[blox_column width=”1/1″][/blox_column][blox_heading title=”Every time I read an article on helping the next generation, I’m excited to see new…” size=”h3″ style=”style5″ animation=”none”][/blox_heading][blox_text animation=”none”]
…new trends, new sociology, and new ways of thinking about the world. But most of the time, it seems authors are particularly condescending towards the “new.”
For example: Most articles I read about Millennials today are laced with language like ‘entitled,’ ‘selfish,’ and ‘narcissistic.’ Every time I read about them, it seems like the world is trying to figure out how to deal with a major shift in the way we think about the world, but with a slight stroke of the pen, they’re condemning the way they think in order to force them into a more familiar way of doing things.
I don’t know if I would call this type of analysis helpful.
I’m concerned that most of the demographic studies today aren’t actually trying to reach out and help the next generation on to the platform of success. Instead, I read them trying to put chains on them in an effort to say, “Well, we’ve always done it this way, so listen up.”
How insulting.
Mentorship, at its core, is about learning to serve others.
Genuine mentorship is about helping people realize their own dreams, and connect them with others who can help them succeed.
Mentorship is not a place where someone can shout, “Do it my way! After all, I’m successful, and you’re just a kid!”
I believe there are three major core values we have to embrace in order to help emerging adults come into their own. If we see mentorship through these three paradigms, we can watch someone embrace their own given talents and be creative to develop into whole people.
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- It’s Not About You
- It’s Not About You
It’s seems like a simple concept, but I’ve run into several mentors who believe the relationship between Mentor and Mentoree is about imparting some kind of knowable wisdom to someone else.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s an inherent value for knowledge to pass from generation to generation, but life isn’t a rubber stamp. Just because something worked for you, doesn’t mean it will work with someone else.
Think about this: Only 15 Years ago, the cell phone was still in a bag. Simply 13 years ago, there was no such thing as Social Media. And if you can think hard enough, it was only 20 years ago when Google became a part of our life. Before that, it was just a number with a lot of zeros.
The point is, the world has changed.
Business is done differently.
Relationships are conducted differently.
Families are run differently.
Vocations are seen through a different lens entirely.
So if for only a mentoree born after 2000, you certainly want to engage with them where they are. If you want to help emerging leaders succeed, you must see the world through their lens, and then be able to bridge the gap between your world and theirs.
Believe me, it’s not often an easy task; but if you can show someone that you’re in his or her corner, no matter what the world might throw at them, the relationship in development will last for a lifetime. (Not to mention, you’ll be a lot more effective as a mentor if you can listen rather than simply tell.)
- Success is When You Help Them Find Them
Many adults who want to be mentors have a strange underlying agenda when they take on a younger mentoree. Some see their relationship as a foundational stone building a greater business, or something more than what is right in front of them.
If you’re honestly interested in helping someone else reach their hopes and dreams, then you can only quantify success when they do. Not when you do.
Leading a group of next generation leaders is a self-less endeavor.
There’s often no one on the sidelines cheering you on. There’s very little recognition. There’s no big pay-off in the end. Mentoring is about investing your life in the life of another. It’s about serving without any other goal than to see your mentoree succeed.
The biggest pay-off? Well, it may never come. But if you’re mentoring for the right reasons, mainly to help someone else see success; the biggest pay off is when you watch them take off and become all they were meant to be in this world.
Mentoring is highly sacrificial, and immensely personal.
Success isn’t finding you. Success is helping them find them.
- Whole Life Transformation
The LDG group has put a high value on whole life transformation, and for good reason. Mentoring emerging leaders to be good salesmen, good computer coders, or good CEO’s is only one part of our 8 dimensional training.
Sure you can have a successful CEO, but if his or her marriage is falling apart, what real success have you achieved?
You may mentor someone to be the next greatest scientist, but if their physical body is un-healthy, then how can you truly say you’ve helped another?
Intentional, Deep-Change, Whole-Life, Transformational Mentoring
is crucial as you engage with emerging leaders.
Through my own research with students around the globe, very few leaders are able to see their lives through the lens of Whole-Ness. They compartmentalize every single area of their lives.
If you want to help Emerging Adults come into their own, it’s important to look at them as Whole People, not simply conduits for whatever area you want them to achieve.
Overall, if you understand that mentoring is not about you, it’s a self-less endeavor, and you’re interested in engaging someone in whole life transformation, then you’re the perfect candidate to be a mentor.
I believe people who can see the world through these three lenses, can help produce the leadership the world is longing for. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes the ability to give people room to fail on their own. But all in all, the beauty is found when you invest your life in another human to be all they were meant to be.
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