I am guilty of not keeping my counsel, no matter how many times I say to myself, ‘say what needs to be heard, not what needs to be said’, I break the rule. In another life I was a counsellor and a hypnotherapist as well as an NLP practitioner. The most important things I learnt is that people rarely want advice. They want confirmation that they are right and it’s best to always repeat and reflect, anyone unaware of the technique can look it up, then people can take what they want. It reduces conversation and responses down to mechanics, but frighteningly…it works.