Mentorship helps everyone grow

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For me, finding a neurodivergent mentor changed everything.

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Hi! I’m Eliana (co-founder @ ND Connect) and for me, finding a mentor who also had ADHD + mental health disabilities changed my life.

Why? At the time, I was really struggling and life felt like... well... a lot. But talking to her showed me that I wasn’t alone. As a friend, she helped me unlearn a lot of the shame I felt for how I naturally move through the world. As a mentor, she helped me feel like I had tools to work with my brain instead of against it for the very first time in my life, and opened up meaningful opportunities for me in my field.

TLDR: she showed me that it’s possible for someone like me to not only survive in the world, but to thrive in it with the right community and support - and that was powerful. From these experiences, I believe everyone can benefit from lived-experience-affirming mentorship.

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We grow best together.

Mentors

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  • Be the person your younger self needed

  • Access an affirming community with opportunities for personal and professional growth

  • Advance your career: people who are mentors are 20% more likely to get a raise and 6x more likely to be promoted than people who aren’t ¹

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Mentees

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  • Stop feeling like you need to ‘mentor your mentor’ on how you move through the world. Get tailored advice from people who understand you as a whole human.

  • Access an inclusive community of people that want to help you get to where you want to go

  • Grow in the ways that matter to you. Research shows that neurodivergent people with mentors:

    • feel more connection and belonging

    • are more hopeful about the future

    • feel better overall

    • gain school, work, and life-related skills

    • often find jobs through mentors

A picture of two people talking and laughing. The person on the left has a beard and is wearing a skirt and fuzzy yellow top. The person on the right is touching their arm while laughing and is sitting in a wheelchair. The image is cropped in a bubbly shape with a black border and tree sketches on the top-left and bottom-right corners.

Peers & ‘Friend-tors’

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  • Mentorship doesn’t have to be one-way - be each other’s sounding boards, support swap, and accomplish your goals together.

  • Learn from each other’s wisdom without hiding who you are

  • Body double. Find a regular accountability buddy to do independent work with

    • P.S. this is a great strategy for when just having someone else there will help you focus

  • Research shows that meeting new people makes you happier and healthier

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Share moments, share wisdom

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