People use the two words as if they mean the same thing. They don’t.

Advice is an opinion offered to another person, usually drawn from personal experience. A mentor gives advice: “This is how I got through the stress of competing at the Olympics. It worked well for me.”

A friend tells you how they approached a job application at a specific company. It’s their experience, handed to you to take and follow.

A suggestion is different. It’s an idea or a plan offered for consideration. The person making it has heard something in a conversation with you, or observed something, and offers a possible way forward: a tutor for extra learning, or writing out a plan to make things clear.

Advice comes from the giver’s story. A suggestion comes from paying attention to yours.

That is why a coach doesn’t give advice. A coach doesn’t expect their own experience to work for another person. This is the person’s journey and their approach to discover, not the coach’s to hand to them. Let the person do the work and discover the answer, which is always in them.

A coach might offer a suggestion and will ask permission first:

“May I make a suggestion? You can take it or leave it. This is what I see coming out of our work together.”

That question matters. It keeps the choice with you. Advice can carry a quiet expectation that you’ll follow it. A suggestion leaves you free to say no. Both have their place.

When you want to know how someone climbed the mountain, ask for advice. When you’re finding your own way up, a suggestion respects that the path is yours.

Next time you’re about to help someone, ask yourself: Am I talking about my experience, or responding to theirs?

Then ask permission.

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

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This also matters – Goodwill is Human Service.

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