What do you do when the pressure is on and it starts to get uncomfortable?
Inevitably life tosses awkward moments our way. Do you run, making a plan to skirt round the issue and return everything to its usual happy state? Sometimes we have to submit to the uncomfortable, enduring the moment but looking forward to the comfort of the known. How about a third option? Seize it with both hands and suck out every last drop of life-giving juice.
On Friday I met a friend for a pub lunch. Although I don’t know him very well I have great respect for him. He is an entrepreneur and a man who lives by his principles, even when it’s costly. His words carry weight.
The topics of conversation I had up my sleeve never really made it onto the table. My friend skilfully guided our discussion with searching questions that got me thinking. At times I felt a little awkward.
How should I respond? There was really only one option. I decided to be as honest with myself as I was able.
He asked questions for which it would have been relatively easy to just give the “right” answer but I had made a decision… and he sat there, continuing to eat his lunch, waiting for me to to finish.
I didn’t get what I had hoped for from our meeting. I wasn’t given theoretical answers to questions about business and entrepreneurship. I received so much more; I was given questions.
Do you have that feeling that there’s more inside than is coming out? That you have more to give but you’re not sure how? For some months I’ve had a growing sense of needing a mentor to help draw out what is inside of me. To help me flourish in my sense of calling or destiny.
Our lunchtime conversation caused me to think bigger and wider about myself; what I can do, what I love and what I want. I walked out of the pub able to see myself more clearly. I came away more able to be me.
I think I accidentally got mentored.
So what about you? Do you have a mentor? Do you recognise the mentors you have?
Or is there someone you could mentor, whether they realise it or not?
Mentors are great!