What Can a Mentor Do For Me?

 

Why bother with a mentor?

Most of us have encountered the situation of knowing exactly what we want to do with our lives, or where we want to be in our careers, but not having a clue how to get there from where we are now.  The gulf between what we perceive as being "needed" in the role or life we want, and the resources, experience, and skills we have, seems un-bridge-able; there are no stepping stones, the current is too powerful, we don't know anyone with a boat...

A mentor is, allegorically speaking, "a person with a boat." They've made the same journey we want to make, often from an equivalent, if not absolutely identical, starting point to us, and so they know it's do-able for "someone like me" - because they are "someone like you", and they did it.

Unlike a coach, who supports you to become better at something you're already at the very least okay at, and who assumes the perspective of "I know more about this than you do", or a trainer, who teaches you one specific way of doing a specific thing, a mentor recognises your fear and uncertainty in the face of something you've never done before, and says "Well, I have done it before, so I can make the journey with you, but I can't make it for you; you're going to have your own journey, and I'm pretty sure you're going to teach me something about possible ways to make the journey, and that's going to be great for both of us!"

A trainer teaches you the foundation of a skill.
A coach develops your competence into reliable performance in a specific area.
A mentor builds your confidence, so that you can attempt any challenge, even if every challenge you undertake is very different from anything you've done before.

A trainer starts with "You don't know anything."
A coach starts with "You don't know enough".
A mentor starts with "You just don't know what you already know."

When should I look for a mentor?
The short answer is "as early as possible!"

Ideally, your parent/s should be your very first "mentor/s" - I was fortunate in that my father was my mentor in positive masculinity, and intentional manhood. That is an immense privilege, and, even though he is no longer with us, I am forever grateful to him for his time, his insights, his patience, and his calm, grounded focus, even while he was working 12hr days, and often having to pick up domestic work around the house, and care for my  mother, me, and his in-laws as well.

Not everyone gets parents who are able to be mentors, and, unfortunately, teachers are not paid to take a mentorship role; again, I was fortunate, even at a State school that was consistently rated as "failing" by Ofsted, to encounter a teacher (and, again, a man) who was a very real, if very raw, mentor to me.  (Thank you, Mr. Tynan, English and Drama, 1997-2002.)

A lot of us, therefore, have to find our own first mentor as adults, at a time when we're busy on both the work and home front, we're trying to build savings, we're trying to stop the garden looking like a battlefield, we're trying to work out why that weird damp patch keeps showing up on the wall, we're trying to figure out where that smell is coming from, we're trying to fit "mandatory training modules" into a workday where we're double or triple booked weeks in advance, whilst remembering to exercise, drink enough water, eat sensibly, and get enough sleep... It can all feel a little overwhelming, and far too complicated, and most of us therefore end up leaving seeking out a mentor until we're in the messy middle of trying to achieve long term ambitions, and we realise - through an article, a YouTube video, or someone else's directive in a performance appraisal - that we really need one.

How do I get a mentor?
It'd be really handy if you could go to your supermarket of choice, and reliably know that "mentors can be located on Aisle 5", or if there was a Mentors 'R' Us on every high street.

That's unfortunately not the case, and, often, mentors don't have that as a job title - I know none of mine have.  In order of me encountering them, my mentors so far have been:
Clive - job titles: Dad, Electrical Maintenance Engineer
Mr. Tynan - job title: Secondary School Teacher
Paul - job title: Youthworker
Mark - job title: Project and Programme Manager
Yes, they have all been men (and all cisgender men), but that wasn't a deliberate decision on my part, that's just how it panned out.  I've mentored women in a reciprocal mentorship arrangement, and in a niche aspect of my private life where specific awareness and confidence is required.  I'm open to mentorship from women, and have certainly had interactions with women which skirted around the edges of merging into mentorship.

All of the mentors I've had have been informal mentors - neither I nor they realised they were mentors at the time; they were just people I sought out for guidance, people who saw potential in me, and were willing to commit their own time to drawing that out, often while they were exceptionally busy in the roles they were paid for.  

That's honestly the best kind of mentorship, in my opinion; the kind you don't realise is even happening until you look back. The kind that is natural, organic, and dynamic.

As we've already explored, though, a lot of people never find that mentorship, for any number of reasons.  For those people, a professional mentor, experienced both in achieving the individual's own ambitions, and in the lived experience of the individual as a person, is the second-best option, and that's what we're offering at The Productive Pessimist.

Throughout National Mentoring Month (January 2025), we're offering the chance to benefit from a year's worth of monthly mentorship for just £25, if you book and pay with us before the 31st January 2025.

Our specialist focus is on emerging leaders, particularly disabled and LGBTQIA+ folk.

So: why not begin benefiting from mentorship for yourself, your team, or your organisation today? 

Drop us an email: theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com