A lot of people like giving unsolicited advice. Some even build entire careers of it judging by the posts of LinkedIn influencers. I noticed that some posts set off my BS radar far more than others, and I think I've finally figured out why - I don't trust the advice of people who've only ever succeeded.

Someone who has only ever succeeded can't really tell you how you might succeed. Their only knowledge comes from their experience of what worked for them. For example, I saw a post today of some ed-tech startup founder offering consultations with high-school students, citing his undergraduate successes and how he'd never lost a hackathon. To me, this seems suspicious - if all you've done is win, it's hard to translate that specific lived experience into a more generic format that can be shared with others. It reminds me of this time I interviewed a student for a position as a course staff member for an undergraduate course - I asked them what their approach to debugging was and they told me they'd never written buggy code so they didn't have one. I don't think this person was just flexing or posturing, they were being serious. I'm sure they are some kind of savant, but the role of a course assistant was less about being the world's best programmer, and more about being able to understand where others have gotten stuck and helping others build strategies towards success - doing this well requires experience with failure.

I trust advice given by people who've experienced failure and then found pathways to success - it's far more likely that their advice will include warnings about pitfalls, but also snippets about overcoming hurdles. I think this also tells me a bit about how to position myself to gain trust from others. By showing details about failure I've overcome it not only gives my audience a more relatable persona to trust, but also communicates that my opinions are informed by data points outside the happy path - more full fledged and informed takes.