If your advice works out well, they think how smart they were for taking it. But there is some advice that I would give, based upon a lot of practical study of the industry. If you can do it, there's a canny way of investing. And if you follow that way and get established in it, then it requires very little action on your part. The canny way is to be invested in a basket of stocks.
Diversification spreads risk.
It's the fundamental principle of risk reduction. That means something close to a domestic index or some overlapping small stock and large stock indexes domestically. It means investing internationally, as well. The bookkeeping is easy. At the end of the year, you get a couple of chits from your mutual fund company.