You probably get a lot of advice. Some of it is obviously bad, much of it unsolicited, but most likely, a significant amount of it seems like sound, well-meaning advice. It may be coming from someone you respect or from close friends and family. Most likely, however, what you’ll find is a lot of this advice will be conflicting.

Conflicting good-sounding advice.

Early on in my career, the amount of conflicting, but “good sounding” advice from successful people I was receiving was paralyzing. As a medical student, I remember in the same day being told to “leave medicine while you still can” by one jaded doctor, and then a few hours later being told by another that “I couldn’t imagine a better choice for a career”.

Both had a list of reasons, both made compelling, earnest arguments. Most importantly — I could see myself in both of their shoes, and up close, it was very hard to know what to do with these pieces of advice.

I felt like a ship in a storm, being blown around by random forces.

The mantra: All advice cancels out to zero.

But there is a trick with listening to advice. You have to first realize that all advice cancels out to zero. For every piece of advice, you will be able to find someone who will tell you the exact opposite.

Keeping in mind that all advice cancels out to zero also forces you to understand that the context for the advice is everything. Firstly, this means your personal context. You want to see the advice for what it is independently, evaluating where it sits in your current models and understanding of the world and whether it resonates with your core values.

Context also means understanding where the advice is coming from. Just as you probably shouldn’t take tax advice from your doctor, it’s easy to forget that just because someone’s rich, successful, or a genius at one thing, it doesn’t mean they’re qualified to give advice on everything. Equally, someone may be in a different stage of life or in a different state of mind. Context is everything, and it’s the first step in discerning what is useful wisdom, to what simply isn’t helpful to you right now.

Creating space between listening and internalizing advice.

Whilst the above points sound pretty obvious, it’s difficult when you’re tangled in an emotional response to some advice up-close to contextualize it. Where I went wrong in the past was where I didn’t create any space between hearing advice and internalizing advice.

The power in the mantra is in creating a gap between receiving a piece of advice, and deciding what to do with that advice. Now when I hear something like “you should finish your specialist training first” or “focus on your exams” — I’m able to choose whether to ignore it or add it to my current frameworks for understanding the world. Pieces of advice go from being unconscious sources of anxiety to becoming conscious points of information.

If you’re feeling tossed around like that ship in a storm, using this mantra can help anchor yourself and uncover the wisdom that works for you.