Set a good example.

It is also particularly important to avoid sharing details that might unintentionally have a negative influence on your mentee, such as your former drug use or other illegal activities. While it may seem at first that sharing such information can be an opening to warn your mentee away from such behaviors, in reality the mentee can walk away with the sense that his mentor did it and is fine, so what can be so bad about it? The mentee’s family also might not be comfortable with you sharing such information. If asked, try to redirect the conversation back to the mentee by saying, for example, “Why are you interested in knowing this?” Or, “What would you think of me if I did—or didn’t?”