Mentorship: The Rigged System

Introduction

One of my most frustrating moments in my journey as a young entrepreneur, was the seemingly lack of mentors for young men. As I have grown in the business space and become a mentor of sort myself, who is struggling to mentor young men. I started wondering, why this is so. Is it because I am busy? (My wife and I are married last 6 years with a fruit basket of 3 children that I need to be constantly nurturing & ever present for; I have a 10 year old demanding business life; exciting & engaging projects and still I need to be available to my friends, extended family & ultimately God).

 

As I look back on how I was mentored or not mentored – I noticed something quite interesting. That there is no one available for mentoring the boy child. This is collaborated by some trends in the market place, where we all see numbers and level of confidence by the girl child significantly standing out, while the boy child seems aloof and under confident or qualified.

 

This is particularly worrying for me as I have 2 daughters and 1 son, especially when I do my projections on how this disorder will play itself out for them 30 to 40 years for now. I then decided to do some research on my journey and even had some discussions with individuals who have had first hand information on the issue of being mentored or not being mentored and mentoring. I was particularly interested to find out why the system seems to be rigged in favour of mentoring the girl child. I came up with the following 4 issues that I hope can incite some dialogue:

 

1.           Access to mentors

In this digital day and age one needs not have an excuse on not having a mentor. If anything we have a big advantage of looking at our growth areas and select lives and stories from different individuals and sort of pick our learning's from them - we have a choice to pick the good bits and leave out the bad bits.

 

I have had on numerous occasion gotten individuals walk up to me and tell me how much of an inspiration my journey or work has been to them. My initial reaction was surprise, to me I was simply doing my day to day routine - mentoring was not a conscious thing.

 

I however feel them, as my business life has immensely been shaped and encouraged by the life and stories of individuals I have not even met or conversed with for more than 30 seconds:

Steve Job's story for one has helped me with the quest for meaning of Life and creating solutions/new thinking that grow from acquiring a rate determining cult following) and from Mr. Peter Munga on starting a business in a field littered with giants who have near & clear monopolies and facing financial challenges and how to overcome them - I have reflected on his story when facing auctioneers, inspiring employees, fund raising and innovation - most impact from his story was understanding ones identity and starting in a wooden shack in Kangema with the financially excluded farmers instead of Nairobi - we learned from this and focused the roots of Haltons Pharmacy in the estates of Nairobi along Thika road and Outering and Jogoo road where the need for quality products and qualified personnel was and now we are called to be anchor tenants in very prime areas, if we'd stuck in the CBD we'd never have differentiated ourselves and acquire the client base to get us to where we are now).

 

2.           Thin Line between Mentoring and Infidelity

Let me start with some definitions of what I understand of these two items.

Mentoring to me is like parenting, we all as parents want to give opportunities, education, discipline and nurturing to our children so that they can become self aware, confident and serve others with their skills and passions, try out new things or old/impossible things with a new thinking, challenging themselves without fear of failure (as they feel accepted and know that they have a well abled pit stop crew in us as parents) in order for their experience and outcomes to be better than what we'd imagine for ourselves.

 

For Infidelity, I'll borrow a definition from the Belgian Psychotherapist Dr. Esther Perel. From her experience, she sees the definition of infidelity as one that keeps on evolving from a physical encounter, sexting, watching porn, staying secretly active on dating apps or even secretly scrolling through peoples social media profiles to feed your sexual energies. It brings together three key elements: a secretive relationship, which is at the core of an affair; an emotional connection to one degree or another; and a sexual alchemy. On Alchemy, she puts it this way: the erotic frisson is such that the kiss that you only imagine giving, can be as powerful and as enchanting as hours of actual lovemaking.

'Mentoring'

I remember one particular episode in my earlier years as an entrepreneur. I once meet a lady friend (roughly same age group as me) with one male industry leader. I was so excited that I had a close friend who knew an individual that was an idol to me. So in my naiveté, I politely intruded and enthusiastically introduced myself and what I do and why I felt my team and I could benefit from having insights from him. I was asked to follow up with a phone call (those days call rates were extremely high, that I had to borrow money and purpose not to use it, save for making this life changing call) and upto this day my calls were never returned (to be fair I stopped calling). So, after a few bouts with self doubt, on why I was not able to get the attention of the industry leader and reflecting on how lucky my friend was to have a 'mentor' like that, fantasizing at what I could do if I had access to a fraction of their time. It was one day laid bare to me to see...my lady friend and the industry leader were engaged in a secretive relationship , there was nothing I could do to get his attention. When my eyes were opened to this, I remember start seeing all the signs that were always there and was even able to pick like a dozen other individuals that were having similar 'mentorship' experiences...well their careers seemed to be flourishing as they had an able helping hand.

 

Recently, I had the opportunity to reflect at this particular period in my life with one of my founding partners at Haltons Pharmacy. We reflected on how hard it was for us (the confusion of not having information, pressure to step up as the girls were really fast tracking their careers and our failures to attract mentors to act as a sounding board) and what we needed to do to make it better for the next generation of boys/men. 

 

We came to a realisation that there is a very thin line between mentoring and infidelity. This can happen to either a woman mentor and a male mentee and vice versa. However its more prone in Male mentors and women mentees.

 

Twisted Socialisation

The man typically has been wrongly socialised that there cannot be a relationship with a woman that is purely platonic. Initially it will start as a purely mentorship opportunity (after active scouting or a chance encounter), but with time the pressure on the man starts to build up for him to boast and exaggerate to the friends and soon convinces the lady mentee to cross the lines (usually the mentee is single or even in a relationship and the mentor is most likely married with children etc - money will be thrown at the problem with lavishing of gifts, secretive and sensual escapades arranged all as deliberate traps, primarily to make sure that the man is not a found out as a fraud and hence meets/complies with this twisted expectation). These traps take alot of money, time, imagination, energy, and boldness to set. Resources that are then consciously diverted from the coffers of the family, job and most importantly relationship with God - leaving these areas as deserts.

 

The woman on the other end, has found themselves in a situation where they have invested emotionally and not giving in may spell doom to her prospects or even worse - introduce a crisis on her identity and self worth. As for both a female Mentor or Mentee, the issue is the same: who will now give the self reassurance? We all need a sounding board to reassure ourselves and women more so as they have invested emotionally to this once public and platonic relationship and now have to give in to the lure of an affair and live a double life characterised with hiding and denying. This experience for the lady also takes alot of time, imagination, energy, and boldness to execute. Resources that are then consciously diverted from the coffers of the family, job and most importantly relationship with God - leaving these areas as deserts.

Curtailed Growth & Missed Opportunities

Ultimately, crossing this thin line leads to curtailed growth for both parties (as the mentee will only grow as far as the mentor wants them to grow - the fear for the mentor is that the mentee if let outside the tether will go ahead and get a better deal out there) - this curtailed growth is even worse for the mentor who now has to live a mediocre life of not being present for their job, family and loved ones, what started out as a 'good' thing quickly escalates into a messy monster - it's akin to the story of the many African Independence liberators who then went on to become presidents for life at expense of future of the nations they led. Try this, you must know these mentors, see how their lives have panned out 4 - 10 years later?

 

3.           White lies and Half Truths

Most women lack the honesty to open up and share growth stories or challenges/experiences with other women with the aim of making the mentees learn and get better outcomes than them. It could be because of fear of the stories being told about them (funny thing is that when you think people do not know your story, they already picked on the smoke and are out there with the little they have passing it on in a case of broken telephone - the smoke is still smoke, but you cannot tell whether the fire is wooden, gas etc)

 

A lady will tell the other as how well the 'mentoring' is going on with this 'industry leader' and since they both know that there is a case of infidelity they do not want to confront this (even if they are close friends or sometimes it's simply acceptable as we deserve to be happy to pursue our desires - don't men do it, how different are we?) and the lady will quietly watch as the other one goes on and get themselves into a similar 'mentoring' situation. In the end regrets, confusion etc become order of the day, but they had an opportunity to be transparent and factual and this could have saved the other friend the now experience. It could even have helped with healing, exit or closure and strengthen their relationship.

 

We all need to be vulnerable enough to work with each other and grow the next generation of ladies. There is this common phrase, women are their own worst enemies...this is not a truth.

 

4.           It's not exciting for Men to mentor Men

I was once going through an identity crisis, immediately after stepping down as the MD of Haltons Pharmacy after nearly 5/6 years (I did not know any other thing - my identity was intertwined to MD for Haltons - I used to be the IT, HR, Finance, Business Development, Delivery Guy, Head of Stores, Company Pharmacist and now I had a defined role as an Exec. Director, Business Development and Company Pharmacist). I now needed to answer to a CEO and a board (my ideas could not be automatically be implemented as there was now a necessary bureaucracy and so, I felt lost).

 

I remember my late sister in-law (God grant her soul peace) introducing me to someone that was a coach of theirs at a start up company that was founded at around same time as me and my co-founders founded Haltons Pharmacy. I was at my first daughters 3rd birthday and I remember he called me. What was profound after I hanged up after a very long conversation with him was that the fellow only talked about importance of family - even when I tried to turn conversation into my successes and achievement in business (I think I was trying to compensate for the emptiness I was feeling). What this man did, as a successful man - was very powerful for me and I can say that this moment was a big turning point in my life and how I viewed my self-worth - I still went ahead and made a few more mistakes out to fill my emptiness, but the seed had already been planted and I can say I now have a beacon of hope that I can reference to if I get lost in the thick of things. Had he talked about money, I'd probably be in a whole different trajectory into a deep abyss.

 

This man did not have to speak into my life. I had nothing to give him - no money, intimacy, shares etc but he did. Then I started thinking to myself, what if men could mentor men...what if that money, time, imagination, energy, and boldness that currently goes to keeping that infidelity fire burning was put into mentoring other men?

What's in it for men to mentor men?

One particular individual from the dozen I spoke of earlier, 10 years later is struggling with the relationship with his estranged teenage son. He is now trying to connect & understand him. While, over a period of the child's lifetime he has been busy 'mentoring' young women.

It reminds me of this picture: You are at a funeral and all of you know of how a-not-so-good person this fellow (probably a close family member etc) being buried was. Then out of nowhere/the usual 'friends' comes and pays a glowing tribute to them...then it's like, who are they talking about? Sorry, I digressed.

Our friend from the famous dozen is now struggling with his son. He lived by the mantra of, 'eat your future today' through feeding his flesh's desires. What if, our friend 10 years ago had invested money, time, imagination, energy, and boldness in mentoring myself, my co-founders or any other young man that needed a sounding board at that time - lets even say, one for every 2 years (which is the average time it usually takes for the fiery secretive and intense affair fuelling the 'mentoring' takes to die off). The fellow would have been present for his son. God forbid for example that the son still becomes estranged,  he'd now have like half a dozen men who would be having shared values and be more than happy be mentors to his son as a payback for what they sacrificed for them 10 years ago.

 

At the end of the day we want to have our children (sons & daughters) surrounded by individuals that share our values and beliefs. We want to create a safe environment for them to be the best of what they can be. There is a popular saying that goes, 'a prophet is never honoured in their home'...your children will never 100% go with what you tell or instruct them to do - no matter how well meaning, sometimes they may even rebel 100% and what you want is to have a pool of guys that you’ve mentored hanging around to quickly call on to hold your children's hands – sort of like the cool uncles and aunts we used to have back in the day.

 

Due to selfish competing interests e.g. chasing money, or 'mentoring' that we are hiding from our families in weekends spent in sensual out of town escapades etc. This has detrimental effects on the boy and girl child socialization (when you think you are being careful to keep it a secret - they are slowly putting and two together) making this disorder as the new order fuelling a dysfunctional cycle of hurt, blame, lost dreams, broken relationships, mediocrity, men and women who are dysfunctional, infidelity becoming a norm as we compete with those who broke us or shuttered our dreams.

 

Conclusion:

 

I have 3 children: 2 girls and 1 boy. I know my abilities and weaknesses and I want to purposely focus on mentoring boys/men so that the world that these children grow into is one that has a spine and shared values (or atleast has a critical mass of individuals that I can call up on to mentor my children).

 

 

To this end my call to all of us is that Men should mentor Men and Women to Mentor Women

 How is the system rigged?

The system is currently rigged to favour a dysfunctional world - where the instant gratification skews for a Male & Female mentorship (with most of the time the Mentor being male) and we are losing the plot - as we feast on our tomorrow today. We should hit the reset button and get back to basics - when uncles mentored boys and aunties mentored girls. Men should go back and mentor young men and women to mentor young women (we now have a critical mass of each to mentor our boys and our girls).

 

There are programmes out there like Man Enough, Boys to Men, Mothers of Sons, Alabastrone, Women in Medicine/Tech etc that you can start from to get your spirit stirred, awakened and disturbed to stand up and do something.

 

That disenfranchised young man/woman that you are neglecting now as you chase selfish interests, will be the one that drunken drives into your car on the highway that fateful wet night and kills/permanently maims either you, one of your family members or a dear friend. We live in a connected world, what goes around comes around....you cannot just sit pretty.

PS. If we have a paradigm change in our communities towards living out values of Service, Loyalty, Integrity, Courage and Knowledge quest...we do not have to worry about ring fencing. Ring fencing is until we get our act together.

Ring Fencing is when boy go to me and girls go to women for mentorship - as a stop gap measure to prevent the societal decline for lack of honest shepherding.

You may also enjoy reading:

Life is a Series of Races: An Apeirathlon

Perennial Mis-Diagnosis in our Life Facets

Remember who and whose you are!

2017: SKILLS TRANSFER CHALLENGE!