How do you reach out to someone who is struggling? How do you respond to someone who asks for your help? How do you speak messages of hope into the life of someone who feels hopeless? How do you offer a hand up, not a hand out?
How do you ever know if your efforts have positively impacted a life?
Over many years I have journeyed alongside people of all ages, which has helped me fine-tune some important mentoring skills and qualities:
- Empathy — being able to put myself, to the best of my ability, in the shoes of the person with whom I am communicating.
- Resiliency — identifying strengths and being able to bounce back; sharing with a person how to do this and watching lives transformed before my eyes.
- Communication — the importance of tone of voice, body language, eye contact, and being an excellent listener and, through face-to-face conversations with those I have mentored, coaching and teaching them how to develop these qualities for themselves.
- Humor — not taking myself too seriously and remembering the importance of having fun and being able to laugh at myself, while also teaching people to learn how to laugh at themselves.
- Goal-setting — sharpening the skills required to be an effective goal setter and then a goal-getter chasing dreams. Again, I have seen lives transformed when wobbling people learn how to do this.
- Persevering — learning over the years never to quit on anyone.
- Non-judgmental — learning how to be non-judgmental, which is sometimes hard, yet developing this skill so people feel confident to open up, share their feelings, and trust me.
- Cheerleading — one of my favorite roles, being the non-judgmental cheerleader speaking to the potential the confused person often cannot see for a variety of reasons.
- Making a positive difference — believing that every person is essentially a good person who can positively influence others, and being prepared to walk alongside them as that encourager and cheerleader.
- Empowering — coaching, teaching and guiding people how to understand that every choice they make has a consequence and, as they journey through life, appreciating that, even though they already have the power to make choices, this is also a self-empowering journey.
- Being vulnerable — knowing when and how to be vulnerable with anyone; watching people learn over time how to be vulnerable and seeing some amazing transformations occurring.
- Faith — ego = Edge God Out — I have seen many lives negatively impacted by the decision to go it alone; to be self-absorbed, the ultimate controller. My faith journey has taught me selfless servant leadership, and made me a stronger, more humble, caring and compassionate person (who still has lots to learn).
- Relationships — without meaningful relationships built on respect, empathy and sincerity, most people will struggle.
- Messages of hope — appreciating the importance of sowing messages of hope in the lives of all those with whom I interact.
There will be more, skills and qualities, but these are some of the key elements of the spirit of mentoring which I have learnt over the years, and which I want to keep working on in the foreseeable future.
How do you ever know if your efforts have positively impacted a life? This was the question I posed earlier and, as a retired teacher, I am humbled when I hear from a student I taught many years ago, and who shares how something I did or said positively impacted their life.
While writing this message, I received an email from Ron, now middle-aged and a successful business owner, who I taught over forty years ago, and who discovered that I had written books about mentoring.
Ron lacked self-confidence as a teenager, and I helped him along the way.
He wrote: “ You truly believed in me! You showed me that nothing was impossible, that with hard work and commitment I could achieve anything that I wanted … You identified the fact that I was willing to work and wanted to succeed. You took me under your wing and with lots of extra lessons you helped me achieve an ‘A’ for History. Well, that ‘A’ has been a beacon of my success in later life … proving to me that I am very capable and that I can achieve with hard work, commitment and dedication.
“Your confidence and belief in me [through coaching sport] really built me up and has helped carry me and gave me courage and strength through good and tough times in my life. Back in the 1970s you mentored me as a young boy, and there was never a teacher who even came close to you in terms of your teaching ability, your mentoring ability, your dedication and passion for your work and everything you engaged in.
“It does not surprise me that you have dedicated much of your life to mentoring. This is your calling and your gift! Thank you Robin, for the person that you are. Thank you for believing in me! I have always wanted to tell you this, and am so pleased that I am now able to do so.”
I had no idea that my interactions with Ron had impacted him in the ways he shared. It’s moments like these that make teaching such a wonderful profession, and why promoting the spirit of mentoring is so important.
Who are you reaching out to today?
Cover Photo by Behzad Soleimanian on Unsplash
