselves. I love that. It's a two-way street. I mean, that's like the whole point of relationship in the first place is that it's a two-way street. Yeah. And it creates a chain too. Like, I'm thinking about a friend of mine who is going through, you know, really difficult time and I was asking if he had people to support him. He didn't really, and I ended up telling him about kind of friends who were discussing how important it was to do that outreach and then you are telling other people that when they are in a hard time themselves, that it is okay to reach out, that they don't have to go through it alone. So sometimes it's reciprocal and sometimes you're just kind of creating a chain beyond, you know, the two of you, to other people in these wider circles, that it's okay to get that kind of help. That's really beautiful. Okay, right now, this is a big question. This is advice for me. We're about to ask right now. Very soon, I will be giving advice on another show. I will be live on air with our friends at WNYC in New York City for a new show called Please Advise, or a Limited Brunch Show, whatever. But the show is called Please Advise, and I'm going to be on there giving advice. I'm going to be giving advice to people on their relationships. Okay. Romantic. Family. Friends. Friends. What advice do you have for me? I'm giving advice. I mean, the reality is I have a bit of a complicated relationship with advice. And I think that if I had to kind of nudge in a direction, I mean, there's also so funny too because you're asking me for advice about advice, but, and so I'm still kind of giving you advice in a way. But I'll just, I'll just like share how I, how I would think about this, which is really asking questions, and if you are the kind of podcast advice columnist, as person who will share personal, like talk about your personal life, like to share experiences as well. I mean, I think about like your tiny, beautiful things, and that was a lot of, you know, what Cheryl Stray did in those columns. And I mean, now she's, she had a movie where she's played Barry Spuderspoon. So it's like boom, boom, boom, you know. So I'll share it. And DC has my personal life, check. And then you can choose whatever actor, actress you want to, to file a Davis girl. Okay. You better be next to that phone. I like that you have a ready answer to this. But you know, I think a lot of what she did was, she would talk about her, her own life. Like I can still remember her, yes, some of some of the anecdotes. So I, I think with friendship and in particular, especially people really value their friendships, or they've had a hard time with them, and you were in a wider culture that doesn't really treat friendship as really like worth mourning or worth having hard conversations around. And people might have their, their, have internalized some of that judgment. I think it just is helpful to ask open-ended questions about like what does this person mean to you, especially with a term like friend, which can mean such a wide range of things where we have a, maybe a better idea if someone talks about, you know, a spouse or a parent or something like that. So yeah, I think I would, I would just try to, like your journalist, be like, bring curiosity about the kinds of questions people have and the nature of their relationships and the nature of the struggles that they're coming to you with. Rayna, thank you so much for joining us and thank you for your advice, but advice. Thanks for, for having me and I hope the advice was welcome. That was MPR, a bedded producer and author, Rayna Cohen. And remember, tune in at WNYC next Monday, September 28th through Wednesday, September 30th from 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern to hear me and my special guests give advice to listeners live on the air. Listen at WNYC dot org. This episode of It's Bit A Minute was produced by Alexis Williams. This episode was edited by Nina Patug. Our supervising producer is Sheriff Vincent. Our executive producer is Barton Gurdwood. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sanguini. Alright, that's all for this episode of It's Bit A Minute from NPR. I'm Brittany Loose. Talk soon.