6 Guaranteed Ways to Build Trust Quickly as a Mentor

Based on my experience mentoring hundreds of people

Many people try becoming mentors, only to give up shortly because their mentees firmly resist any suggestion for change. Does that sound familiar?

What can be a wonderful experience—when done right—can quickly become a very frustrating one if a solid foundation of trust is lacking.

In today’s article, I will present you with 6 ways to build trust with any mentee. I’ve applied these techniques with hundreds of mentees around the world and I can confidently say: they work!

Let’s dive in!

Why trust is paramount

Just like coaches or therapists, mentors are in the business of helping people. We became mentors because fundamentally we want to help.

To effectively help someone, or better said, for the person to let us help them, they need to trust us. They need to have an unshakeable belief that we understand them, we’re there for them, we want what’s best for them and we know what we’re talking about.

Trust is the foundation of any helping relationship.

Building trust happens through a series of interactions from big to really tiny, over time. There is no way to shortcut this. You can, however, accelerate trust building by following these tips:

1. Make your mentee feel heard and seen

Every human has a deep need to feel understood for who they are and everybody wants to feel like they matter.

In last week’s article, we talked about what making people feel heard and seen actually means and how to achieve it.