At the heart of mentoring is something deceptively simple: listening. Real, focused, unrushed listening. And yet, when I step into the online world to share what I do, I find myself bumping up against a contradiction. The internet doesn’t reward listening, it rewards shouting.
If you want to get noticed online, you’re supposed to declare yourself the ultimate expert, the one with the definitive method to solve everyone’s problems. You’re expected to package it all into five easy steps, delivered with the promise that if people just follow them, life will be magically fixed. Oh, and of course, no one else can possibly do it as well as you.
But that’s not reality.
I understand how the attention economy works. I know why bold, shocking statements get clicks and why eye-catching claims make people stop scrolling. Once you’ve hooked someone, you then have the chance to show them what you can really do. That makes sense, except it doesn’t fit what I actually do.
Because at the heart of my work is listening.
And listening is rare. Most of us aren’t really listened to in daily life. Everyone’s busy. Conversations are rushed. You start sharing something and people jump in with their own stories, advice, or quick fixes. What I offer is different – the time and space to be heard.
Something almost magical happens when someone really listens to you. It’s not just about feeling taken seriously – it’s about having the space to solve your own problems. Because the truth is, you already know a lot of what you need to know. And if you don’t, the information is out there; we’re hardly short of it. The real challenge is piecing it all together and turning knowledge into wisdom.
And with wisdom, you can decide your own next steps. You can work out what you actually want. You can carve out a way forward that fits you.
This is valuable for anyone. But it’s especially important if you’re neurodivergent, because you’ve probably spent a lot of your life being told you’re ‘too sensitive’, or ‘too much’, or asked why you can’t just be like everybody else. You’ve had to push down parts of who you are in order to fit into someone else’s idea of ‘normal’. That makes having a space where your way of thinking is valid – where you get to work things out on your own terms – even more vital.
But… how do I explain all this online?
How do I get across the real depth of what mentoring offers in a space where the quickest way to attract attention is with shallow ‘five tips to change your life’ content? (Even saying that out loud makes me cringe because it’s not my style!)
Maybe the answer is to keep writing articles like this. To stop trying to squeeze myself into formats that don’t fit, and instead be braver about sharing what I really do. Maybe it’s about leaning into conversations where there’s space for depth (podcasts, interviews, longer discussions) where personality and nuance can shine through in a way a 500-word ‘how-to’ article never could.
I don’t have the full answer yet. But I do know mentoring is not about shouting the loudest. It’s about listening, deeply and without judgement. And in a world that’s already too noisy, maybe that’s exactly the point.
If you’d like to know more about how I could help you as a mentor, please take a look at this page or send me a message.