Democratizing Mentorship
Who’s your mentor?
If you’ve ever been asked that before, you probably have been told that your answer is a strong indication to whether you’ll be successful in life, or in a certain venture. No mentor, no success. If you have a mentor, then you have a better chance at success. That’s the vox pop.
Of course, I won’t state here all the reasons why you need a mentor. It’s pointless. There are already too many articles, blog posts, and books out there on the subject. I only want to give you an alternate view to the subject of mentorship, which you might not have considered before.
Who’s your mentee?
Believe it or not, the answer to that question has everything to do with whether you’ll be successful, and how successful you can get. Your mentees are as crucial to your success as your mentors. I know it’s a strong claim, but if you read on, you’ll understand why I say so.
The excessive propagation of the boon of being a mentee has birthed an unintended consequence of breeding an insecure and attention-seeking generation. Many have deferred their prerogative of proper thinking, risk analysis, and good decision making to those they look up to as mentors. If a mentor has an opinion, the mentee is only seen as wise if he/she adopts that opinion. The mentor is speaking from “experience”, so you should take his/her opinion as valid even though you don’t understand. But what happens the day you have a disruptive contrarian disposition? Well, it is very likely that it won’t get validated. “Experience” teaches you to play by the rules. If you go against the voices of experience, you have to live under the burden of a silent fear of impending doom. Too bad.
How do you even choose your mentors? You are advised to seek out the people who are perceived as successful in your field. Honestly, what people don’t say in their pursuit of mentorship is that what they are really after is that sense of belonging and fulfillment they get when they are identified with people of note. Yes, it feels so good when a person who is supposed to be so busy can pay some attention to a random dude like you. So many people don’t believe they are mentees to certain people except they have a personal relationship with them, and of course, this affects their decision on who they choose as mentors. No one wants to associate with a failure. Who says you have nothing to learn from those who have failed? Can you publicly call such a person your mentor? Of course, the answer is NO! Why? You want to famz. Be honest.
Another proof of the fact that people pursue mentorship just for recognition is the way they handle being looked up to as a mentor. Calling them “mentor” makes them feel flattered. Rubbish! You now feel relevant, but you clothe your pride in a humble garment by saying things like “I’m just a novice. I’m not there yet”. Nobody needs you to be there (whatever there means to you).
Many who are proponents of the importance of mentorship don’t even believe it. If they did, they wouldn’t be so selfish. How I know if you believe that mentorship is a key component of success is if you have someone or a number of people that you are a mentor to. I don’t care which mentor’s phone number or email you have. It is infinitesimally significant if you have a relationship with someone who is “successful”. Please, where are your mentees?
If you really believe in mentorship, why aren’t you a mentor to someone? You should be willing to help , knowing fully well that your involvement and openness may mark the difference between success and failure for someone else. Write that blog post! Share what you know! You received freely, then give back freely. Nobody needs to congratulate you. You don’t need any personal touch with someone who may be looking up to you. If you have too many people reaching out to you for mentorship, then create an ecosystem for people to share knowledge, instead of feeling important because you have to answer questions from 20 people everyday and some are even still left unanswered. Take off this subconscious bias on who is qualified to be a mentor and who isn’t, or who is successful and who isn’t. Your experience is relevant and valid. You don’t need any validation or endorsement to be a mentor.
Being a person who shares content online has greatly improved me. People’s questions have caused me to learn a lot of new things which I wouldn’t know today if those questions didn’t come my way. I am more disciplined and thorough because I have people to teach now. Being a mentor has improved me as much as being a mentee has.
The world being a better place is an eventuality of democratized mentorship. Those who have more experience will realize that they have a lot to learn from those who are inexperienced. They will also realize that they have a lot to learn from those who are more experienced than they are. It creates a culture of continuous learning and improvement, while you help those who are beginners.
