Our advice to other people are just expressions of our strengths

Being a PhD student is similar to entrepreneurship. The difference is that the currency we are working for is the scientific contribution, number of citations, or impact factor.

Many people suggest me what to do to succeed and complete the PhD course. I listen and read a lot of suggestions from very successful scientists, often conflicting ones.

The first conflict is whether to work alone or collaborate with other people. I’m more inclined to work alone, but there are people who recommend me to collaborate, as you can not create big things alone, collaboration is everything. However, there are people who argument that the biggest inventions (breakthroughs) were made by a single person, contemplating in their own head.

The second conflict is whether to publish many papers with smaller ideas, get instant feedback from scientific community, or work long on one great, coherent paper which covers everything.

Third conflict is whether to write and read or discuss. Some people (including me) suggest writing down their ideas and thoughts, to write diaries. Other people prefer discussing the issue right away, they feel writing and reading less optimal, as text can not be questioned, it won’t answer you.

I asked myself, what are the similarities and differences between those people?

My first observation is that people who recommend me to work alone are mostly introverts, and people who suggest me to collaborate are mostly extraverts.

People who suggest me to publish many smaller papers are ones who are judgers. People who suggest creating fewer but more coherent works are mostly perceivers.

This lends to me to wonder if our suggestions to other people are just expressions of our strengths?

If yes, which strategy is better: to follow suggestions from similar or different people?

Aren’t all self-help books just expressions of author’s strengths, which they consider ’the solution’, which lead them to success? The solution that won’t work for people with different strengths.