Is Mentoring a Service to Others – or to Yourself?
We never know the full impact of our lives on others. It can be as small as the right words spoken at the right moment. It can be as large as offering someone a career opportunity or advice that helps someone avoid a large and costly mistake.
Every year, when we name SSPI’s 20 Under 35 group of high-performing employees and entrepreneurs, we ask them to tell us how they mentor others and why they do it. If their answers could be summed up in two words, the phrase would be “just because.”
Just because. Because they are aware of the blessings they have received and, finding them a heavy load, seek to share them. The satisfaction they receive is deep, whether they are helping colleagues at work, students at a university or homeless youth struggling for a better life. They cannot know exactly the impact they are having on others, but the impact is real.
It is not a path for everyone. Our busy lives do not offer us all the opportunities to mentor that we might like. That is why mentorship is a continuing mission for SSPI, one that grows organically over time and draws out the best from the people who engage in it. In these pages is a sampling of the many ways the people of SSPI use the organization to share with others their blessings of knowledge, smart practices and mistakes made – and to make our industry stronger and smarter in the process.
