It turns out that seeking advice is one of the hardest things to do - at least it was for me for the longest time. Here is what I have learned from my own mistakes.
First, it is critical to have some people you really trust. People who have good judgment. Who understand you as person and who care about your emotional and spiritual well being (not just your commercial success). There are a great many people who will want to give you advice and you can learn something from most folks, but when it comes to crunch time and actually making a decision, not every piece of advice should be weighted the same.
Second, you have to be willing to provide all the relevant information to your trusted advisors. It is impossible for anyone to give good advice if they don’t have all the information. Holding back, especially bad news, is not a good strategy for seeking advice. One way you can tell if someone is to be trusted as an advisor (see above) is if they actively seek information that’s relevant. And then actually process that information.
Third, and probably hardest, is to actually listen to the advice you are getting. It is well known from cognitive research that we tend to hear what we want to hear. This is very different from saying you have to take the advice. You have to make your own decisions, but if you don’t pay extra strong attention to what you hear, then the effort on #1 and #2 above is wasted.
I have learned all of these the hard way and wrote this post mostly because I need to remind myself of these lessons. And I try to act accordingly as a board member, with the big caveat that there are times when economic interests can be significantly at odds. I will post another time on how I try to address that.
