“There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble.”
Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and short story writer.
When you advise clients, friends, and family, do you speak from experience, or do you speak from received wisdom?
Sometimes in our eagerness to provide an answer or extend a helping hand, we are more than willing to pass along counsel which we have only heard from others. We share others’ experiences as if they are our own, not knowing first-hand if what we’re saying has the same value as if we’d experienced the situation ourselves.
In the internet age, we are quite accustomed to researching and reporting findings from cursory inquiries online, taking on faith that there is some grain of truth or worth. Sure, we can offer the caveat “Your Mileage May Vary,” but this kind of knowledge is vastly inferior to the truth of our hard-won experience. Consider the difference between someone who has “heard flipping houses is a great way to build wealth” versus the investor who has gone through the trials of buying, rehabbing, and selling a property themselves.
Your life is an opportunity to get in trouble and share, authentically, your experiences with others. Place bets. Test your theories. Make grand mistakes and rebound from those errors. The perspective you will gain and the value you will bring to the table will be worth the trial.
