Mentoring Program
If you are considering starting a mentoring program Here’s some guidance. Whatever your structure, and structure is important, the fundamental purpose of mentoring is to ‘show yourself’. “Come as you are……… “. This is not a cultural norm in the Uk. We have, unbeknownst to us, become all wrapped up in the ‘oughts and shoulds’ of our actions, in the meeting of other’s agendas, and, in the culture of ‘how we look’ as opposed to sharing who and how we are.
A mentoring program serves to normalise us and our response to life and work events. It serves to put the guilt arising from a mistake we have made into its rightful place. Its serves to dilute the shame of not believing we are good enough. It serves to pull out the learning and the achievements from both so that these doubts can fade back into their rightful corners in the shadows.
Show yourself, “come as you are”, and, this is the way we humans connect. We are told in marketing all the time that it is the human and their story that makes the product saleable. The narrative is the thing. The narrative is the thing we connect to. We humans have told stories for hundreds of thousands of years. Stories are told in order to knowledge share. Stories are told because we humans are downright nosy! We want to know how others are living their lives and what we can take from this. We want the juicy gossip. We also want the vulnerability and the permission to be vulnerable ourselves. When we see vulnerability in others we can connect: we can empathise with that. When we show vulnerability we invite the empathy, support and guidance that we need. The ability to admit ‘I don’t know how to….” and the vulnerability that comes with that admission. This is the root of all learning.
So here is no point posturing and boasting all the time in front of your mentor in order to gain their approval. You may gain gold stars but you won’t gain the knowledge you really need because you are closed to it. There is no point mentoring from a place of perfection. You need to show your vulnerabilities in order that your mentee feel they have some hope in hell of getting to where you are. Do not shut a mentee off from their potentiality in service of your own ego.
None of us can do any of this work unless both mentee and mentor “come as they are…..” pulling rank will serve no purpose on this relationship. Showing only are best selves will serve to sever access to the real nuggets of gold that lay waiting to be uncovered within these collaborations.
Whichever side of the mentoring program you are on, promise yourself you will bring honesty. Bring love, hope, joy and despair. “Come as you are…….” It is a real risk being vulnerable and It is a risk really worth taking. Take that risk and you will receive in return more than you ever thought possible.
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