Friday, September 18, 2009

Consult with the successful, and avoid taking advi e from the failures

Same principle as in Consult with happy people.

If someone is a failure, you may learn from him ways to fail. Given the ecology of advice, quesitons, etc. you cannot say I will just ocnsult about a part of life. You get the effect in the ways a failing person frames a questions, in the ideas he proposes, in the direcitons he moves your attention.

An opposite possibility is if you are a failure yourself, maybe the more relevant advice for you is that of weak and failing individuals.
I am not convinced in this. I beleive you should go for the smarter happier and more successful when needing advice.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think we must take both sides, on one side depressed or weak people may advice you the failure of something or unattainable goal, then you get the information and you willbe able to evaluate the failure (here we need to be foxes and not hedegehog).The other side happy people may explain a naive succes (The happy person advice)and he may be wrong (Narrative fallacy).I personaly will take both sides, but i think there will be more advice from the ones unhappys (the trick is getting the trutfuls) I would take more investing advice from losers than winners, i do not care what buffet says i care about the unseens, where they are?

Jazi Zilber said...

Tha susccessful are many times so only by luck is clear, one may have to consult successful people that are successful by their actions (i.e. over all alternative histories) rather than those that maybe successful by luck.

Regarding consulting the depressed, we have a conflict between practical advice where both sides are important.
And mood and emotional approach.

The prbolem with the depressed is not with the practicla side, but with the emotional tendencies that come with it. Which may take you down with them.

Especially, bitterness, and seeing the negative exessively in things. It may kill a person's life.