Farhan asked seven people about whether he should take the Singapore offer. His manager said go. His mentor said go. His wife said go with conditions. His father said think carefully (which meant stay). His mother said whatever makes you happy (which meant please stay). His college friend said absolutely go. His therapist asked what he wanted to do.
Farhan stayed. He’d been asking for advice. He’d been looking for permission to do what he’d already decided.
This pattern is so common in career decisions that researchers have a name for it: confirmation-seeking disguised as advice-seeking. The brain has already made its choice. The advisory process is a search for the one voice that validates the existing decision. When Farhan’s father said think carefully, the search was over. The remaining six opinions were filed under “interesting but not applicable.”
The person whose advice you follow tells you nothing about the quality of the advice. It tells you everything about the decision you’d already made.
The mechanism is documented in Dan Ariely’s research on decision-making. When people seek advice after internally committing to a choice, they process confirming advice faster and with less scrutiny than disconfirming advice. The six people who said “go” were heard and filed. The one who said “stay” was heard and felt. The emotional resonance, not the logical content, determined which advice landed.
This isn’t irrationality. It’s information about what you actually want. If you ask seven people and follow the one who agrees with your gut, the gut has spoken. The question is whether you’re willing to acknowledge that the decision was already made and stop pretending it was collaborative.
Indian families amplify this dynamic because career advice in Indian families is not advisory. It is participatory. Parents don’t offer suggestions. They offer positions. And those positions carry relational weight. Disagreeing with the advice means disagreeing with the person. Farhan couldn’t follow six voices and override his father’s. The relational cost exceeded the career benefit.
Farhan didn’t regret staying. He regretted the three months of asking advice he was never going to follow. The energy spent seeking validation could have been spent making the decision he’d already made work better.
When you last asked for career advice, were you genuinely open to all answers or were you shopping for one specific one?
Farhan asked seven people. He followed the one who agreed with him. Who’s your one? careers.deliberx.com