My Mentoring Experience Lighthouse International
By Paul Stephen Waugh, Head Mentor, Lighthouse International
How have I benefitted from mentoring?
I have benefited greatly from both mentoring others and being mentored myself for over 45 years. The benefits have been too many and too substantial to list here, but without mentoring and coaching both on the giving and receiving side, I would never ever have been able to achieve even a fraction of what I have achieved in my life.
I am truly grateful to the people who have been that Lighthouse Mentor to me, often when I have been completely at a loss as to where to go and what to do. When I would have given up, they inspired me or gave me a kick up the rear.
Whenever I needed something to grow, learn and advance (often not what I was wanting) my mentors kindly but often firmly pointed me in the right direction.
When I was ready and I had earned their help they often brainstormed the right idea with me so that we could bring it to the table along with the right person and resources to help bring that opportunity or solution to life.
Mentorship is woven throughout the fabric of my life
Bringing knowledge, resources, people and relationships together is something a Master Mentor can do effectively – integrating what they know with who they know along with the resources necessary to succeed with greater effectiveness and efficiency. Master Mentors do this all while helping you learn this skill yourself in order to be able to do it independently for yourself in the future, while in masterly fashion mentoring others both in your interests and theirs sometime in the future.
However, the deep, meaningful and productive relationships that I have built over those years have been so very special and have added so much to my life in so many ways. I am truly grateful to both my mentors and mentees. Mentorship is woven throughout the fabric of my life. Without that weave of human genius and brilliance, my life would be smaller, blander and less interesting in comparison. The difference is stark.
I wasn’t always open to mentorship
However, I was not always open to mentorship! Although I thought I did, I didn’t really understand what it was; let alone the power, scope and scale of its power when mastered and applied with mastery. Besides, I wanted to be that mythical hero figure – the self-made man!! Instead, I was the lone wolf while talking team. I was the rugged individual who took five years to achieve something that in all honesty would take one with the right mentorship. The pain of struggle is a good teacher and a cruel master. I decided one day that trying to do it alone just lacked reality and common sense. I was paying an enormous price to maintain my ego. It had to go and a whole new world of seeing, being, doing, getting and giving was opened up to me through mentorship.
Mentorship delivers every time
I have found that mentorship has always delivered authentically and legitimately what both many others and I have wanted and needed within the context of my various life projects, from family to business.
If I have needed the right staff or partners for my businesses, starting the right mentorship program has always delivered the most incredible people. When I have needed funding, again the authentic credibility that naturally comes from initiating appropriate and effective mentoring platforms and programs have delivered always, in all ways, the right people and relationships. You will only understand how the world of mentoring will realistically open up doors in your life when you enter into this world. It starts with one simple step; commit to learning as much about it as you can. We at Lighthouse have a wealth of information at our fingertips by starting your own journey with our Gap Assessment & Analysis, you will start the process of understanding the areas where you need to be mentored and how you could mentor others.
I would like to take this opportunity to truly thank those wonderful people who are mentors and mentees while applauding those who are willing to be. It is these people who will be the leaders of the future both in their own life and in the lives of those they care about. If you are one of them, then I thank and applaud you too. If you are not, then I encourage you to discover more, starting through talking to one of the team about mentoring here.
Becoming a Master Mentor
I hope that if you are not a Master Mentor or Master Mentee (that you are both is important) that you will find it within yourself to be one. Why? Because you will find that the power of mentorship and your willingness to master it will help you optimise your life in all areas.
After all, there is not one aspect of your life that the power of mentorship is not related to in some way; whether it is being an increasingly functional mum or dad, or leading a large international organisation of tens of thousands of people. You will always prevail through being a Master Mentor.
Wishing you the best of success in your Life,
Paul Waugh
Chairman Lighthouse International Group
I loved reading this, the real-life experience that is honest about someone’s life is not something often read about. Especially in relation to needing help. I can relate to this in so many ways one, in particular, being the resistance I have felt in asking and seeking help from another. Wanting to do everything myself and not being dependent on another to succeed.
What I can understand is that being dependent on another isn’t what this piece is saying, but to be interdependent with another. Succeeding with others to not only get what we want to achieve but for all to achieve together within all relationships. It makes so much sense!! You want a successful business, you need the right people for the business, you want the business to grow, you help your staff to improve.
Even thinking about personal relationships, if you want a marriage to work you help your husband or wife achieve what they want to. ‘Deep, meaningful and productive relationships’ stood out to me when reading and intrigued me, thinking about what this type of relationship actually is compared to the ones I have had and have ultimately failed.
Paul, thank you so much for your insight and journey from being a mentee to becoming a mentor. Your initial struggle to see that you actually needed mentorship in the first place and how you overcame those struggles to finally seek out and ask people to mentor you. Relating my experience in being mentored, never really knowing who or what a mentor was, being introduced to Sukh at a time in my life that I didn’t have any direction. I remember being asked, what makes a good mentor? The answer, first become a good mentee. I didn’t understand it back then but now, after 6 years of being mentored, not just by Sukh, but by you as well, I now see and understand that in order to be a good mentor you have to be willing to be challenged and be willing to make mistakes, this you can learn as a mentee first. Meeting you for the first time was an experience I will never forget, a man was sharing his journey with me and being willing to be vulnerable in front of someone that you had never met before. This for me, is the sign of what it takes to be a great mentor and a great leader.
Really great to read an experience from someone who deeply understands mentoring and can explain its benefits so clearly and concisely. I relate personally to how hard it can be to get started with mentoring and how much we resist what is good for us, but this post is spot on, mentoring applies to every single facet of our lives. I know that I have not seen all the areas in my life to be connected, I’ve separated work and home and struggled to make appropriate sacrifices of play in order to work. This just makes it so clear that if we want to change our lives, we need support and guidance.
Master Mentor AND Mentee! What an interesting read. It’s unusual to hear that one ought to master both, let alone that this dual mastery is the key to unlocking the natural potential to create what you want and need in life.
For me what sounds most intriguing is this human aspect. He mentions the deep personal relationships with the right people, and who doesn’t want that? I for one am willing to admit that I have plenty of negative influences in my life, thank you very much, and would be glad to surround myself with – and become, myself, a part of – a community of people seeking to better themselves and their lives.
I read this, and read it again. The second time I found so much more in the words. ‘Mentorship is woven throughout the fabric of my life’ and ‘that weave of human genius.’ These phrases speak so loudly to me, I’m catapulted into my imagination where I’m seeing the structure and strength of this bond that surely nourishes itself as a whole, through continual interpersonal learning and application through life. Wow, this is a country mile from the rugged individual I long thought was inspiring leadership.
I really wish this was something I had learnt at school, just when I was starting to look at what I wanted to do with my life, what career to choose, how to make the best choices at working towards that vision and what success really means, beyond a job title and material ‘trophies’. The word mentor was only something I heard of much later in life, and usually only in passing during a celebrities interview about their success, and the word coach was only something I understood in terms of sports. I had a very limited view on how valuable it is to work with a mentor and to become one to those in your care and around you too! Having a mentor shouldn’t be limited to business and how to get a better job or climb the corporate ladder, which it very often is now. But everyone should have one for all aspects of their life and the decisions that help form a healthy, meaningful life.
I really enjoyed reading this! What I value first and foremost is the humility in what Paul is sharing. We live in a world that idolises the myth of being ‘self made’, going out and taking on the world on your own rather than recognising and appreciating those who have cared for us, loved us and challenged us to achieve beyond what we can see. I know this a lot in myself and where I have lacked the humility to truly appreciate the support I have received.
I haven’t heard of the term master mentor before, but I find it powerful to see what it means to master and optimise your life in all areas. I can see in myself how my default when hearing the word ‘mentoring’ is to think of a specific competency based area of a job or career, but it is such a narrow view of what mentorship means to build our character, focusing on who are are which flows into everything we do, from interactions with people at a supermarket, to being the best parent, brother and friend.