If you study the most successful people who have ever lived, the common denominator of their success is that they have always had mentors.... without exception! Personally speaking I spent more than a decade looking for a mentor before meeting Chris Nash who I felt could offer me the level of guidance and support I was looking for in line with the aspirations I had for my life.
I decided to invest in my own mentorship through Lighthouse International Group because I didn't have it available to me through family, school, university or the workplace. It was a breath of fresh psychological air to have someone genuinely listen to what was meaningful to me, my life and my future. Although incredibly challenging at times, mentorship has exceeded my expectations and it's a tragedy that authentic mentorship is not more common in today's society. For example, the mental health in young people is decaying increasingly every year. We now live in a country where, here in the UK, 7% of young people are attempting to end their own lives by the time they are 17!! Before their life has barely begun - we have the responsibility to ask ourselves what support they are receiving?
As part of our research into human potential, myself and the rest of the team spent 3 months on the streets of London interviewing over 5,000 people about life lessons, mentorship and their goals. What astounded me is how less than a handful of the hundreds of people I personally spoke to actually had a mentor. Some said they had been a mentor, but a tiny number had received it. There were even people who didn't know what a mentor was!
It's not a complete surprise, the reality is that the personal development industry has a pretty poor reputation. So with that in mind and heart, where should you put your trust? It’s not in mentorship coaching that you should be putting your trust, it’s in who is behind the mentorship coaching. What is that person's character? Do they have the competence? Is this person teaching because they aren’t really good at doing? Are they simply trying to make a few beans out of doing that? This is very common - the whole life coaching industry is full of it!
Paul Stephen Waugh explains, in the video below, who you can trust and why, in an industry that many are (rightly) skeptical about. We explain more in this article about what really qualifies someone to be a mentor or coach.
To speak to the team and learn more about what mentorship coaching involves at Lighthouse International Group, please check out our Mentoring & Coaching page. You can also learn more about the real-life experiences of our mentors and mentees at Lighthouse International Group on our Mentoring page of our Community site.
Additionally, please feel free to follow us on social media to learn more about what we’ve discovered over the past 18 years.
Trust is such an important resource and especially nowadays with so much information everywhere it can be very overwhelming to figure out who you can and can’t trust. Genuine, heartfelt and solid mentorship with a mentor walking their talk makes a massive difference to someone’s life and I have experienced that myself over the last years. Through mentorship I learned in the first place what trust actually is, how to build deep relationships with others and how foundational that is for anything else in life. Thank you for this article, James!
Thanks for sharing James, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to looking deeper into the self-help industry and how effective it really is. There is no magic pill or quick fix to improve your life and ability to make healthy, progressive and positive choices, it takes lots of work, inside-in work, constantly and consistently for the rest of your life. It's a commitment and it's about shift how you see, not just what you do.
Absolutely excellent primary reason as to why mentoring will work well. Really powerful, thank you.
What is key for me from this video is when Mr Waugh explains that good mentors put their heart into the things they do, the people they serve and they care! Their competence is also a vital component that will continue to develop but without the care and love that has been shown to me by Mr Waugh and others then my life would be much harder and with much less meaning, than I have now!
Thank you for sharing this article and your personal Experience. I find that mentoring is crucial and vital because of the wisdom that they can share in both business and life. I know that I wouldn’t have come through certain situations stronger if I didn’t have guidance and support, especially from Chris Nash. Being lost between schools, parents and social circles it’s hard to know who to trust for good advice. Chris Nash has helped me massively through our time working with one another, it hasn’t been easy but the experiences have helped me grow and I can help others too because of what help I received.