Give back what you take - Mentoring

Give back what you take

She asked me to close my eyes, take a deep breath and think. I slowly opened my eyes and see what she is doing. She shouted at me and told “Just close your eyes and think”

Good evening fellow Toastmasters, Madam toastmasters and guests. I am here to give my speech on Mentoring. The experience that I had from my mentors and from my mentees.

              As a fresher in the year 2011 I got into a project of a 8 members team. I was assigned a mentor to receive KT. This guy is a very knowledgeable but rude. Initially I thought he was rude only with me but later I came to know that this is the case with girls and others as well. I felt bit relieved and still wanted to know why this behavior. Later I came to know that he did his EEE. At that time I recalled my experiences with the EEE professors in the college. He was just a kid in front of them. You know how the Knowledge transition session will go? It will be like watching Mani Rathnam’s movie. When he starts giving KT, we don’t which topic he is giving, it will be even more confusing in the middle. At the end you will doubt your understanding abilities. At least I hear people saying only Mani Rathnam fans will understand his movies but in my case I enquired everyone in the team. They told that no one understood the KT and no one had the guts to say we don’t understand what you say! I was bit happy that I am not single here.

              In our projects, unlike the Toastmasters, we don’t get an option to select our mentors but we can utilize them in the best way we can. My mentor, though he is rude and there are lot of improvements to be made in his way of communicating things, as I mentioned earlier, he is knowledgeable. I want to utilize that in the best way I can. I built a good rapport with him and whatever I needed from him to become a domain expert. The great things I learnt from my first mentor. Be knowledgeable. Don’t spoon feed people. They may not know the worth. If they are really curious to learn things, they will find a way to learn. At this point you help them.

              From then I realized that there is something to learn from every single person that you come across your life. I practice is religiously. I cannot stop mentioning about my present mentor in Toastmasters. How many of you ever in your lifetime tried bungee jumping? Even I haven’t tried that. It’s scary to see that. There is something to learn from it.  The person who attempts it first will be standing at the very scary height tied to a rope in the legs. There will be another person who will stand behind him to help him to jump. Sometimes he will push him down to make him enjoy the thrill. We have a similar kind of person in our club. Everyone of us here want to become a great communicators and leaders. But no all of us volunteer to complete our education goals and to take up the roles. He is the person who plays the role of the bungy jumping guide. He will push everyone to achieve our goals and assign TMOD and other roles without our wish. I feel this is a major thing for our club’s success. And for my success. He is none other than Toastmaster Ramanan.

              As I am supposed to talk on my mentor experience. I take a step back to the time where I was given a resource to train and bring her to work. This is more than a mentor role. She was a person not interested in remembering things. So when you teach her something she will ask it again the next day. I was fine to repeat her initially, but felt very tensed as this habit grew every day. One day I shouted at her. Hey don’t you remember these simple things. Why are you asking this repeatedly? She didn’t speak anything and went to her place. Later I felt bad for my behavior and wanted to overcome this habit. Guess what I did, I went to a psychiatrist. She use to visit every month to cure people who were stressed by their mentees.  When I went inside the room, she asked my problem and asked me to close my eyes. She asked me to take deep breath and think if some undesirable incident happened in my past. By controlling my smile, I slowly opened my eyes and saw her what she is doing. She stared at me and told. Close your eyes and think. I then told her. “Excuse me Mam I don’t find anything and this is not a big problem. This is the first time I got tensed like this.  Please tell some solution” She later understood that and gave a very great advice which even today I am following it. “Don’t treat everyone as Abdul Hadi” People will learn in their own pace and way. Try the best way to convey things you want. This transformed my entire thought process and made me a better person. A better mentor.

“Sudar vilakkayinum thoondu kol thevai” Even the brightest glowing oil lamp needs a small stick.

Bear with me. Even in google I don’t find an appropriate translation for this.

I wish you all the very best to be the best mentors and great mentees.