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It’s been several years now since I gave a mentoring workshop in Guatemala for a major NGO/non-profit. This outstanding group provides care for children in almost 40 countries who are caught in significant poverty. They had gathered some of their most forward-thinking leaders from four continents to come and learn about mentoring their teams. It was, I knew, different from the mentoring environments in which I normally operate.
For years I had wondered how effective our LDG Circle of Life Mentoring model would be, not just in the English-speaking world of western cultural influence. Would it translate, with life-changing meaning into other world cultures? It did. It does. It will.
One of the men at the workshop was himself raised an orphan in an African village. He had caught the eye of a British teacher in a neighboring village, who tutored and mentored him to where today, several decades later he holds a PhD from a prestigious international university. A humble, yet brilliant man, he tracked with my teaching of our mentoring model, even giving validity to it out of his upbringing in one of the Nilotic family of African tribal groups (most well known to we in the west are the Maasai).
It was beyond encouraging to have those from Asia, Central and South America, parts of Europe, and other African locations affirm the care-filled adaptability of what we offer in intentional, deep-change, whole-life, transformational mentoring. Though I, a man with the influence of western cultural education, was presenting, I gleaned from those two days the realization that this mentoring model could, indeed, nurture, inform and change the world.
The range of people who have been through the Circle of Life Mentoring Model training is continually growing. First formed for those from a Christian heritage, individually, within churches, for those involved in faith-based non-profits, it quickly became evident that others would equally benefit from this model as a core of their leadership development. A wide variety of the men and women, the leaders who sat on those respective boards of directors, asked if I would come and share this information with their own staff teams in their own businesses, schools, and other endeavors in helping to develop their leadership teams.
Every request, every opportunity, every individual or group mentored, whether faith-based, strictly business, educational, sports-related, those involved with the arts, NGOs desiring to make a difference in our world…all these kinds of groups were found to be benefitting from this “novel” approach to mentoring individuals and organizations. The outcome then, and now, continues to be leaders who are carefully equipped to mentor other emerging leaders to accomplish the hopes and dreams they share together.
For this reason, you will hear many voices in our blog. We have people on our team from education…from business…from our Christian heritage…from sports and the arts…from NGOs. We enjoy people from western and African cultures. We want to offer the freedom on this site for each of these to tell about how the model has transformed people from their own environment, culture and perspective.
This is not a “quick fix” way to develop leaders. It is a model that involves the mentor being willing to be open about how they are living their own lives in what we share as the 8 dimensions of life. Emerging leaders, we call mentorees, are looking forward to authentic models of living life through the thick and thin of life.
In the best of mentoring the mentor and the mentoree are both committed to growth and change. This is a circle of genuine relationship. This is a creative, gifted time of further learning to trust and be trusted. It is a time of the mentor being willing to be a guide and example of being released into opportunities that were once just dreams.
As previously mentioned, the mentoring we propose can also be used well for whole groups, not just individuals. However, we never lose sight of the obvious, that it is individuals who make up a group.
Yes, mentoring is for one-to-one involvement.
Yes, mentoring is a necessary tool for developing leaders.
Yes, mentoring is for any age, as expressed in our model of the Three3rds of Life.
Yes, mentoring, as we teach it, transcends cultures.
Yes, mentoring is essential for a person to more fully realize their dreams.
Yes, mentoring is a centuries old habit of releasing people into their personal design and reasons for being.
Yes, mentoring, as we have fashioned it, can be used well in any type of organization or group setting.
Yes, mentoring nurtures individuals to arrive at their fullest maturing and accomplishment over their lifetime.
Yes, mentoring is giving birth, continually, to a better future, even in some hard and extreme places.
Yes, everyone willing to grow within themselves as a human, can be a mentor of significant influence.
Yes, that includes you………..!
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