Jonah Berger

And so by calling out where that uncertainty is, it not only helps your team and others figure out what they need to do, but it also makes it clear that you are very certain about certain parts of this, which makes people more likely to listen.

And a better way is to say, in situations like this, this happens.

You're not talking about when it doesn't happen.

You're focused on when it does happen.

And so I think even when you want to restrict what you're talking about to something, there are better and worse ways to do it.

I think when we're stuck on a tough problem, and this happens to me a lot, you're working on something, you're trying to figure out the answer, you need help.

And we think about asking for advice, but we often don't do it for a few reasons.

One, we're worried the person will be busy.

Two, we're worried that even if they're not busy, they won't be able to help us.

But most detrimental, we're worried it'll make us look bad.

If we ask for advice, it'll make us look like we don't know what we're doing, and so people will think worse of us.

But some very nice research shows actually the exact opposite is true.

They had people have various social interactions.

Some people asked for advice, some didn't.

And they found that people were perceived more favorably when they asked for advice, not less.

They were seen as smarter and more competent.

And the reason is that people are egocentric, right?

We all think we give good advice.

We all think our advice is great.

And so when someone asks us for our advice, we go, wow,