Have you ever been stressed out, trying to get someone to help you, and you just get the sneaking suspicion they aren’t even listening to you? You’re trying to explain what you need, and the person on the other end is giving solutions that just don’t really relate to your problem. Maybe they would work for someone else in a different situation, but it’s clear the person doesn’t “get” your situation. It’s hard to ask for help in the first place, so it can be greatly frustrating when you feel like someone isn’t even hearing you.
Good mentors don’t work with checklists or cookie-cutter protocols that are designed to apply to everyone. Instead, mentors listen to you carefully and design all guidance they offer based on the unique situations you find yourself in.
Here are four ways good mentors pay attention:
1. Mentors ask questions.
One mark of any good listener is a person who asks clarifying questions. Even if the issue you’re facing is one that your mentor has faced themselves, he or she won’t assume they have a quick answer. They’ll ask questions that demonstrate they want to go deeper and remain sensitive to the uniqueness of who you are and what your goals are.
2. Mentors help you hear your own voice.
It’s always good to connect with someone who eventually knows you “better than you know yourself.” A mentoring relationship can be one such relationship. Over time, your mentor will get to know you and will hear the way you approach certain topics. We often cannot hear our own voices, especially in times of pressure. Over time, a good mentor will be able to help identify patterns of thinking that could have otherwise remained unknown to you.
3. Mentors respond, they don’t react.
When you have a mentor you can trust, you know you can be honest with them about both your successes and your failures. A mentor’s job isn’t to be disappointed in you or punish you, it’s to help you find success from where you’re at in the current moment. They come at your issue with a sense of careful response rather than quick reaction. They encourage you instead of chastising you.
4. Mentors say, “I do not know.”
The most effective mentors feel no need to have all the answers. They’re not in it to feel like someone’s hero, they’re in it to truly help. Sometimes, especially when facing new entrepreneurial challenges or uncharted territory, the careful mentor will not have the answer you hope for but will, instead, offer the friendship and support you will need as you discover answers to your own questions.
There’s no manual for mentorship. Good mentors must listen well and pay careful attention to their mentees in both their joys and their struggles. They don’t fire prefabricated “answers” at you. Instead, they turn their full attention to you and listen with care. The philosopher Simone Weil said, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity,” and mentors know that this kind of generosity is what changes lives.