Business advice — Have you read this book?

Always do some fact-checking about this advisor.

Every week, I write an article to share my learning or discovery during my startup journey. Here is the link to my reasons for penning these articles for myself and for many others like me.

During your startup journey and otherwise also, you would have met a lot of people. In my entrepreneurship journey, I have come across a lot of people who want to give you a few pieces of advice. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact, most of the time they are genuine and useful. Recently I came across 2 incidents when people offered advice about reading a business book. Acting on this advice, I used to grab that book from anywhere and try to finish it quickly. The first book on that list of advice was “Find your why” when I was embarking on my entrepreneurship journey. The next book advice was “Eat that Frog” given to me last week. What I found funny was when I asked these advisors “Have you read this book?” — the answer was NO. They have heard good reviews about these books from others. For the 2nd book, the person mentioned that she had read the summary of the book and thus referred to it.

Isn’t it bizarre? You are referring a book to someone, which you have not read yourself. The other person gets an impression that this book might have helped you immensely and puts trust in you. In both these incidents, the person never disclosed that they have not read the book. Only after some more unintentional prodding, I came to know about this truth. This also demotivated me to read the book and lowered the credibility of that advisor. I don’t understand what the intention of these people could be. Maybe they wanted to help me, but I think they should help themselves first.

I strongly feel that one should refer things to others when they have done it themselves and this is especially true in the case of referring to books. So now onwards, whenever someone refers a book to me, I will always check if they have read it themselves or not. My time is precious, and I do not want to waste it on fulfilling every piece of advice from others. Especially when someone tells you to read a book, this simple fact check might help you reveal some unknown facts about the other person.

Happy Reading!

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