Advise From the Problem Situation
Swap generic advice for the learner's own admiration and one well-aimed question.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 58%
Asked what a young admirer should actually do, Deutsch refuses both 'do what you like' — they already are — and a prescribed syllabus. His method starts from the learner's problem situation, which you cannot guess, so you elicit one concrete anchor: a person, a video, a documentary they already admire. You then separate the admired activity from the admired circumstances, because their environment is unreproducible and usually undesirable anyway. Next you find the cheapest present-day version of that activity, which today usually means watching people do it on the internet and copying them. Finally you reserve expert attention for the rare moment it is warranted: a specific unsolved question, aimed at the specific right person. Advice quality rises with how much of their problem situation you understand, which is why the method is iterative rather than a single answer.
Origin
David Deutsch's answer, on Naval's The Deutsch Files III, to the question of what concrete thing a young person who admires a thinker should actually do — worked out live on an imagined student inspired by a Michael Faraday documentary.
Core principles
- 01'Do what you like' is useless — they are already doing it unless someone is stopping them.
- 02There is nothing you can say if you know nothing about their problem situation.
- 03An admired person is a starting point, not a template.
- 04The environment that produced your hero is unreproducible and usually undesirable.
- 05Expert attention is cheap to request and expensive to waste — spend it on a real question.
How to run it
- 1
Refuse the generic answer
Do not offer 'follow your curiosity' or a reading list. Both are answers to a question you have not yet asked, and neither can be acted on by someone whose situation you do not know.
Pro tip Saying 'I don't know enough about your situation to answer that yet' is itself useful advice.
- 2
Elicit one concrete anchor
Get a single specific thing they already admire or enjoy — a person, a documentary, a video, an activity. That anchor is the only foothold from which a real conversation can start.
Pro tip Ask what they were doing the last time they lost track of time; it beats asking what they are interested in.
Watch out Accept their anchor even if you think it is a poor one — it is data about their situation, not a commitment.
- 3
Separate the activity from the circumstances
Establish what it is about the admired person that appeals. Faraday's basement laboratory at the Royal Institution cannot be reproduced and would not be desirable if it could; what can be carried over is the fiddling with electrical things.
Pro tip Push until they name a verb, not a job title.
- 4
Find the cheapest live version today
Point them at people doing that exact activity now, at zero cost — videos of people messing about with the very things they said they liked messing about with. Starting out rarely requires money.
Pro tip Cheap and immediate beats correct and deferred; the point is to get contact with the activity this week.
Watch out Do not turn this into a curriculum; it is an entry point, not a sequence.
- 5
Bank the question until it is worth an expert
Tell them that when something in a video or a book is not understood, they should ask somebody — and that the full attention of an Einstein is needed only at the rare moments when they hit a question genuinely suitable for one.
Pro tip The internet makes finding the perfect person to answer a specific question far easier than choosing which question is worth asking.
Watch out Approaching an expert with no specific problem wastes the one shot you had.
- 6
Re-advise as the situation moves
Each round of interaction tells you more about their problem situation, which is exactly what makes the next round of advice better. Treat advice as an ongoing dialogue, not a delivered answer.
Pro tip Log what changed since last time before you say anything new.
In the wild
Deutsch invents a young person who has watched a documentary on Michael Faraday and decides that is the kind of person they want to be. Rather than prescribing physics texts, he works the ladder: you cannot reproduce Faraday's environment and would not want to, so what is it about Faraday? A basement laboratory at the Royal Institution, fiddling with electrical things. Money is not actually the barrier to fiddling. So: watch the many videos of people messing about with exactly those things, and when something in one of them is not understood, go and ask someone.
→ A vague aspiration becomes a concrete activity the person can start this week, with a clear trigger for when to seek help.
Deutsch cites Hugh Everett writing to Einstein at twelve years old and getting a warm reply that, by his account, inspired Everett. The point is not that access to a great mind was the ingredient. You do not need Einstein's full attention throughout your exploration of physics; you need it only when you hit a problem actually suitable for asking Einstein, which does not happen often. Today, finding and reaching exactly the right person for a specific question is far easier than it was for Everett — which puts all the difficulty back on having a real question.
→ Expert attention is rationed to the moments it can change something, rather than spent on general encouragement.
Common mistakes
Answering with 'just do what you like'
It is not advice: the person is already doing what they like unless someone is stopping them. It sounds permissive while leaving them exactly where they were.
Trying to reproduce the hero's environment
The circumstances that surrounded an admired figure are unrepeatable and often awful. Copying the setting instead of the activity turns an inspiration into an obstacle.
Spending expert attention with no question
Approaching the perfect person before you have a problem that is suitable for them converts a genuinely scarce resource into a wasted introduction.
Is it for you?
Best for
Mentors, parents and anyone answering 'how do I become like X?' from a young or early-stage person.
Not ideal for
Structured environments that genuinely require a fixed, sequenced curriculum with fixed assessment.
From the transcript
“there's no generic thing you can advise someone to do”
“you can't reproduce Michael Faraday's environment and you wouldn't want to”
“you don't need the full attention of Einstein throughout your exploration of physics you only need it when you encounter a problem that is suitable…”
From the episode
The Deutsch Files III