Good advice leaves people clearer about their own choices, not smaller beside yours.

Advice can serve two masters. It can help someone see their situation more clearly, or it can demonstrate how much the adviser knows, and the second often disguises itself as the first. The difference shows afterwards: one leaves a person more able to decide, the other leaves them impressed and stuck. Feeling small is not a side effect of good counsel.

After you next give advice, check whether the person seems clearer or merely reassured that you are capable. Ask what they are thinking of doing, then stop talking. If they leave with your plan rather than their own, you answered a different question.