The impact of mentorship

My great-aunt has Alzheimer. Her memory gaps are getting bigger everyday to a point where she doesn’t remember when she talks to me, but she still knows who I am. She has had an amazing life, traveling all over the world, when traveling was still paper-based. Always coming back home, after each adventure, with carpets from India, caviar from Russia or sand from Egypt.?

When I was a kid, she organized family showings with the diapositives of her latest travels. I sat down on the floor, with the other kids, while she showed, click after click, images of places far away. With her I virtually traveled to the pyramids, visited the temples in Jerusalem, and admired the blue cupules of Uzbekistan. I think my love for traveling comes directly from her.?

I have always considered her my mentor and it is thanks to her that I am where I am today. When I was ready to sign up for university, she helped me decide what to do by asking me a simple question: what do you see yourself doing? That was the first time I received coaching in my life, even before I knew what coaching was.?

She was also the person who helped me with the application process for university. Who traveled with me in a bus for 5 hours to the city where the best Spanish university for psychology was. Who visited the dorms with me. Who was most excited when I got my admission letter. Who gave me money to get me started.?

She has always been my reference point and the model of person that I would like to be. Somebody educated, smart, generous and adventurous.?

I was talking to her the other day on the phone. Our conversations are usually loops that follow the path dictated by dementia. But sometimes, she is able to escape and jump into the wild, recovering her sharpness and agility. I used one of those occasions to thank her for everything that she has done and continues doing for me. I told her what an important mentor she was in my life. She got silent for a moment and then she replied: you shouldn’t thank me: by helping you, I helped myself.?

She told me how shy she has been all her life and how helping me through the university process (all the calls, the paperwork and the planning) stretched her out of her comfort zone and really transformed her. That after that, her life was better. That realizing how helpful she could be, encouraged her to help even more.?

This conversation made me reflect on the impact of mentoring. Similar to chemical reactions, once the mentor and the mentee interact, both are transformed. I used to think that mentoring was something “done” for others: we mentor people. But I realized that by developing people, you develop yourself. What a powerful tool it is to volunteer to mentor and coach others as the way to deepen into your own growth process.

My great-aunt always says that these days, she only lives through her memories. I want to make sure that the memories I create are full of stories about helping people develop.

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