Who Should You Take Advice From? (7 Minutes) by Rabbi Yaron Reuven

0:52So if you want to get rid of these scientists, friends of yours, and all these family members that volunteer their advice, as soon as somebody starts giving you this advice that you didn't ask for, immediately, when they ask you a question, respond with a question. Don't answer the question. They ask you, "Oh, when do you think you're going to get married?" Just ask them back, "When do you think you're going to get married?" Wait, but I asked you, yeah, yeah, but I just want to know when you're going to get married. Oh, but I'm married. Oh, when did you get married? 17, 18, 25, 30. Why did you get married? And continue asking them questions. After the third question, like I said, I've got to go. I've got to go. It was good talking to you. Good talking to you, cuz. And the conversation's over. Why? They don't want you to ask them any questions. Why? Because they're feeling the taste of their own poison. Feeling the taste of their own poison, this is if you ever gonna listen to any interpersonal advice for me. This is what you have to listen to. Why? Because people will love to give you their advice and all of their advice has nothing to do with you; it has to do with them. They're giving you advice on what they want, not what you want. They don't know what empathy is; if they did, they wouldn't volunteer their advice in the first place. So, you want to get rid of them.

2:12Very easy. Start asking them questions. They want to give you marriage advice? Ask them about their marriage. They want to give you money advice? Ask them about their money. Oh yeah, you really know. You know what you should do with your company? You know you should do this, you should do this, you should do that. Wait, wait. What are you doing with your company? I don't have a company. So how do you know about companies? No, I just see on TV. Okay, I see on TV. Thank you. Bye. It's like asking a blind person for directions. Thank you. I appreciate the effort, but you're blind. You're not gonna ask the homeless guy for financial advice. I'm sorry. With all due respect and thank you for your courage, I don't need advice from you. Generally, advice from people is poison. You have to get advice from people that you respect, and there's a reason to get advice from them: they're qualified. The first requirement is that they don't have a bias. If they have a bias already, you have a problem. Doesn't mean that you can't take it. It just means that you have to take it into account. They have a bias. For example, a lot of kids that contact me about marriage, you know, getting a shidduch and so on, the biggest issue is their parents never, ever like who they want to get married to. I don't think there's ever been a parent in history that liked the person their daughter or son was going to marry unless they picked them.

3:35Why? No one's ever good enough for their child. No one's ever good enough for their son. No one's ever good enough for their daughter. No one's ever good enough. She's too ugly. He's too fat. He's too rich. She's too poor. Everyone's flawed. But their son or daughter is perfect. So already you see there's biased advice. In general, you have to ignore part of that advice from the parents. With all due respect to all of your parents, Mine, and we're honored. We're supposed to honor our parents, but there are certain pieces of advice that they give that, if it's biased, we cannot acknowledge it. I have a student whose father worked overtime to make sure his marriage doesn't happen. He hated his girlfriend, hated her almost like we're supposed to hate Amalek. Unbelievable why. After I don't know, they were dating for a while. They weren't necessarily religious for a while. For years he loved her; she was like a second daughter to him. But one day, she got into a disagreement with one of his other sons who disrespected her, and she told him to leave her alone.

4:55He didn't like the way she responded to his other son. From that moment on, he decided she's Amalek. For three years, she's Chava, she's Sarah, she's Rivka, she's Rachel. All of a sudden, she told one of his sons to stop disrespecting her, and she turned into Amalek. So now, they decided at that point, they're going to get married. They've already been together for a while. They're going to get married. No, he's not coming. He's going to do everything to stop it. He's going to talk to all the rabbis not to marry them. Shem Yirachem. Mamash craziness. Baruch Hashem, I tried to help as much as I could, and Baruch Hashem, they got married. They're happily married, everything's okay. But you see the stupidity of people sometimes because their ego has no limits. It has no limits. So we have to know if we're going to take advice from certain people, we have to have a list, a to-do list, a prerequisite list. Biased, okay, we'll still accept you if you're biased, but it has to be under control. Experience, you don't have that much, okay, but we'll have to take that into consideration. A lot of experience, we'll have to take that into consideration. Bad experience, we'll have to take that into consideration. Everything, you have to decide. Who you are taking advice from is even more important sometimes than the advice. So it's important for us to...

6:16Take this stuff because people love to give advice. People get paid millions of dollars to give advice, but that's because the people that give advice are not accountable. Meaning, they're going to tell you, "Go run, run, run really fast, do all these things," and if you fail, you come back to them with your tail between your legs, like, "Listen, I listened to you and I failed." They'll respond, "Ah, you shouldn't have listened to me." What do you mean? I just put my whole life on the line for you. You listen to their advice, and they'll say, "Yeah, listen, there are other people." They're not going to hold it against themselves, they're not going to be accountable for it. But if it works, God forbid, it's a bigger kapparat avonot. Why? They're never going to let you off the hook. They listen. Remember, I told you it worked. Yeah, you told me 900 things. One thing worked. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. You were right once out of 900 times. Yeah, but maybe this is the second time. You should listen to everything else he ever says. So, you have to...

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