I have mentored, to one extent or another, numerous professionals from earnest young go-getters looking to conquer the world to worried and displaced middle-aged workers looking for safe harbor. Mentoring isn’t easy; it’s an emotionally charged rollercoaster. To do it right, you can’t give your mentee the answers; rather you must gently guide them, as they learn and process the lessons.
From the outside looking in, I seem to be an unparalleled success, and I have many young people who have asked me to teach them the magic formula for success. For my part, I can never quite see myself as a success. There was a time when I wanted to be a supervisor, and once I was, I immediately wanted to be a manager, a director, a vice president and a CEO.
Success eludes the malcontent.
Similarly, I wanted to be a published author (not self-published, which to me is to being published as owning a home is to being a monarch), but once I was, I wanted to have 50 articles in print before I was 50, and so on. I fear that success will forever elude my grasp not because I can’t reach it, but because having done so, it is no longer success. Therefore, it is always with rue that I address those who ask me the secret to my success, but I have yet to turn down a request to mentor anyone.
Recently, I failed miserably mentoring a young professional. It’s said that youth is wasted on the young, and I think a lot of the bashing millennials get is jealousy from those grown old who are seeing the best years behind them, while looking down the loaded barrels of living in an old folks home and learning to love BINGO. Yet, I take full responsibility for the failure of mentoring this young gentleman.
Failure surrounds us all.
My first mistake was not recognizing him for what he really was. It’s an immense…