Get Good Advice. Then Actually Listen to It.

About 20 years ago, a very smart lawyer sat me down and gave me a piece of advice that has stuck with me ever since.

He wasn't just a lawyer. He was also a property developer. Over a couple of decades he'd built, lost, rebuilt, and ultimately made a small fortune. He understood theory, but more importantly, he understood consequences.

He said: "You're really good at getting advice. Maybe one day you should try taking it."

It wasn't said unkindly. It was said accurately.

What he was pointing out is something I now see constantly in business. People are very good at assembling experts. They'll engage lawyers, accountants, engineers, turnaround specialists – often because they know they're out of their depth. They'll listen carefully. They'll ask intelligent questions. On the surface, they look coachable.

Then they ignore the advice.

Somewhere between the meeting ending and the decision being made, a strange transformation occurs. The expert view gets diluted, reinterpreted, or overridden entirely by a plan the client is more comfortable with. Not because it's better, but because it feels familiar. Or controllable. Or less confronting.

Later, when it doesn't work, the story quietly becomes: "I followed the advice and it failed."

Except they didn't.

One of the most important follow-on points that lawyer made to me was this: when you're looking for advice, be very clear about who you're taking it from.

Not everyone who gives advice knows what they're talking about.

Titles don't matter much. Opinions matter even less. What matters is whether the person giving advice has actually been successful in the field they're advising on. Have they built something? Fixed something? Survived the mistakes they warn you about?

If someone can't organise their own affairs, it's worth asking why you'd trust them with yours.

As my career went on, I became much more deliberate about this. I hunted out specialists who were genuinely good at what they did. I checked their track records. I looked at outcomes, not marketing. And when I took their advice, I tried, sometimes uncomfortably, to actually follow it.

That's the part people struggle with.

Good advice is rarely exciting. It's often conservative. It usually involves slowing down, documenting things properly, accepting short-term pain to avoid long-term damage. It doesn't flatter ego. And it very rarely confirms what you were hoping to hear.

Ignoring it doesn't make you decisive or entrepreneurial. It just makes you predictable.

Experts aren't paid for opinions. They're paid for pattern recognition. They've seen how these situations end – many times, across different businesses, industries, and cycles. When they warn you, they're not guessing.

If you're not prepared to follow advice when it's uncomfortable, then you're not really buying advice at all. You're buying reassurance, or optionality, or someone to blame later.

Getting good advice is only half the job. Having the discipline to listen to it is where most people fall over.