Who's looking up to you as their Mentor?

Mentors - the people we look up to for guidance. 

Fortunately, at Acton Academy North Shore there is currently a mentor in the studio supporting the guide.

One of the Guide’s roles is to:

Never answer a question. Rather, promise to affirm the hero's and offer tools, processes, frameworks, examples, recipes, and hard questions so they can solve their own problems.

(Taken from the Guide/Hero contract)

Yesterday, the Guide launched a challenge, then went to sit away from the group so the Hero’s could work together. There was some doubt within the Guide as to whether the tribe were going to band together.

Then the Mentor says “it’s going really well”.

When someone who has been living and breathing something for 10 years, you would expect that they would know what they are talking about, right?

In this case, with patience and reflection, the Mentor was right.

But what would you expect from someone who is just starting out a new job?

Or joined a new team?

Or bought a new business?

Or joined a new club?

You would expect there is going to be some time adjusting and understanding the dynamics of how things work.

That is, if there was a system and a culture already in place.

Now, imagine you have NO skills what-so-ever in this team/group/work you have joined, and neither do anyone else in the group.

What would a day like this look like?

Few would argue that humans do not learn very fast, and too often we need to learn the hard way

Winston Churchill is not alone in failing. Before WW2, he was the First Lord of the Admiralty during the Gallipoli campaign during WW1 which was disastrous - but this taught him vital lessons and resilience to come back and lead Britain effectively through WW2

Michael Jordan suffered 7 playoff series losses, and was trusted with the ball 26 times to take the game winning shot and missed

Elon Musk has been on the brink of bankruptcy three times building some of the biggest companies in the world which are still thriving today

As long as we expect our people to never to give up, to keep showing up, and we praise them for continuing to try every time they find it hard or fail, they can become anything!

Just like our mentors — and that is the reason they are our mentors — the people we look up to, learn from, and why we want more of them around us.

And, like the Acton Academies, from the founders to the 300+ owners collaborating together, to the graduates travelling the world consulting campuses, to the Guides themselves - we will keep looking up to our mentors.

Just think, who in your world is looking up to you?