Mentoring is, by far, the most amazing learning experience that someone can have in their life!
Mentoring is a special moment where you truly, deeply, connect to others. It is the moment when you can share your passion, your hopes, your objectives, your dreams, your doubts. It is a moment when you can guide, or be guided, through a process where the only objective is that, at the end, both Mentor and Mentee find themselves one level above in their lives, either from a professional or a personal perspective.
Throughout my career, I’ve had amazing opportunities to work with great young professionals, had the pleasure and the honor to be their Mentor, helping and guiding them through the “Ways of the Force”. Being a mentor is always an amazing experience to me, and made me realize that we can make a huge, positive impact to someone’s career and life. Until today, doing this type of work is an addiction and a pleasure to me, something that I am really keen to do everywhere I go, whenever I can.
But this is not the whole story!
At the same time, I had the opportunity to work with bright minds, seasoned professionals, people that earned my admiration and my respect, from whom I was able to learn a lot from. People that I am proud to say that I was Mentee. By today, I still approach the ones who are role models for me, professionals which have my admiration and respect, and I ask them to be my Mentor. I ask them to guide me, to share with me their knowledge, to share with me a piece of advice. I ask them to accept me as their humble Mentee.
Every project that I join, every team that I am part of, every community that I am a member, every conference and meetup that I attend, I try to help people that come to ask for my opinion, that asks for my guidance. I get involved with them and learn a lot in the process. Also I seek for the ones who knows about the subjects and topics that I am interested. I follow their guidance and advice and I give back them my commitment.
All of them, Mentors and Mentees, earns from me a deep sense of respect and recognition.
You can rest assured that right now, there is a lot of people around you that have a lot of knowledge, and that are willing to share it. People which are more than pleased to share their passion. And at the same time, a lot of people around you are seeking for guidance, seeking for help. Move on and give them a chance, ask what they know about, ask for some guidance, offer help and don’t be shy to ask for some help as well.
Last week, I’ve joined Meet a Mentor, which is an amazing initiative being led by Barry Cranford, and that started as a discussion on the London Java Community Group mailing list. The main objective of this community is to provide a platform to connect Mentors and Mentees, and all of this for free!
My main objective by joining Meet a Mentor is to find a mentor to myself. At the same time, it is an amazing opportunity for myself to help other professionals who want to share their passion and their dreams, that are asking for help and guidance.
I invite all of you to join Meet a Mentor today, and I ask you to be ready to help, and to be helped. No matter how crazy, awesome or difficult your dreams and objectives seems to be. There is someone there that can help you, or maybe there is someone there that needs your help.
And when you’re there, I will be more than happy to say “Hi!” to you.
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