Mentoring?

Mentoring occupies a special place in Pathways, and is in three different projects that you can get as you are in Level 3.

The first is already there in the Level 2: thinking of a time when you were the Protege.

The second is a relatively short period of 3 month to mentor someone. And the third for 6 month, before you can be called Pathways way a Mentor.

It explains well the contracts between the two and how important is to think before you get into it with someone. As you see it in this image, it has to be a FIT between the two understanding how it works, how many time the Mentor can offer and when, and how each profit at long range from the relation.

I did have a few who told me "Julie, you are my mentor!" and alas, we did not make a contract and establish rules and times. So with one toastmaster it worked out, and I try to help as much as I can, he is very happy with it. The other toastmaster, wanted me to listen again and again: her time very important and mine if I ever needed to speak too, not at all. I felt I get less and less and have to give more and more. It does not work out this way. It got more and more one sided, plus I did not feel listened to.

Next time, if anyone ask me, I will be more willing to Coach for a specific problem or goal, rather then to mentor someone for long time.

But, for the first time in my life, almost since the Pathways begun: I become a Protege! Even if we did not determine it as formally as it is written, at the time neither of us got the Mentor manual, it does work, and each time I really needed, I got help and advice. Through this relation, I understood what a Mentor means. And of course, not tell you all the time what to do or how to do it, but listen and remember and come in when really needed.

I hope, from now on, even if I am not really a "mentor" material, more a "coach or trainer", I will be able to also Mentor, re-reading the Manuals and pondering it more before I enter such a relationship. Looking again at the image, it has to be a real good fit!