We Could All Do With a Mentor, Whatever Stage of Life We’re At

And we especially need them in the neurodivergent community

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

In recent times I’ve had the opportunity to participate in mentoring programs as a mentor. It’s one of the few things that seems to come easily to me and I genuinely enjoy it.

It’s not workplace-based but through community organisations catering to specific needs. One is a neurodivergent career support network and the other is for queer parents.

Mentoring is similar to coaching and the two often overlap. The distinction between them can be tricky to pin down but the way I understand it is that mentoring is more relationship-based whereas coaching focuses on working towards goals for a specific outcome. I’m happy to be corrected on this, by the way.

I don’t think the ease that I experience in mentoring comes from natural ability so much as bursting with stuff to say about my experiences. At a time when I’m starting to feel like younger generations have the jump on me, it’s nice to be able to leverage a well of life experience. And I hope that at age 53 I come across as more wise than curmudgeonly. Or at least somewhat useful.

However, age doesn’t need to come into it at all. There’s no reason a mentor has to be older and they may well be…