The Value of an Expert’s Advice
This is a blog post about the value of an expert's advice, written by an expert. Seems pretty straightforward, right? Fortunately, we are not asked to be so profound as to elucidate upon our own expertise. Instead, we will be commenting briefly on how much easier it is to make decisions in life when you have the wise counsel of someone who knows more than you do! It may seem like an obvious point but there are very few people who recognize this basic wisdom when they need it most.
Intuitively, you might think that there are two ways to be advised. There is the easy way, where you pay a company a small fee (with most expert companies claiming that they can offer this service for free!) to advise you and there is the hard way where you have to go through a long process of finding an expert who is willing to help. In fact, it turns out that this intuition is quite accurate and that there are many experts out there who will help for free! (The "easier" way.) However, these experts might just not be very good at helping people make decisions.
We will examine what makes a good expert and how to choose them. An interesting paradox is that it is difficult to find any type of advice that has no value. The impossibility of the situation is demonstrated by the fact that the only reason for giving advice on these pages is because somebody finds it critical to their livelihood or well-being. For example, if you are trying to navigate a new city, do you want someone who wants money or someone who doesn't want money?
Your browser does not support inline SVG either! Is your life simpler now? Not by much though–look under "Road Map" and click on "What Are Experts?"
Things have changed a lot since 2011 when I wrote this article.
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If you are in the process of choosing an expert, we won't be offended if you don't read all of this article. And if you do read it, we don't care.
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When you have time, we definitely recommend that you look into " How to find a good expert ."
It is an entertaining irony that the value of an expert's advice depends upon the quality of the advice itself. The more we know about a subject, the more useless it is for us to seek out an expert's opinion on it! Still, there are many things that you can only learn by experience and this can easily be applied to making decisions as well. If we are choosing an expert, it is only because we are unsure which way to go.
In the simplest terms, you can tell that something is a good expert by asking yourself if the answers you get from the questions "If I think that this was an inefficient use of my time and money, how long will I wait before I find out?" and "If this person said that they were an expert in a field but then they did something stupid, would I be able to tell?" both yield positive results. If not, you may have chosen an in-efficient expert who simply did not want to help you or perhaps they just aren't very good at helping people choose one way or another.
These questions are a good way to use the power of logic. The way to win a coin toss is by being more likely to win than the other guy!
In closing, we have provided links to some free advice websites. Here is how you can find good advice for free… (If you need help choosing an expert, please see "How To Choose A Good Expert".)
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How To Choose A Good Expert: Free Advice You Can Rely On (Free Advice For Life) freeadvice .com The Best Free Advice In The World (Here's Why Your Freelancer Got Fired) freelancebychoice .com Free Advice (But Only For People Who Can Afford To Pay) thefinancialadvisor .com Advice That's Good Enough For Me To Eat (Because You Eat It Once And It's Gone) eatatjoes .com Advice That Pays Well But I'd Buy Your Product Anyway (Craigslist)
Author: Niel de Beaudrap
In the last article, we said that the way to win a coin toss is by being more likely to win than the other guy! Let's get serious though.
Author: Niel de Beaudrap
An alien just landed on Earth. He is a little confused and doesn't understand our ways. Fortunately, he has come to the right place! You are a wise human and he is ready to receive your wisdom.
You should tell him…
What is "the best advice you can give?"
Well, that's really up to the alien! I would say that one of the best pieces of advice I can give is "Be careful about what you wish for!" Of course, it's hard to give "good" or "bad" advice since this process depends entirely upon the situation and we don't even know where the alien came from.
You should tell him…
What is "good advice?"
I will start by telling you my definition of good advice: good advice is a process where two people work together to extract the best possible information from each other. This can be a very expensive process but if you want to keep your money, you should be willing to pay for it.
Conclusion
You can tell if an expert is good or bad by asking yourself questions. Here are our first few that we would ask:
But wait, what if I'm not sure? What do I do then?
Just go with your gut feeling. Just know that there are many experts out there who are willing to help you but it might not be worth the money. If you think you might want their advice later, you will be glad you asked yourself these questions!
You should tell him…
Author: Niel de Beaudrap beaudrap@gmail .