Some advice is universal, and some isn't

Some advice is universal, and some isn’t.

This is why generic advice and self-help so often fail to deliver lasting results.

Differences in class, r and K selection, generations, wealth, religion, culture, IQ, and conscientiousness all affect which advice will work for what people.

Most people exclusively associate with other people in the same categories as them. People who look and think like them, which leads to the tendency to think everyone is a variation of them and will benefit from the advice that worked for them.

This was a reasonable assumption back when we lived in homogenous communities and asked our parents, aunts, and uncles for advice. They were like us, and their advice would work for us. Easy.

Now we are getting advice from people who have had completely different lives from ours. Who don’t think like us or want the same things as we do.

And when the advice fails, the tendency is to blame the one receiving it: “They just aren’t smart/moral/pious/good enough to apply my advice.”

Even I have fallen into this trap in the past, thinking that other people should be able to do something just because I could do it. I know better now.

My work appeals mostly to people like me with high intelligence and high conscientiousness who seek out better tools to help us take on even more responsibility.

And yet I know that is a small percentage of the population. So each year I adjust my methods to appeal to and work with an even greater number of people.

The key is to not lose the things that make what I do so effective for my core client base while adding methods that enable the masses to adopt my systems and problem-solving patterns.

This is a challange I greatly enjoy.