Getting into the mentoring mindset

By ExecutiveBrief Staff

Does growing older and wiser equal being a mentor? Discover that becoming one takes a whole lot more than just being senior on the job.

In the Twilight Zone, an aspiring writer works in a library so she can be near books. In the following days, she realizes that the books contain the lives of all people who have lived or are living on Earth. Well-meaning as she is creative, she sets out to improve the lives of her friends and family. To her dismay, every change creates a series of events that leads to very odd circumstances and sometimes twisted outcomes. Aghast, she tries to remedy her handiwork by writing in more changes in the books of lives—which messes it up more. Finally, the boss of the library (God) troubleshoots by simply erasing her annotations.

The aspiring writer realizes how intertwined everything and everyone is: a stranger’s smile could really brighten up someone’s day, helping him perform well at work that day, which maybe would inspire this person so that he sets out to recreate many such bright days, leading him up the path to success; or saying a small untruth could have catastrophic consequences for yourself or others, if the lie keeps building up from each passing of hands.

Sometimes, we get our insights from the quirkiest of sources. For those who wish to go into mentoring would do well to remember the moral of this show: What we do or even think affects everything and everyone around us to some degree. The Greeks knew this very well. In probably their most important work of literature, we read that Odysseus entrusted the care of his son Telemachus to his family’s revered counselor Mentor before he set out on his epic journey that would take him over a decade to finish.

Surely, there were learned scholars around yet the Greek king chose someone older and wiser, who’s been there and done that, to take his place as mentor in his son’s growth and development. Mentorship, he realized, involves more than teaching and learning. The mentor should be able to demonstrate, explain, and share his life’s experiences with the boy, not just feed him information as the boy observes, questions, and explores the world. Mentor, having led an eventful life, would have had observed much and learned much; Telemachus would be the beneficiary of all these lessons learned from past mistakes.