An Unconditional Gift Called Hope

My Personal Takeaways From Coaching Young Entrepreneurs

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

There were a number of occasions in my life when I felt blessed. Last year, on December the 14th, I participated in the first ever livestream coaching event on the YE! Community website. I was tasked with mentoring and coaching young entrepreneurs. The livestream was one such event that I truly felt blessed to be a part of.

To be honest, I had my own fear of failing to help my mentees. However, the entire question and answer session became engaging faster than I expected. I was excited to receive and to be able to answer the questions to the best of my ability. Below, I discuss three of my most important learnings from my interaction with the champions of tomorrow.

The Love Quotient

At the World Economic Forum 2018 held in Davos, Jack Ma had the following to say: “To gain success a person will need high EQ; if you don’t want to lose quickly you will need a high IQ, and if you want to be respected you need high LQ — the IQ of love.”

To me, this is a very profound statement. If you do something without putting your heart in it or without loving it, it’s almost a cinch that it will fail. There is a need to go beyond empathy and delivering answers to questions not yet asked. Very often, doing enough is just not good enough. It took me a while to think through the right answer to a question.

However, I did so because I really loved what I was doing and I wanted to go beyond the call of duty. I would encourage every entrepreneur to pursue a business with love and with the aim of delighting their clients. In that sense, every business is personal.

A Two Way Street

To be able to provide advice, you need to learn about the subject yourself. Also, a mentor needs to be able to distill his wisdom into a language the mentee can understand. The ability to simplify seemingly complex problems requires empathy.

In my experience, the most difficult aspect of coaching was to be able to understand where the mentee was coming from so that I could join him and continue the journey towards his growth together. A young entrepreneur asked me a question on efficient networking.

The two-way flow of learning and coaching at the same time is equally applicable to networking. Very often, the person you reach out to is also hoping to gain from the meeting.

Giving Unconditionally

While this is applicable to every facet of life, giving should be unconditional. At the end, the biggest gift a mentor can provide his mentee is the gift of hope. Of course, that doesn’t mean patronizing the mentee or pulling him away from the harsh realities of life as an entrepreneur. In fact, there were lots of questions raised around risk management which I addressed during the session.

Rather, coaching is about instilling optimism, allowing the mentee to dream and re-iterating the belief that even one person can change the world. There is no painting more beautiful than the vision of a better tomorrow.

If you are the one participating in the creation of that piece of art, you are part of an experience that is quite simply sublime.