Do People Want Your Answers Or Your Presence?

How are you with advice-giving or advice-getting?

For me, I’m a bit agnostic with it. But here’s a criteria of sorts that I think about when evaluating it.

• Do I know this person?
• Do I trust this person?
• Do I respect them and them me?
• Do I really care?
• Do they need something?
• Do they really have experience in what they’re telling me about?

And even then, I may only think of these in retrospect after they’ve given me advice.

I noticed myself becoming a bit more confident in my late 20s and early 30s, simultaneously something else started happening.

People started asking me for advice or my opinion on certain things. Writing, faith, digital marketing, race, politics, history etc.

All things that I admittedly had some knowledge or experience in.

But imposter syndrome is a thing and I don’t always feel confident in giving that advice!

Unsolicited advice is another thing that I’m shaky on. I can have a hard time receiving it if the “criteria” isn’t met. At the same time, I’ve given unsolicited advice and then kicked myself later.

This whole thing can get messy quick if you really think about it.

People Want to Be Seen

And yet underneath it all, I think there’s a very simple concept.

People want to be seen.

This isn’t necessarily status as much as it is connection.

Sometimes (not always) people that ask you for advice are not looking for an answer as much as they are for calm in their ruminations in their problem.

They may go to you because you bring them that cal

But let’s be honest about what’s really happening in those moments. When someone comes to you for advice, they’re usually in an emotionally fragile state—even if they don’t show it. They’re wrestling with vulnerability. There’s often shame underneath the question: Why don’t I know this already? Why can’t I figure this out myself?

There’s anxiety about making the wrong choice, doubt creeping in about their own judgment, the weight of indecision pressing down.

They may feel isolated in their struggle, like they’re the only one who doesn’t have it figured out. And so they come to you, someone they trust, hoping that by being seen by another person, some of that burden might lift.

They’re hoping your calm presence means they’re not alone in this. Understanding this emotional layer actually changed how I think about my own hesitation to give advice. My imposter syndrome isn’t just about whether I know enough, it’s about recognizing that people are vulnerable when they ask. They’re putting something fragile in front of me. That’s why I’m careful. That’s why it matters.

A Better Framework

I came across this video as I was scrolling through Instagram the other day.

Vinh Giang breaks it up into a four questions that you can ask people when they come to you for advice:

1. What’s on your mind?
2. What else?
3. What’s the real problem here?
4. How can I help?

I see a couple of things here. One, you’re helping someone regulate themselves and work through their problems. Two, you’re asking someone specifically what role they want you to take (If any) in the solution.

Reminds me of the AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) or PAS (Problem, Agitation, Solution) framework in marketing.

Which I think is powerful and removes the stress of “coming up with the right answer” for someone.

Why This Works: Autonomy and Respect

But here’s what’s really happening beneath the surface: you’re respecting their autonomy. When you ask clarifying questions instead of handing down answers, you’re treating someone as a thinking person, capable of finding their own way forward. You’re trusting their judgment. That’s fundamentally different from the culture of predetermined solutions, which essentially says: “You can’t figure this out. Here’s what you need to do.”

When someone feels seen through genuine questions, they’re not just getting advice, they’re being treated as someone worthy of respect, someone whose capacity to govern themselves matters.

The Problem: A Culture of Predetermined Solutions

We live in a culture that emphasizes frameworks, strategies, programs, courses, guides, masterclasses, or the “tip top solution for your problem that’ll also turn into a business that you can run with just 1 or 2 hours a day that’ll earn you 6-figures”.

There’s tons of businesses, soloprenuers, coaches etc. with ads on social media that send you to very long sales pages on social media for an expensive product or service.

They work for a reason. They want you to believe that you came up with the solution and they’re just giving it to you.

This isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s how things are sold. It’s marketing. As a digital marketer myself I understand that different messaging works for different people at different times in the customer journey.

It’s the reason Times Square has so many flashy ads going 24/7.

People are walking and passing, going about their lives until they happen to look up and see the right product or service, at the right time, for them.

American commercialism at it’s best.

This is where the line gets blurry between meeting someone where they are and waiting for them to be most vulnerable.

The Real Choice

We’re not dealing with marketing here, we’re dealing with people. Strangers, friends, family members, coworkers.

And here’s the thing: genuine advice-giving is actually simple. Ask questions. Listen. Trust that the person across from you is capable of thinking through their own life. That’s it. But simple doesn’t mean easy, not in a culture that’s trained us to monetize solutions and sell certainty.

There’s something almost un-American about it, which is funny because it’s actually the most American thing we could do. The founding idea, that ordinary people are capable of governing themselves, that they don’t need a king or an expert to tell them what to do, that’s the whole point. We built a country on the radical belief that people can think for themselves. And yet we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that we need a $997 course to figure out our own lives.

The paradox is this: in our obsession with complexity and optimization, the most powerful thing has become the simplest. Just asking someone what they actually think. Just believing they’re capable. Just getting out of the way and letting them find their own answer.

Next time someone asks you for advice, you’ll have a choice. You can hand them a framework. Or you can ask them a question. You can tell them what to do. Or you can trust them enough to figure it out. One approach treats them like a problem to be solved. The other treats them like a person worthy of respect.

The difference matters more than you might think.

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