When people think about mentoring, they imagine having brilliant answers.
The perfect piece of advice at the perfect moment.
I want to take that pressure off you, because it is not where the value lives.
The best thing you can give someone is your time, given fully.
Not multitasking while they talk. Not glancing at your screen. Not waiting for your turn to speak.
Just being there, present, for the fifteen minutes you promised.
That sounds almost too simple to matter. It is the thing people remember for years.
Think about who shaped you. I would bet it was rarely the person with the cleverest advice.
It was the one who slowed down for you.
Who let you ramble until the real question surfaced. Who did not make you feel like you were wasting their afternoon.
That kind of attention is rare, and it is expensive, because time is the one thing you cannot make more of.
Which is exactly why giving it means so much.
You do not need to be senior to do this. You do not need a title.
You just need to actually stop and listen when someone comes to you.
Here is the trap I want you to avoid. When someone asks for help, the instinct is to fix it fast and move on.
You solve the surface problem in two minutes and feel efficient.
But often the fast answer misses the point, because you never stayed long enough to hear what they were really stuck on.
Slow down.
Ask the second question. Then the third.
Let the conversation breathe long enough for the real thing to come out.
That is not wasted time. That is the whole job.
The advice you give will fade. Half of it they will forget by next week.
What stays is the memory that someone took them seriously.
That someone made room for them when they had every reason not to.
Give that, and you will have mentored well, even on the days you had no clever answers at all.
Your presence was the answer.
– Asael Shinder
