Context determines right vs wrong approaches

My favorite interview question of all time is to ask people to describe a best practice that they learned in their career and then ask them to tell me a situation where that best practice would not be applicable. Most people can't do it.

Ada defines "curiosity loops" as systematically asking multiple people structured questions to gather diverse perspectives and advice.

One of the big reasons why I think curiosity loops are really useful is that it really fights the fact that there's a lot of bad advice out there. And it's not bad because it's not well-intentioned, but it's bad because it's not contextual.

Don't ask people for advice, ask people for relevant experience. If you ask them for advice, they will always give it, but if you ask them for relevant experience, they rarely have any to offer, and if they don't have any to offer, then don't ask for their advice.

When people give you advice, they're not giving you advice, they're giving themselves advice in your shoes.

When you ask for advice, don't just ask what to do but why. Be an obnoxious two-year-old kid, why? Why? Why? Why?