Anyone who has ever been involved in mentoring knows that it is a fabulously rewarding two-way street and an essential part of our training-teaching-learning landscape. Protégés working with dedicated, well-trained mentors gain knowledge, wisdom, experience, and inspiration they would find in no other way, and mentors (often to their surprise) gain the same through the interactions they have with dedicated, hardworking protégés.
My recent post acknowledging the positive, priceless impact some of my best teachers and advisors have had on me—and, by extension, those I serve—hints at the value of mentorship. When I think about what my interactions with them produced and continues to produce, I realize that mentoring was often at the heart of all we did. They, through examples and storytelling rather than reliance on lecturing, inspired me. And I, much to my surprise at the time and in retrospect, apparently offered something of tremendous value to them: the knowledge that what they taught me would, in turn, eventually be shared with others.
That, to me, is the heart of mentoring: it is the act that reminds us we are not simply involved in a series of unconnected moments with little impact; it is an act of engagement that involves tremendous continuity, from person to person, generation to generation, that connects us with predecessors and successors we will never physically meet. In a substantial way, it makes us part of one wonderfully productive, unbroken line of community and collaboration that produces its own form of “immortality.” We, and they, live on as long as the seeds each of us plants are nourished and bear fruit that feeds others.
The topic is one that is tremendously deeply personal as I complete this post. I recently was surprised and overwhelming gratified to see a Facebook post from a long-time colleague who took the time to publicly reflect upon the “mentoring” he has received from me over a very long period of time—surprising because what he saw as mentoring was, from my point of view, an ongoing series of conversations where we each shared stories about what we were doing; responded with ideas that built upon what we had accomplished and were hoping to accomplish; and involved the camaraderie that is, for me, at the heart of the best of the friendships and collaborations that I am lucky enough to have.
A few examples of how symbiotically rewarding our relationship has been: whereas I was always very vocal about how much I learned from his incredibly incisive and instructional blog posts (I saw them as complete “lessons in a blog,” where I could absorb as little or as much as I wanted to by following links and reading background material on the training-teaching-learning topics he was exploring), he consistently recalls those conversations as encouragement from a published writer to someone who was exploring and developing his own (already formidable) writing skills; whereas I saw our conversations about consulting as a two-way exchange of ideas, he saw them as an informal training ground where he could explore his own interests in setting up what is now a very successful consultancy with clients across the United States; and whereas I saw our hallway and mealtime conversations at conferences as an extension of our personal and professional exchanges, he saw them as mentoring that influenced his own approach to the work he was pursuing.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I glanced at Facebook earlier this week and learned, from his most recent post, that he had attempted to commit suicide. The fact that he was not (thankfully) successful has obviously been another of those two-way-street mentoring experiences: he (I hope) is learning from the tremendous levels of support he is receiving from all of us who adore him that he is an important, cherished, vital part of our community, and we would be devastated to lose him any sooner than we absolutely have to lose him. And from my point of view, I’m reminded once again that to procrastinate about making the occasional effort to reach out to those who most matter to me might have tragically long-lasting impacts on all of us.
The act of mentoring remains something that goes far beyond the artificial time boundaries accompanying most mentoring programs I have helped organize or in which I have been a participant as a mentor or a protégé. It obviously formally begins when the program providing the structure formally begins. But it does not end when the formal program ends. It evolves as a protégé evolves into a friend/peer/colleague. And it produces some of its most rewarding moments when those former protégés advance beyond anything I have accomplished and, themselves, become cherished sources of inspiration. In the best of cases, former protégés become people with whom I have regularly-scheduled catch-up calls (by Zoom or any other technology that keeps those conversations personal and engaging); they sometimes become formal collaborators for projects including conference presentations.
Mentoring also continually rewards me by expanding my own understanding of the value I can bring to a mentoring relationship. I remain deeply appreciative, for example, to Barb Potter (a former protégé through the fabulous ATD South Florida Chapter mentoring program where I have been a mentor for several years). When Barb—who already had significant experience in training-teaching-learning and clearly was consulting at a level parallel to what I was doing—first expressed interest in having me serve as her mentor, I was adamant in suggesting that she needed someone better than I was since she clearly could be mentoring me with her own successes serving as the foundations for that sort of relationship. She, fortunately, was not to be dissuaded, and those finalizing the mentor-protégé matching process that year were persistent enough to overcome my concerns and hesitation. The result was a lesson well-learned: I don’t need to know more than the person I am mentoring; my willingness to simply serve as someone willing to share ideas with a colleague could produce exactly what a protégé needs. So Barb and I continue to meet, friend-to-friend and peer-to-peer every other week, in what has become a personal and professional collaboration that leaves me feeling tremendous gratitude every time we finish a conversation.
I also am tremendously appreciative for all that recent UCLA graduate Naomi Lopez is bringing to the mentoring relationship that began early this year through the Daily Bruin Alumni Network mentoring program that I currently co-facilitate with Laureen Lazarovici. Naomi and I initially explored a variety of topics, including the writing she was already doing outside of the Daily Bruin and her interest in exploring travel writing as a career option after she graduated in June. Not having much experience in travel writing but adoring the writing that I read in that genre, I’ve helped put Naomi in touch with those far more experience than I have, and Naomi has diligently pursued those leads and added to her published writing by posting a lovely piece (on Medium) about her travel experiences in Japan this summer along with other stories she has posted there. When the mentor-protégé relationship formally ended in June, we made the transition to having peer-to-peer conversations via Zoom once a month. And, as happens with the best of these ongoing peer-to-peer calls, I always walk away at least as inspired as she appears to be and deeply grateful for all she brings to my own ongoing professional development.
If you have never served as a mentor, this might be a great time to think about what you could bring to that sort of relationship. And if you’ve never had a mentor, this might be a good time for you to look around for someone from whom you might learn something worthwhile and, at the same time, help by simply being in mentor-protégé relationship. It’s another step in a crucial part of training-teaching-learning: the essential realization that we are all part of something much larger than any of us represent, something that provides meaning to all we do and to all we touch.
N.B.: This is the fifteenth in an ongoing series of posts on the theme of giving thanks.
Posted by paulsignorelli 
Building Creative Bridges 