147. CHOOSING THE RIGHT MENTORS - Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment - empowering redundancy - empowering redundant workers - Ola Carew

147. CHOOSING THE RIGHT MENTORS - Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment - empowering redundancy - empowering redundant workers - empowering redundant staff - empowering redundant employees - making redundancy work for you - is redundancy a dead end? - is redundancy the end of the road? - making the most of redundancy - empowering the redundant worker - Jack Lookman - Rita Nnamani - Olayinka Carew - Ola Carew - Jack Lookman Limited - Amebo - Olofofo - Ire o - Ire kabiti - Empowerment and Inspiration - Empowering And Inspiring Generations - Yinka Carew - Olayinka Carew aka Jack Lookman - Jack’s Empowerment and Inspiration 

Claim Your Free Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment Ebooks

Will You Join Our Community?

Buy: Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment (Volume 3) - Empowering Redundant Workers - Jack Lookman - Rita Nnamani - Olayinka Carew - Jack Lookman Limited 

Visit Our Youtube channel - Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment 

We do Affiliate Marketing with Amazon and other organisations. We make commissions after each sale, without costing you more.

In the UK, many redundant workers are encouraged to seek mentors through business networks, professional associations or informal contacts. While this is good advice, discernment matters. A mentor should understand the context of redundancy, not just business or career success. Someone who has never experienced job loss may unintentionally downplay the emotional and financial impact, offering advice that sounds inspiring but lacks practical grounding.

Mentors who have successfully negotiated the change are the most useful, following redundancy. This could be someone who transitioned from employment to self-employment, rebuilt after being laid off, or has a thorough understanding of the UK labour market. Their value is not in knowing all the answers, but in assisting you in asking better questions and avoiding frequent pitfalls.

It is also vital to understand that mentors are not saviours. They do not replace personal accountability or decision-making. A good mentor questions assumptions rather than reinforces them. They enquire as to why you want to pursue a specific career, how it fits into your current obligations, and whether your expectations are reasonable. This type of instruction can be painful, but it prevents costly mistakes.

Another mistake many redundant workers make is confusing visibility with relevance. High profile entrepreneurs and online personalities may seem attractive as mentors, but their experiences are often far removed from the realities of someone rebuilding income in the UK after redundancy. Local mentors, industry specific contacts and peers slightly ahead of you on the same path often provide more actionable insight.

Mentorship does not always need to be formal. Conversations over coffee, structured check ins with former colleagues, or advisory relationships with accountants and career coaches can all serve mentoring functions. What matters is trust, honesty and alignment. You should feel able to speak openly about fears, finances and uncertainties without being judged or rushed.

Timing also matters. In the immediate aftermath of redundancy, emotional support and clarity may be more important than strategy. Later, tactical advice around business growth, retraining or career pivots becomes more useful. The right mentor at one stage may not be the right mentor later, and that is normal.

Choosing mentors wisely helps redundant workers regain perspective. It replaces isolation with connection and confusion with informed decision making. The aim is not to follow someone else’s path blindly, but to borrow their experience while building a route that fits your own life. 

Useful Links

At Jack Lookman Limited: Our mission is to Empowerment and Inspiration Generations by leveraging the Internet. 

Watch Our Youtube Videos, Buy Our Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment Paperbacks, And Join Our Community.

Buy Jack Lookman’s Paperbacks And Read Our Blogs.

143. COULD YOU LEVERAGE YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE? Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment - empowering redundancy - Jack Lookman Limited

143. COULD YOU LEVERAGE YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE? Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment - empowering redundancy - empowering redundant workers - empowering redundant staff - empowering redundant employees - making redundancy work for you - is redundancy a dead end? - is redundancy the end of the road? - making the most of redundancy - empowering the redundant worker - Jack Lookman - Rita Nnamani - Olayinka Carew - Ola Carew - Jack Lookman Limited - Amebo - Olofofo - Ire o - Ire kabiti - Empowerment and Inspiration - Empowering And Inspiring Generations - Yinka Carew - Olayinka Carew aka Jack Lookman - Jack’s Empowerment and Inspiration 

Claim Your Free Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment Ebooks

Will You Join Our Community?

Buy: Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment (Volume 3) - Empowering Redundant Workers - Jack Lookman - Rita Nnamani - Olayinka Carew - Jack Lookman Limited 

Visit Our Youtube channel - Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment 

We do Affiliate Marketing with Amazon and other organisations. We make commissions after each sale, without costing you more.

Redundancy has a way of shrinking perspective. People start to see their career as a single role rather than an accumulation of skills, judgement, and hard-won experience. That narrowing is understandable, but it is also misleading, and often costly.

Skills and experience do not disappear when a role ends. They detach from an employer and return to where they belong, with you. The problem is that many professionals have never had to articulate them clearly outside a specific job description. Redundancy exposes that gap very quickly.

There is an important distinction to make here. Experience is not time served. It is applied learning. It lives in decisions made under pressure, problems solved with limited information, people managed through uncertainty, and systems improved quietly over time. When people say they have nothing to offer beyond their last role, they are usually overlooking the substance of what they actually did.

One reason this happens is habit. Organisations reward narrow performance. Over time, people internalise the idea that their value is confined to a title or department. Redundancy breaks that framing. Suddenly, skills have to travel. They have to be named, translated, and repositioned. This can feel uncomfortable, but it is also clarifying.

The most productive move is to step back and audit honestly. What do you know how to do well. What outcomes have you repeatedly delivered. What situations do people tend to rely on you for. These questions surface transferable capability far more effectively than rewriting a CV line by line.

There is also a strategic element. Skills gain value when they solve problems that matter. Leveraging experience is not about listing everything you can do. It is about selecting what is most relevant to the direction you want to move. Focus sharpens credibility. Generality dilutes it.

Some people resist this process because it feels like self-promotion. It is not. It is translation. If you cannot explain your value clearly, others will struggle to see it, no matter how capable you are. Redundancy simply removes the buffer that once did that explaining for you.

The opportunity, then, is not to start again, but to reframe. To take what already exists and apply it with intention. Skills that were once background become foreground. Experience that was taken for granted becomes leverage.

Useful Links

At Jack Lookman Limited: Our mission is to Empowerment and Inspiration Generations by leveraging the Internet. 

Watch Our Youtube Videos, Buy Our Jack’s Redundancy Empowerment Paperbacks, And Join Our Community.

Buy Jack Lookman’s Paperbacks And Read Our Blogs.