# Do you take advice well? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 3, 2016, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-take-advice-well/756419 "2016-06-03T20:07:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2016, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-take-advice-well/756419/21 "2016-06-04T21:17:01Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > If you have folks putting guns to your head on even a semi-regular basis, you should probably start listening to some of this advice. You know what? What I need isn’t fewer guns to my heads. It’s more guns to my head. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2016, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-take-advice-well/756419/22 "2016-06-04T21:24:09Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > And then she’ll come over and explain it to me. Plus a million other things that I hadn’t figured out, and actually needed to know. I should add: Of course, then I’ll listen to her advice. Absorb it. Understand it. Internalize it. And then I’ll run it through my checklist, and probably end up not acting on it. And she \*hates \*that about me. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2016, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-take-advice-well/756419/23 "2016-06-05T00:38:46Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Hey, **Robot Arm**? Just since you’re here: > > You know that thing you said about how some people just don’t get maths? Because they’re just not wired for it? > > Do you think taking advice could be like that for some people? I have this friend. She’s awesome. I’ve known her since, like, practically kindergarten. She’s great at giving advice, but she sucks donkey balls at taking it. You just cannot get things into her head. There’s just a blank stare. Either she figures something out for herself, or she’ll never figure it out. When it comes to helping people, she’s like a bodhisattva. She’s very giving. But it’s like a one-way thing. It’s a flow that only works in one direction. I can’t speak for your friend, but the times I don’t take advice are when I don’t understand it (or, at least, don’t understand it sufficiently well to turn it into action). There have been time, although I can’t think of any specifics right now, when I’ve managed to get over some problem, and I remember some of the advice I was given and think “okay, now I see what they were getting at”. There’s a difference between not understanding advice in any form, and not understanding particular pieces of advice. It’s a little like something that occurred to me when I was taking a German class. It started with simple phrases that a person might actually need in Germany, like “where is the train station?” At some point it dawned on me that the question wouldn’t do me any good if I couldn’t understand the answer. It’s no good asking “where is the train station” if the answer is “go down this street four blocks, then turn right at the bakery, but not the pastry bakery, the bread bakery next to the fishmonger, then it’s three blocks and turn left on King Street and you can’t miss it.” Even once I started learning the vocabulary, when I heard someone speaking German at normal speed I could only pick out a few words. The first phrase they should teach you in a foreign language isn’t “where is the train station”, but “speak slower, please”. You need the tools to understand the answer before you ask the question. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2016, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-take-advice-well/756419/24 "2016-06-06T16:42:10Z")
> [@Me\_Billy](#): > > My favorite method is to ask 5 different people, then pretty much follow the advice most of them suggest. Can’t usually go wrong with that! This is how I got in to smoking meth. ---
**Author:** ![Me\_Billy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Me\_Billy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Me_Billy)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-take-advice-well/756419/25 "2016-06-07T14:51:34Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > This is how I got in to smoking meth. The idea is to ask 5 DIFFERENT people for advice. “Different” means they are not all druggies, not all religious, not all criminals, not all the same types of people. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-take-advice-well/756419.md?page=1)