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I'm very careful with advice. Even more so in personal contexts. The challenge is that there's a four square matrix of outcomes: they follow vs they don't follow; the outcome is a success vs a failure.

If they follow and have success they're a genius for evaluating options and coming to proper conclusions. You don't get any credit for the advice.

If they ignore your advice and it works out well then they just remember you're an idiot who can't be trusted.

If they don't follow your advice and things work out well they can resent you for the imagined "I told you so".

But worst is if they act consistently with your advice (or at least believe they have) and have a negative outcome. Your advice can cause people to avoid accepting their own agency in the outcome, and fail to learn key lessons while passing the blame to you.

Giving advice offers little upside with a lot of downside particularly in relationships you value. I like the suggested approach of talking anecdotally about similar situations in my own life or career, and my thinking and choices, and as far as possible some objective accounting for outcomes.

Humility and support is better than overconfident prescriptions.



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