Not Yet Doesn't Mean Never From Unemployment to Peer Support Specialist

There is a phrase many people hear throughout their lives:

"You have so much potential."

It is often meant as encouragement. Yet for some people, those words can become a burden rather than a gift. Potential speaks about what could be, while saying little about what is happening in the present moment.

For much of his life, Shelwin Khan was told he had potential. He was also told he was lazy. Looking back, neither description truly captured his experience.

What he eventually discovered was something much deeper.

He was not lazy.

He was unmotivated because he had not yet found something that truly called him.

That distinction matters.

Many people move through life carrying invisible struggles. Mental health challenges, addiction, trauma, disability, grief, or simply circumstances that make participating in the workforce difficult. From the outside, it can appear as though they are not trying hard enough. Yet what others often cannot see is the enormous energy required simply to get through the day.

Shelwin's story reminds us that people are often carrying far more than we realise.

After studying psychology and English at university, he hoped to work in the mental health and addiction sector one day. Yet life unfolded differently. The challenges he was experiencing made it difficult to sustain employment. Eventually, he found himself unemployed for several years, uncertain whether regular work was even possible.

Then something shifted.

He discovered peer support.

For the first time, his lived experience was not something he needed to hide. It became an asset. The very experiences that had once excluded him from employment became valuable within a workforce built upon understanding, mutuality, and shared humanity.

Peer support asks something unique of those who practise it. Unlike many professions, the work is not simply about knowledge, qualifications, or technical expertise. It asks people to draw on their own journeys and use them to serve others.

This is why Shelwin speaks so passionately about recognising lived experience as real work.

Sharing one's story is not merely recounting events. It involves vulnerability, self-awareness, emotional labour, and the ability to transform personal hardship into something that can support another person. That contribution deserves to be valued.

At the same time, Shelwin acknowledges that peer support is evolving. As the profession grows, qualifications, training, and work experience are becoming increasingly important. Yet what continues to sit at the heart of the work is authenticity. When he speaks about interviewing potential peer workers, he does not begin with qualifications. He begins with questions about self-awareness, boundaries, lived experience, and the ability to care for oneself while supporting others.

Because ultimately, peer support is not about having the most impressive CV.

It is about being able to walk alongside another human being.

Perhaps that is one of the most powerful lessons from Shelwin's journey.

Sometimes our greatest contribution emerges from the very experiences we once wished we could erase.

Sometimes the path we imagined for ourselves is not the path we end up taking.

And sometimes what looks like lost potential is simply a person waiting to discover where they truly belong.

For Shelwin, that place was peer support.

Not because it was easy.

Not because it was planned.

But because, for the first time, he found something worth showing up for.

Full Podcast: Not Yet Doesn't Mean Never From Unemployment to Peer Support Specialist