Can you still remember your school days? What's the first thing that comes to mind? Soon some teacher, right?
We suffered under some teachers, and then there were formative teacher personalities for almost all of us in the most positive sense, who are still vivid in our memories today. They were more mentors than teachers, not only imparting knowledge but helping us to transform into ourselves. Hopefully you also have such people in your biography! Because we cannot do without mentors on our journey through life.
We know them from stories from King Arthur to "Dead Poets Society", we know mentor figures like Albus Dumbledore and Obi Wan Kenobi.
Mentors are different from friends. They come into your life because you need them, not because you like them. They hide in many guises, they are often not people at all, but they help you understand. It is not uncommon for a special book to do exactly what mentors do, or a song by Bob Dylan that stays with you all your life, a moving play, a discovery in an old dusty box, a picture that tells you more than words and moves you to a surprising healing realisation ...
You are also a mentor to many people, whether you realise it or not. In this episode, I share with you, among other things.
Six essential contributions you can make as a mentor.
Mentors, teachers, coaches - the lines are blurring. What I see clearly, however, is that many people are plagued by a thick bundle of questions about themselves and what they do professionally in this time of transition.
The world needs mentors, and if you don't have one, you can be one. Be the mentor you wish you had. Because we, humanity, are looking for perspective and orientation and meaning at every turn. Many of us even know the way, but do not see it.
For this, mentors are needed - for the big steps and for the small ones: people who ask questions and question, who tell lived lives, who share their stories with others.
Our existence consists of a dense web of little stories in which we ourselves are the main characters, each in his, and each other mentors, each to the other. Each of us, each of us, can prove to be heroine and mentor in equal measure, doing what heroes and mentors do on their journey: recognising, understanding, transforming and accompanying others along the way - oh Captain, my Captain!
With our stories, we make each other strong: as people, as teams, as a society. And in these stories, we are all protagonists and always mentors, sometimes even at the same time ...
LEFT:
Mentor
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentor_(mythology)
Maria Montessori
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori
Stoicism
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoa
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Aurel
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiktet
Nelson Mandela "Long walk to freedom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Walk_to_Freedom
Anne Lamott "Bird by Bird
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Lamott
Steven Pressfield "The War of Art
https://stevenpressfield.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About_a_Boy_(novel)
"Dead Poets Society / Der Club der toten Dichter"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Poets_Society
"School of Rock"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Rock
Barack Obama on the same problems at every level
https://bit.ly/2Wu9aZW
P.S.
Links to Amazon are meant as a service for snooping and in case you want to feed your Kindle right away, whereas I strongly recommend reading books made of paper, flesh, blood & soul, with a pencil within reach for notes and dog-eared and ready to fold.
And: every stationary bookseller is happy about a purchase and gets you every book in no time at all - sometimes you just turn your hand over two or three times ... The reward for this: when you visit the bookshop, there is always a lot to discover, or you will be discovered by books that on Amazon don't have the slightest idea that you exist.
By the way, I'm happy to receive relevant tips from you as a story insider - not only from the non-fiction and specialist book corner.