Mentorship- Is it Being Done Enough?

Mentorship is known to be a key part in one's career growth or even personal growth as well as we all need to be shown how to navigate through life. The question is though, is this still being done? In the right way?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Living in Exhortation. My name is Maure Mwendua, and today we are going to be talking about mentorship. Is it being done enough? A lot of times we read it in books, we see videos of it, and also we are taught about it in masterclass sessions with different gurus in different fields. We are talking about mentorship. My question, however, is are we still doing it right? Or rather, are we still doing it? One way of finding out about this is using the one, two, three of mentorship. What do I mean by this? One, do you have one person who is actively mentoring you? Two do you have two people who keep you accountable to the goals you have committed yourself to? And three, do you have three people that you are mentoring? In my generation, I always see a lot of push and pull blame games between us and the older folk. They mostly call us lazy, we are not as efficient as as they were, or as they are, and as hard working as they are. I, however, find this kind of logic far-fetched and also outside of reality. From my own observation, many of the older generation, we are talking about Generation X and mostly baby boomers, do not have time for mentorship. I have seen so many people, even younger than my generation, ready and willing to be mentored. They show that they are available. Nevertheless, they are met with disappointment. Either one is too busy to mentor, or they are just being non-committal. Especially at our workplaces. I am sure many of us have encountered workstations where once you are promoted, you find yourself having to figure out how to navigate matters on management. Very few structures are set in place for onboarding or to help you on the job learning as people assume you know what to do. Therefore, because of this notion, one finds themselves afraid of even asking what to do because no one seems to have the time and the patience to walk them through and let alone show them. What could be the reason? I stand to be corrected, but I can literally count the number of men and women around my circles who are being mentored. Not necessarily mentored at work because of their new job or they are specifically new at that specific sector. I am talking about being mentored in regards to one's life. This is on one's financial status, health status, or even spiritual status. Who guides us on what to do and what not to do? How come so many of us reach certain points or ages in life and we find ourselves saying, I wish someone told me about this before I reach this stage? I personally follow a few public figures in different spheres of life through social media. From time to time, I go through their posts in my newsfeed and I find myself saying something in the lines of, I wish such a person was there to tell me this when I was 22. As much as we might have the drive and the will to go through life head on, we sometimes need people in our lives who act as a compass on how to navigate through the issues of life. These are people who have walked the walk and talked the talk. I might have to add this though. Not always do we really need mentors who have the career line that we have or who had the exact same desires and ambitions that we have. Not at all. What I'm saying here is that we also need mentors who understand how to go through life based on the scars they have from their own wounds of which they got from their own battles. The battles might not have been the same, but the results at the end might have been similar to what we might be going through, and they can help us get through or even avoid completely such difficult situations. Vusi Tembequaiu through his podcast calls the ideas that matter, talks about this. He calls such people maps. They are seen more like maps. They may never have been to the destination where we are heading, but they have the navigation of how to get there by telling us what not to do. So is mentorship important? Yes, it is. Are we doing enough of it? The answer here is relative. If you feel you're not satisfied by what is being done so far, be part of the solution by mentoring someone into becoming whom they were meant to be. Food for thought? I choose to believe so. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, take care of yourselves and have a good one.