Good Advice is “Obvious”

Years back, a customer of one of my courses told me that he planned to judge the course based on how “counterintuitive” the advice was.

From the theory of information, this is a reasonable strategy. Information, in this sense, is a measure of surprise. You don’t learn much when someone tells you something you already know. In contrast, ideas that totally change how you think about something are more valuable.

However, from an advice-taking perspective, I think this person was misguided. Not only is good advice typically “obvious,” but a lot of…