Who Stepped on Great-Grandpa?

May 5

How small misunderstandings, gut instincts, and recycled advice quietly shape big decisions.

The first time I heard Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) by Baz Luhrmann, one line stuck with me:

"Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth."

I didn’t understand it then. I just liked how it sounded. But over time, it started to make sense, especially once I realized how often advice is just someone else’s gut, shaped by their own life, tossed your way with confidence but no context.

And sometimes, those misunderstandings start small.
Sometimes, they start with an ant.
And a kid.
And a confused theory about death.

A Story About Ants, Death, and Misunderstanding

I was little.

My mom and I were outside, watching an anthill. My mom, a true insect lover was in her element. She explained how ants work together like a tiny army. I listened. I asked questions. And then decided I should definitely step on one. So, I did.

Probably shocked and slightly horrified, my mom paused. She hadn’t planned to explain the ins and outs of death that day. What parent ever feels ready for that? She improvised and gently said:

“Kiersten, that ant went to sleep forever. It has passed away. It can’t be undone. Please don’t ever do that again.”

I nodded. Seemed reasonable.

A few weeks later, we were flipping through family photos. I saw a picture of a very old man I had never seen before.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“That’s your great-grandfather. He lived a long life and passed away.”

I thought for a moment, then said:

“Oh…who stepped on him?”

The Rules We Make From Scraps

That’s how thinking works. One experience. One comment. One moment. We turn it into a rule. Then carry it forward.

In my defense, I was just a kid. But adults aren’t immune. We just get sneakier.

That kind of thinking doesn’t go away. It just evolves. It wears the costume of logic. It hides inside what “feels right.” It sounds like truth because it fits what we already believe.

Advice works the same way. Like Baz said, it’s recycled certainty. Sometimes wise. Sometimes just old.

Why Most Advice Falls Flat

Advice is usually someone else’s gut talking. It shows up confident, but it’s stripped of context. It assumes what worked once, for someone else, will work again, for you. As Annie Duke explains in Thinking in Bets, most advice sounds certain because it’s based on past outcomes but that doesn’t mean it’s transferable. Without context, advice is just someone else’s lucky guess dressed up as strategy.

But we have better tools now. We can ask questions. We can test ideas. We can learn what’s really going on. We don’t have to rely on secondhand wisdom. We can generate our own.

This mindset shows up in design thinking, lean startup methods, and behavioural decision research. Whether it’s Stanford’s d.school encouraging prototyping over guessing, or Eric Ries’ Lean Startup promoting build-measure-learn loops, the message is the same: stop guessing, start testing.

Your Gut Isn’t Always Right

Your gut isn’t always right. Yet, we’re told to trust it. To follow instinct.To lean on intuition when things get murky.

There’s some truth in that. Instinct often reflects deep experience, patterns we’ve absorbed, cues we can’t explain.

But here’s the catch: your gut is biased. It’s shaped by what you’ve lived, who you’ve listened to, and what your brain notices. As Daniel Kahneman explains in Thinking, Fast and Slow, much of what we call intuition comes from mental shortcuts. These heuristics help us move quickly but often lead us into blind spots shaped by bias and past experience. And it’s full of blind spots: Confirmation bias. Sunk cost fallacy. Availability bias. And dozens more. (If you're curious, check out the Cognitive Bias Codex by Buster Benson—it maps over 180 of them!)

So while the gut feels right, it’s not always right.

We Can Do Better

The smarter play? Go look for yourself.

Your gut can guide you. But evidence gives you grip.

Advice is borrowed confidence. Evidence is earned.

Trust your gut. Then check it.

Watch Your Step

That’s why I try to stay curious, not prescriptive. I help people slow down, notice the small stuff, and ask better questions before one misunderstanding turns into a rule you carry around for years. As Adam Grant puts it in Think Again, the goal isn’t to have all the answers. It’s to stay curious enough to keep questioning them. The best decisions usually don’t come from certainty, they come from reconsidering what you thought you knew.

Because if you're asking “Who stepped on great-grandpa?” you’ve already missed the point.

And maybe the ant.