A useful conversation about choices begins with understanding which choices are actually available.

Options exist on paper that do not exist in a person’s life. Discussing whether someone should move, change jobs or take time off is not much use until you know what a visa, a lease, a diagnosis or a bank balance has already ruled out. Otherwise you spend an hour weighing doors that are locked.

Start by asking what is genuinely possible right now. Let them tell you the constraints before you offer any views about the merits. Once the real list is on the table, even a short conversation can be worth a great deal, because every option in it is one they could actually take.