The Joy of Mentoring & Sharing

“It is only in the giving of oneself to others that we truly live.”

(Quote from Ethel Percy Andrus)

One of the inheritances my dad passed on to me is the passion to teach, mentor and share. I started teaching to my peers in university, and ramped it up after qualifying as an actuary. Recently a student asked me why I share my knowledge, and I was simply lost for words..I honestly don’t know the why… it just gives me great joy to share. I feel a light from within glow when I share, and I learn as I share too.

Over the years my mentees and students have progressed in the careers, either on the actuarial or adjacent paths. Some have kept in touch and some have moved apart, but I feel so much joy seeing them progress, regardless whether I see it up close or from a distance. The joy is quite special - it is greater than the joy I have felt for my own success (perhaps I need to appreciate myself more too), the kind of joy where you sit quietly and glow.

This in itself is its reward - using the term “reward” feels like degrading its true worth, as the best teachers have no thought of rewards.

Our workplaces, schools, and even the world would be a better place if we can impart this frame of mind, the spirit and joy of mentorship.

Transforming our workplaces

The last five years from the Covid & post-Covid times have been a bit shocking to me. Somehow our workplaces have gotten more toxic, with corporate politics and the virus of regular retrenchments becoming the norm.

In the midst of rushing for greater productivity, profits, tools, technology, we have somehow forgotten why humans built these in the first place - to make lives better for humans!! I’m quite sure our hunter-gatherer ancestors had a lot more joy (when they weren’t fighting off cave lions etc) than what we have now.

Joy needs to be brought back into our workplaces, and my view is joy should be within the way we do the work, and share knowledge with our team. Doing it as an afterthought through team activities alone is not enough, we need to embed joy into the DNA of our working lives (still a work in progress to me too, sometimes I let my anxiety drive).

We need to enjoy learning, enjoy doing, enjoy sharing, and we can then collectively get into the flow state - definitely we get the best productivity operating in the flow state (I’m sure you’ve tapped into it knowingly or unknowingly every now and then).

As a business owner this is a no-brainer. Joy in the work, joy in the relationships we foster at work, joy for the sake of joy. Revenues, profits and excellence in work will all come naturally as a by-product.

Engineering the business for joy - food for thought. Working as an employee, it may feel like we are swimming against the current with our own approach of joy, admittedly this is harder. If you lead your own small or large team, you can try to implement within that. If you are reporting to a team lead, you can try to experience joy in the work you do and infect others with it. Worth a try at least.

Transforming the world

Once we experience joy at work, it certainly overflows into other aspects of life - this is how we transform the world. Step by step in the circles we play in, in our playgrounds.

Let’s give it a try!