Shopping Vs Mentoring; What are you for? (Story of Transformation 20)

Two decades of my life passed – shopping for the future. I am not the only one to shop for future. Everyone does. ‘Shopping for future’, C.L.R. James, a socialist theorist calls “the struggle for happiness”. This is the term that I recently learned in my pedagogy class.

Pedagogy talking about shopping!

What a juxtaposition?

But it is the reality, isn’t it? We have been going to schools and colleges just for the sake of achieving degrees which will someday be useful to buy our happiness.

Why did you join M.Phil classes?

Is it important?                                                                                                             

If you want you can directly apply for Ph.D., why are you taking extra burden?

These are some of the questions that I have been answering now days.

Yes, they are right.

But, I decided to board this ship realizing that even after such long years of formal schooling, I feel like I lacked so many possessions as a student. I lacked someone with whom I could share. I lacked someone who would trigger my thought process with some brilliant questions. I longed for that someone who would drag me to reflect whatever I am doing. Cutting the long story short, I desired a mentor.

Again, I am not the only one who wished she had a mentor. In our times of quandary, we secretly wish, if we had one person; just to share our feelings, just to give us some attention, just to help us overcome our fear. If not all these, just to listen to us that we had a bad day. Sometimes, we want a brother in our friend and sometimes vice versa. I think what we want is a mentor. Sagar Satyal wished the same. But what Satyal did after he realized this is amazing.

Yes, he is mentoring undergrads at King’s College these days. And a bunch of students have already benefited from him and some are in the process.

“Be who you needed when you were younger." Satyal finds this quote really meaningful. He shares, “I've found it imperative to give back whatever little I know so that people on a similar path can benefit. That's the same reason I started blogging as well- so that people can learn from my mistakes and experiences; avoid common pitfalls that we as rookies make and have their own unique experiences. Because I didn't have the same opportunity when I was doing my undergrad, I wanted to make mentorship available to the ones who wanted it. And since it is a relatively new concept in Nepalese business schools, it is my small act of trying to change the current education scene in Nepal.”

Photo Credit: Bipulesh Poudel

I find his act is gaining success. Arushi Thapa, one of his mentees is happy these days as she has been able to communicate with her father very well which she had always desired. Being an army officer, she wasn’t fortunate enough to spend much time with her father. Whenever, they would be together, they both wanted to communicate but since, they wouldn’t find any common issues to talk about, their communication would not progress. But amazingly these days, she finds it strange that they have so many things to talk about. She has discovered that even her father has the love of learning foreign language. This transformation wouldn’t have been possible if she hadn’t realized that it wasn’t because of the difference, rather it was because she hesitated to share about herself with her father. 

Thus, she initiated sharing her daily schedule with him and now they have so many things to share and laugh at. The man behind her self- realization was her mentor Sagar who had asked her to reflect upon her daily actions so that she could improve on her part. She did the same and started writing and sending it to her father so that even if they were apart he would always know about her and when they would meet they would have so many things to talk about.

Arushi shares, “I had joined his mentorship just to build my confidence, as he is a very good speaker, but I must say, I have achieved more than that.” Arushi is just an instance. I observed one of his mentorship sessions and realized how wonderfully Bishmita was reflecting upon her own behavior. Amrit confidently was sharing that he lacked preparation which he would definitely do the next time. Avinash and Prazwal were contented about their improvement and during their break, Bipulesh was happy to teach Sagar some of his dance moves. All in all, all of them were sharing whatever they were good at.

When Sagar was triggering his mentees so much to reflect on themselves, I was inquisitive about his self-reflection as a mentor. Sagar reflects, “Mentees just need to be cared for and given a platform to express themselves. They are capable and profound in their own ways; they just need a little push. And as for the mentor, there’s so much to learn about oneself in the process of helping mentees connecting with their inner self.”

Many of us feel that mentoring is coaching, thus learning things primarily through experience and observation instead of coaching is far better. But, I feel mentoring is more than coaching. It’s also about dealing with frustration of your mentee, giving constructive criticism, handling disappointment, behaving with humility and compassion, and much more. Being a good mentor is a difficult thing. It takes an emotional commitment. But when someone finds that committed mentor his/her life changes.

According to Sagar, mentoring achieves four fundamental values that govern his life:

   1. Consciousness: It helps both the mentors and the mentees become more mindful of who they are and what they want to be and therefore, expend their time, energy, and effort accordingly.

   2. Compassion: When everyone’s comfortable sharing their inner stories that they might have otherwise kept hidden, it develops a sense of understanding that everyone has their own suffering and brings the world together.

 3. Creativity and Fun: Mentorship programs provide a platform for mentors and mentees to do something creative and fun together in the course of spreading love and wisdom.

    4. Community and friendship: It helps instill the idea that the universe is one and we all should live with love and harmony by helping each other.

These 4Cs say it all. Adding on to it, although mentors may just be the visitors in the lives of their mentees, a good mentor has the quality to shape the mentee’s future, touch their lives and initiate their transformation into great future leaders.

Hat’s off to Sagar.

Appreciation to all other mentors whom I haven’t even heard of but are working hard to change the lives of their mentees in their best possible way.

For you before you end this reading, reflect on and be wary as you too may be just shopping for your future.