To the Mentor: Don't Mind Your Business
Success is a contact sport. Very few of us reach the heights of our potential without the contribution and support of others. In a society that engorges itself on media, technologies, politics, and consumerism that more easily allow us to isolate ourselves from one another, even while seeking to connect to one another (mobile phones, social networking sites, IMs, Twitter feeds, Instagram, etc.), the myth of the self-sufficient, face-to-the-wind, radical individual is easily believable.
In such a world, it’s easy to mind your own business.
But myths are myths, even if the whole society believes them. Radical individualism is one of those myths. The fact is: we need people in our lives for support, connection, encouragement, and accountability. Furthermore, our lives are enriched when we offer this to others, as well as when we receive it from others well. Mentoring is one way we offer ourselves to others. It’s one of the ways we challenge the myth and push back selfishness with generosity.
Relational investment is the business to which we must pay attention. As with all investments, there are risks and rewards. What are the risks in mentoring? What are the rewards?
The risks in mentoring mirror the risks found in most human connections. First, the offer to make room for others may be ignored, scoffed, squandered, or abused. Mentors who offer themselves to protégés may be exploited like anyone else. Protégés who agree to a mentoring arrangement may be exploited for the mentor’s ego, disappointed by the mentor’s unpreparedness or incompetence, or be let down by broken promises and commitments. Certainly, mentoring can go poorly in a thousand ways and for a thousand reasons…just like every other human relationship.
But the rewards of mentoring await those who choose to invest as well. I submit that the yields truly outweigh the risks. These are just a few of the benefits of a well-crafted mentoring relationship:
It’s about Growing. Imagine having someone at your service whose sole interest in you is your development, your advancement, your success. The mentoring dynamic is a relationship that seeks to build up, equip, nurture, and commission an emerging leader forward toward the calling that is right for them (and not necessarily that of the mentor).
It’s about Gaining. If your life is in a rut, consider inviting a mentor to get things moving again. If life seems to be going around and around and around the same old people, places, and things (and these seem to be having a numbing effect on your development), perhaps it’s time for some forward-thinking and feedback. Mentors can be horizon keepers with you, keeping their eyes on your potential and destination with you (and sometimes for you), even while you slog through the daily valleys and detours that can appear to hinder progress.
It’s about Gleaning. Wisdom does not get talked about much in mainstream U.S. culture and society. The word is reserved for silver-haired sages, ancient prophets, and musty, old books. Yet, we each need wisdom like we need food, water, and air. We need that “quick perception that precedes action” as well as the hindsight to learn from mistakes that we will inevitably make as we move through life in trial-and-error fashion. The steadiness of a mentor, who is willing to speak in the old language of wisdom, can be an added ingredient to make the learning journey easier.
It’s about Gathering. We need relationships. We are social souls. While mentors can never replace the roles of natural family members and friends, they can supplement our community life by their availability, trustworthiness, and commitment to our formation. To have a mentor is to have community. To have a mentor is to have conversation. To have a mentor is to have companionship (or company, a word, that literally means “with bread,” the people with whom we eat).
Giving ourselves in developmental relationships such as mentoring changes the world…one life at a time. Mentoring puts an end to minding your own business. Instead, it announces to the world: the lives of those entrusted to me are my business.
