Mentorship is lending someone perspective without demanding they borrow your life.

Lending perspective means offering how things look from where you have stood, without requiring that anyone adopt your priorities, your risk tolerance, or your definition of a good life. The temptation runs the other way, since your own path is the one you understand best and it is easy to mistake it for the correct one.

When you advise someone, separate what you observed from what you chose. Give them the first freely. Hold the second lightly, and let their life have terms you would not have picked.