Hi, I'm Helen Tupper. And I'm Sarah Ellis. And you're listening to the Squiggly Careers podcast

where each week we come together to talk about a different topic and discuss some practical

ideas and actions to help you find your way through your squiggly world of work. And this

week we're going to be talking about how to be a meaningful mentor. So we've covered before

how to find a mentor, but actually there's not very much out there generally in terms of

research or things that you can read, watch or listen to on how to be a really great mentor,

how to do mentoring that makes a really positive difference. So a good topic to

talk about, I think, and perhaps one that we'll come back to in the future. Just some mentoring

myths that we thought might be useful to start with. And the first thing we wanted to say is that

everyone can be a mentor. Often we mistake mentors for having to be somebody who is more senior.

Perhaps we think, well, I couldn't be a mentor because what would someone learn from me?

And I think it's starting with the assumption that I think we've got something to learn from

everyone. Everyone has something that they're great at. Everyone has something to offer.

And so I'm really confident,

certainly, that everyone listens to this podcast. You can all be amazing mentors. So this is not about,

oh, this is not for me because I'm not at a certain level yet. The other thing that's really

interesting related to that is that when you do read about mentoring, there is much more

demand than there is supply. So there are more people who want mentors

than there are people mentoring. You know, it's one of those things that comes up quite a lot.

People say, oh, you know, I'd really like a mentor. I think that would be really helpful.

So I don't be afraid to volunteer to say that's something that I'm really happy to do if anyone

would benefit from that. And as a mentor, your job is not to know all

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