“Advice is seldom welcome and those who need it most like it the least.”

– Lord Chesterfield, British statesman, diplomat and wit

“He doesn’t listen to a word I say.”

My friend had been talking to me about his youngest son and lamenting how he had grown up to be a bit of a know-it-all who scoffed at his father’s recommendations. The more my friend insisted upon offering advice, the more his son met him with resistance or indifference.

Good advice often goes unheeded. Maybe that’s because good advice doesn’t sound good until the recipient has enough life experience to comprehend its value. As a child I was a sponge, soaking up every piece of advice my parents shared with me. But by the time I reached my teens,...

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