http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/07/23/lw.meddlers/index.html?iref=nextin
anyways, heres an extract:
"as the mother of a toddler, stephanie delger has learned how to pick her battles.
that's why during a trip to the grocery store a few months ago, the 25-year-old freelance writer decided to give her son joshua a cookie when she sensed a tantrum coming on.
but as it turned out, he wasn't the only one she would butt heads with that day.
delger happened to be sharing the aisle with a woman of around 60, who watched as joshua grew cranky and attempted to stand up in the cart. when delger mollified him with a cookie, she offered some unsolicited advice.
'she started lecturing me and telling me i shouldn't give in to tantrums and that i should have taken him outside and spanked him.' delger says.
then the woman did the unthinkable: she took the cookie away from joshua, who was only 14 months old at that time.
'his little face just crumpled' says delger, who decided to give the woman some advice of her own. 'i told her [that her] behavior was completely out of line and that it was ridiculous. her advice was unnecessary and unappreciated.'
mother and son then left the scene, and joshua got a new cookie - and a balloon - as consolation."
(end of extract)
different people might have different opinions on this - but i applaud the mum for telling off the lady. snatching a cookie from the kid is something i just cannot forgive. come on people, its a cookie we're talking about here!
but that aside, advice-givers are aplenty around us - and no matter what their background, they will morph into a career agent/marriage counsellor/pastor/childcare expert/banker as per the situation. and the best part of all - they believe their advice is the best to be had.
so it is not surprising that they feel slighted - more like highly offended - when the person on the receiving end does not 'take' the advice seriously, let alone put it to use.
to all well-meaning-meddlers out there - this is where you go wrong - you give away your life-enriching-nuggets-of-information - for free.
set up a consultancy and slap on a fee for every minute you speak, save your breath and write it all down in a book and publish it, book a hall and hold a seminar - and the same advice will be taken much more seriously and you get to make some money in the process. (that is why lawyers and bankers are taken so seriously - they charge so much per hour that anything they say is taken seriously.) never fear about getting an audience - there are enough people who will spend to hear the same thing in different words. who knows, you may even be featured on oprah with dr. phil.
this is the irony of life - people would trample over each other to get to a prada sale, but put all the goods out with a 'FREE' sign, and the same crowd would pick and choose, and then leave it all there.
there ain't no free lunches, 'cos no one wants a free one anyway!
p.s. this is not 'free' advice - if you do use it and make money, i hope you will have the decency to forward me the royalty cheque!
No comments:
Post a Comment