Influence is borrowed trust. Spend it on things you’d still recommend five years from now.

When people act on your say-so, they are lending you something that belongs to them, and every recommendation either draws it down or builds it back. Trust accumulates slowly through being right and disappears quickly through carelessness. What makes it fragile is that the cost arrives late, long after the thing you endorsed.

Before recommending anything, ask whether you would still stand behind it if it disappointed the person. Say what you are unsure about alongside what you like. Honesty of that size is what keeps the account full, and people notice it.