Wear Sunscreen

A Chicago Tribune columnist wrote a piece in the late 1990s that has become known as Wear Sunscreen. She imagined what advice she might give to students at a commencement. It starts like this: “Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97: Wear sunscreen.”

The commonsense advice that followed included tidbits like, “Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts” and “Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.” The message was intensified when it was set to music, renamed Everybody’s Free (To WearSunscreen) and released on an album by an Australian film director. One of Brazil’s biggest advertising agencies added video.  

A better option than giving advice

Giving advice feels good, but it doesn’t empower other people. Experts suggest that instead of telling others what to do, we coach them to find their own solutions. This approach is more motivating and helps others grow. While it takes more time asking questions to guide others into their own answers, doing so lets other people develop independence, increasing their productivity. This also frees you to accomplish more.

Best Advice I Ever Got.. Mort Zuckerman

The best advice I ever got came from one of my professors at the Harvard Business School. 

He told a story about how George Bernard Shaw was working as a clerk in a dry-goods store in Dublin, and he decides to give himself three years to go and write plays in London. And if it didn’t work out he could always go back and be a clerk in a dry-goods store.  

The way I interpreted his advice was to really do what you love. 

Mort Zuckerman, US News & World Report
Quoted in Fortune Magazine

Your voice

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar. -Edward R. Murrow

The best advice I ever got

The advice that sticks out I got from John Door, who in 2001 said, “My advice to you is to have a coach.” 

My argument was, How could a coach advise me if I’m the best person in the world at this?  But that’s not what a coach does. The coach doesn’t have to play the sport as well as you do. They have to watch you and get you to do your best. 

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt quoted in Fortune Magazine

The Best Advice

Talk a little less, and listen more. Less advice is often the best advice. People don’t need lots of advice; they need a listening ear and some positive reinforcement. What they want to know is often already somewhere inside of them. They just need time to think, be and breathe, and continue to explore the undirected journeys that will eventually help them find their direction.

Marc and Angel Chernoff

I know exactly what you mean

We think it’s helpful to say, ‘I know exactly what you mean, I went through something similar…’ but that’s you talking about your own feelings, rather than allowing your friend to tell you what it’s like for them. When a person wants to express their pain, your experiences aren’t relevant to them. A similar, common mistake is to leap to offer advice before being asked. Giving advice is not listening, and often it’s not helpful. It shuts people down. If you feel a responsibility to fix your friend’s problems, relinquish it.

Moya Sarner writing in The Guardian

Listen to the Young

Listen hardest to people younger than you. They are ignorant and generally have lowly jobs, but their fragments of knowledge will be more cutting-edge than yours. -Simon Kuper

are you in the mix?

You don't have to be "deep" or constantly talking about profound issues. You just need to be "in the mix" so that you venture outside of your box. People who don’t peek out and over the lids of their cardboard hovels live in very small worlds. They may follow others into change, but they do not own it.

One way to clarify who is in the mix and who is not, is to ask, "Would I go to this person for advice when some significant life issue confronted me?" Not just for encouragement or some sage piece of advice--but because this person is a fellow struggler.

These types of friends and acquaintances are "in the fight" to move beyond white picket fences and 9-to-5 jobs. They whet your appetite for substantive relationships and make you want to become more than what you are. These are friends who are open to paradigm shifts in their own lives. They are not just focused on “straightening you out” so that you will become more like them. They want to grow like you do.

Stephen Goforth

Going in Circles

Remember the TV show where one of the characters got lost in the woods, only to discover he was going around in circles?! Of course you do, because it’s a storyline that’s been overused on TV. You are sure to have seen it play out (probably more than once). As it turns out, that scenario is not far off the mark. When people get lost, they really do tend to walk in circles.

Here’s what German researchers discovered: Volunteers who could not see the sun or moon, often walked for hours in circles, sometimes circles as small as 20 yards across. Some of the participants were so convinced they were walking in a straight line, they didn’t believe the researchers until they were shown proof.

Errors in our internal radar accumulate until we are literally walking in circles and going no where. What made the difference were external signposts. Landmarks like the sun or moon, completely changed the result.

One of the researchers offers this advice: “Don’t trust your senses. You might think you are walking in a straight line when you’re not.”

Isn’t that how life is? We know people who trust their own senses and have no external guideposts to keep their lives on track. They believe they are marching forward but all the while they are going no where in life. Sadly, they repeat the same mistakes, not realizing they’re reacting in the same way to the same kind of situation. On the other, people who really get somewhere in life, not only carefully chose their landmarks, they are willing to listen to their life-anchors.

Stephen Goforth