This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Meredith Goldstein,

longtime advice columnist for the Boston Globe and host of the Love Letters podcast,

and I'm thrilled to be joining Life Kit today.

As a professional advice giver, I help a lot of people with their problems,

in real life and online. But what question that's always hard to answer is,

how do you give advice? Like, what makes a person good at giving advice to others?

We all wind up being called on for advice by the people in our lives. Our friends,

family, or significant others. And it doesn't always go well. If you say the wrong thing to a friend,

it might strain the relationship. Tell your girlfriend what to do, and she might tell you where you can go.

So in today's very meta episode of Life Kit, I, an advice columnist, will explore how to give

good advice to the people you care about. As one of my favorite advice columnists, John Paul Brammer,

who writes Ola Poppy, says, advice isn't one person telling another person what to do.

It's a conversation, a partnership. There are no points to be one. You're both just human beings,

sort of collaborating on the project of being a person. And seeing it that way for all its

messiness, I think, can leave a lot of room for growth.

To get us some good tips for how to give advice, I went to several experts, including John Paul.

But I want to start by going to the person I've always thought of as a natural advice giver.

She's been listening to me talk about my problems on and off for almost forever.

Hi, I'm Jamie Roberts, and I am a high school guidance counselor outside of Boston,

and I have known mayor since middle school. When we were kids, Jamie was that girl you could talk to if

you were upset. The one you could cry to in the bathroom. The one who never made you feel bad

for having a feeling. She was an old soul, an unselfish listener. I think I was aware in high school,

...