Your ideas might be great, but do you know the best way to speak up — and when to keep quiet?

"Take my advice. I’m not using it.” Ever heard that line?

Ha, ha.

Yet we all probably know at least one person like that, the kind who loves to dispense sage wisdom and does so without inhibition. ‘Nuff said.

But give advice without thought, say Harvard Business Review writers David A. Garvin and Joshua D. Margolis, and watch the possible consequences: misunderstanding and frustration, decision gridlock, subpar solutions, frayed relationships, and thwarted personal development.

The good news: advice-giving can be a learned skill. So how do you become the sort of person people want to listen to? Here’s some wisdom, uh, advice, from professionals and laypeople who’ve weighed in on how to respond best.

WHAT THEY’RE REALLY ASKING

Take this one: “My friend hurt me badly, and she doesn’t know it. I can’t forgive her.”

Spoiler alert: this once happened to me.

“I’m so mad,” I told a mentor-friend of mine then, ranting and raving about a comment another friend had made and how I thought I could never forgive her.

“Let it go,” was her reply. “If you were the recipient of such a comment, it was obviously G-d’s will. You needed to hear it. Your friend was only the conduit.”

I ended the call fast.

Her words may have been great advice, but there was one slight hitch. I wasn’t asking for advice. I just wanted to talk.

Apparently, I’m not alone. According to Psychology Today writer and therapist Richard B. Joelson, people often appear as though they’re asking for advice, but they don’t really want it. What they’re looking for when sharing difficult life situations, says Joelson, is an attentive ear rather than a request for help.

“People often find their own solutions when they have an opportunity to express their feelings in an atmosphere of acceptance, patience, tolerance, and support,” says Joelson. “Active and attentive silence may, at times, be more helpful than anything one person can say or do to help another.”

Mishpacha columnist and community leader Rabbi Ron Yitzchak Eisenman concurs, sharing an incident in which a woman, a single mother, asked to consult with him about the difficulties she was having with one of her teenagers.

The woman came into his office and sobbed.

“I had nothing to offer her as far as advice,” says Rabbi Eisenman. “I sat there for 45 minutes, literally not saying a word, giving her the only thing I had: my silent support. When she was done, she got up and said, ‘Thank you, Rabbi, for listening.’ And that was it.”

That’s listening at its best, “advice” in its most artful form. “I work hard to make people feel as comfortable as possible, to listen without reacting, without judgment.”