Be My Mentor?

(A Toastmaster Basic Speech)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

        They say that good mentors let you into their world, sharing both professional and personal triumphs and failures.  Their primary role is actually to provide guidance and support...to help you think through difficult decisions...to lead you by example...to be extremely positive and interested in seeing you succeed.  Good mentors thus possess qualities that allow them to instruct you in a beneficial and informative way.  They are patient, understanding, knowledgeable....and of course, there is no single formula for good mentoring.  Styles are as varied as human relationships because the essence of mentoring is the sustained human relationship.

    
       A historical note to mentoring points to antiquity... to the friend of Odysseus, Mentor, whom he placed in charge of his son Telemachus when he went off for the Trojan War. You remember Homer's Iliad and The Odessey, of course?  Well,   the modern usage of the word now is a personal developmental relationship in diverse knowledge transmission situations.  Mentoring, for example, takes different forms in the organizational setting.  The process of an informal transfer of information, mentoring is relevant to work, career or professional development. While we also have youth mentoring, peer mentoring, employee mentoring, we now also have eMentoring, or mentoring online. An interesting upshot. And right here with us in Toastmasters, mentoring,  you know very well, is part and parcel of the reponsibilities as well as the fun of membership.

        But see, I, too, have had the honor and privilege of being called Mentor. Being with both the Academe and Toastmasters International, I realized that  the task seemed to naturally be a need as well as a delightful source of satisfaction just being there. With all the work experience that go along with being a mentor to students as well as to colleagues, it also happens that some unforgettable spice and thrills do turn up.  Because mentoring is equated with work and discipline over and above positive nurturing, listening, and advising,  I had , for instance,  also been identified  not only as Mentor, but fondly as Tormentor too.  Recalling one particular point in time, one of my mentees was upstage accepting a speech excellence award and then followed it by acknowledging me as his Mentor and Tormentor -to the amusement of the audience.  But after the acceptance, he came down the stage to where I was seated and offered me a rose in gratitude - this time to the admiring reaction of the audience.   And moments like that for a mentor are simply priceless!.....

       ... Which is why I never ever  hesitate to accept requests that go:  Please,  -be my mentor?

Mister Toastmaster....