A combination lock with the right numbers in the wrong order stays shut. Good advice at the wrong moment does too.

Order matters as much as content. A lock will stay shut with every correct number entered in the wrong sequence, and good advice behaves the same way when it arrives before someone is ready to hear it. The thing you were told at fourteen and found useless can be exactly right at seventeen, unchanged. Timing is not a detail of persuasion, it is most of it.

If somebody is not taking your advice, consider that you may be early rather than wrong. Say it once, leave it, and be available later when the moment actually comes.