Everyone wants to be successful. Success is one of the most elusive term in the history of mankind. Success has been equated with monetary gains in the contemporary times and some school of thought believe it is simply accomplishment of your goals. A biblical perspective sees success as accomplishment of purpose.
Nonetheless, whatever school of thought you stick to, you have a glimpse to what success demands of you: hard work, smart work, focus, commitment, discipline, emotional investment, physical investment and others.
However, most young people deliberately or unconsciously ignore the role of mentoring as crucial in the pursuit of success. A mentor as a proficient person who assists and advises somebody with less experience over a period of time.
The reason why most youths don’t take to mentoring is because they are not teachable. Most youths equate technological advancements, fashion upgrade happening in their time to knowledgeability with the older ones. Most youths feel that they know it all and they have seen it all.
The problem with this is that there are no persons to lead you on the path to go. How are maps made? Maps are made by people who have gone ahead of you and have found their way back. Their journey now serves as a guide for our future journeys.
This is the same for any endeavor we find ourselves. If you want to be a notable writer; you need to find a mentor who is an accomplished writer whose works have won awards perhaps Nobel Prize for Literature or Man Brooker prize; if you want to be a notable journalist or media personality—you need to get a mentor who is fulfilled in that field.
Mentoring is key because you walk with precision and not trial-and-error. A mentor shows you the path to go, listens to you and gives direction with respect to the successes and failures he/she has had. A popular Yoruba quote buttresses this point and it says “what an adult sees sitting down; the child can’t see it even if he climbs a tree”. The quote introduces the place of insight that mentoring has to offer.
If not any field, philosophy has shown us the importance of mentoring, in handing down torch of professional excellence. Socrates mentored Plato. Plato then mentored Aristotle. Aristotle then mentored Alexander the Great. This is also evident in leadership where Mahatma Gandhi mentored Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela who are key figures in the history of mankind.
This displays a strong link and high positive correlation between engagement in mentoring and professional excellence (sound statistical!). My charge to you today is to be intentional about engagement in mentoring. It may just be the thin line between where you are now and where you ought to be.
P.S: In a sequel article, I will be writing on How to attract and Retain mentors.
Olajide, Ayobami G.
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