My wife and I are going to Indonesian classes.

Yes, it is a very mid life crisis thing to learn a new language but, it is better than learning and instrument (everyone has to listen to you practice) and it is most definitely better than buying a sports car!

We are doing it at the Adelaide WEA and our instructor is a wonderful Indonesian man called Budi.  (There’s a great little video about him coming and living in Australia at YouTube)

He not only teaches us the language but teaches us about the culture, his culture, and where sometimes we just don’t quite line up.  I did a foundation course with Budi before setting off on this year long course.  One of the things that stuck in my head about the difference in culture was that he said he rarely told his children or relatives, including his Mum and Dad that he loved them.  He most certainly didn’t do it every time he said goodbye or at the end of every phone call.  He said he didn’t need to because they knew he loved them and they knew because of the way he treated them, respected them and behaved as a man respecting their values and the values of the family.

In our last lesson we were learning about terms of address, similar to our Sir, Madam, Mister and Miss etc.  The must common term we were using as a sign of respect was ‘Anda’ which was probably best equated to English as Mr/Mrs/Sir/Madam.   We were also learning about telling people about ourselves where we would use the word ‘saya’ meaning ‘I’.

Someone in the class asked Budi about the capitalisation of the words, does Anda always have a capital ‘A’ and does saya always have a lower case ‘s’ as that is how Budi had been writing it on the whiteboard.  He explained it like this:

“In Australia “I” is always in capitals as the centre of the Universe is I or me – in Indonesian culture the priority is the other person,  Anda,  or You.  So in Indonesia saya (I / Me) has a small ‘s’ and is always secondary to Anda (You) which has a capital ‘A’.

There was some nervous laughter in the class, but there was also a bit of a realisation that ‘I’ is the predominant focus, the capitalised word, in our culture.

I wonder how my day would go if I just, even for one day, decided that everyone else in MY word was more important than me;  that I would stop telling everyone I loved them and show them instead, that I would stop being the centre of the Universe.

I think we can all remember the ‘Fire Drills’ we had a school – do they still have them?

And if you are working in any modern office where everyone is allergic to risk (other than in board meetings where they talk about risking other peoples money) and every month or so there is an ‘evacuation practice’ in case of an emergency in the future.  Gotta love the volunteer Office Fire Warden – you know who they are, they also run the social club and coffee fund (and organise the cake and morning teas for birthdays – kill me!)

Also, there would be few among us who don’t know where the exits are on a plane and how to put on a life jacket – which always troubles me that we are supplied with and instructed how to put on a life jacket in a plane – wouldn’t a parachute be a better idea?

So, we all know how to evacuate and what to do in a fire.

It’s also a bit of a truism that we all have a little plan in our heads what we would grab.  I think most of us would get the kids first, then the pets and then the photo albums (or now days the hard drive with all the digital photos on it).

Why?

The reason I am asking is that we spend all of our lives working our guts out, working long hours, saving, going into debt, to get all the luxuries in our life – yet, we grab the photo albums.

Shouldn’t we grab the new flat screen TV, the iPad, the Thermomix and the Dyson Vacuum?  We must grab them because, they are the things that we have been working for: they are the things we have been missing our family time for, they are the things we have worked overtime for, they are the things we missed our kids concert for, theya re the thing that cause the reasons we didn’t visit Mum and Dad, theya re the things that we tell ourselves are important to make us happy.

But, no, we grab the photo albums!!!

So, what is wrong with this picture (no pun intended on the photo albums reference).

What is wrong, is it perhaps takes a fire for us to realise what we are really working for; what we would leave behind, what we would take, what we are working for.

We’d leave the albums for the pets.
We’d leave the pets for the kids.
We’d stay ourselves to save the kids.

Sometimes after fires we see on the news people standing around the ashes of their homes crying.  What are they crying for?  Their plasma TVs, their photo albums or just the plain fact that they are alive.

I have decided that if my house catches fire, or if that plane goes down (other than wishing my life jacket was a parachute!) I am not going to worry about what I have to take with me.  What I have to grab at the last minute, or what is most important to me.  They are all just things – the stuff of real value I already have with me, everyday.

Perhaps we should all have a personal ‘fire drill’ and work out an evacuation plan to decide what are the important things worth saving – perhaps it really is ourselves, our kids, our Mum and Dad – okay, we’ll take the cat I hate as well.

Before any evacuation find yourself on the map and work out which way to go.

The fire hasn’t started yet – it might only be a little spark.  It is now – you are still here.

In Greek mythology Mentor was a friend of Odysseus in the story The Odyssey.

Odysseus placed his son Telemachus in the care of Mentor when he set off for the Trojan wars.

Mentor looked after and advised Telemachus as, well, his Mentor!  As a result Telemachus grew up to be a fine young man. The story is a bit more complicated than that, but it will do to illustrate where the term Mentor came from.

The name, or term, Mentor has since been adopted in our modern world as meaning someone who imparts wisdom and knowledge with a person less experienced.

I like to think of a mentor as someone who is:

• A Coach
• A Trainer
• A Guide

Hopefully all of us are able to look back over our lives and recognise the people that have been our Mentors and help to make us better people.

But, are we passing on that legacy?

I think most of us in one form or another impart our ‘life knowledge’ to those less experienced than us – of course if you are trying to do this to your teenage kids we have to understand that, all they hear is white noise.  I suppose in these circumstances we just hope that the adage that the older our kids get, the smarter we appear to them, still holds!

Is the urge to mentor in our society being overcome by our need to constantly innovate and achieve in our lives, just to appear as if we are being a ‘valuable contributor.’  Well, I hope not, but the constant need to achieve, ourselves, instead of helping others be better than us, and perhaps take our job, is a fear perpetuated by modern organisations breeding environments of dog eat dog and working for promotion instead of the ‘greater good.’

Recently, I was involved in a mentoring program where I volunteered to be a mentor.  I thought I had something to offer.  I went along to the ‘meet and greet’ where prospective mentors met those wishing to be mentored.  As we all introduced ourselves I thought I should be on the mentee side (apologies but that is the modern term being used for those being mentored – I have just decided that it is silly – all I can think of is ‘it’s moments like these I need mentees’ – so I will use the ‘old’ term – mentorees).  Some of the people wanting to be mentored were Directors in Government, Mangers and even Doctors!  A lot of the mentors were not phased by this as they where, to me anyway, already thinking they were better than everyone else in the room, if not the planet.  I was thinking that some of these people were not being mentors for altruistic motives but for ego enhancement. Eventually, after the meet and greets the mentorees put in a list of preferences as to which people they would like to be their mentor and the matches were made by the organisers.

Well, I have been working with my mentoree for about a year now, and both of us have got a lot from it and in a lot of ways, not what we expected.

I liked the program as it got those wishing to mentor and those wishing to be mentored together.  There were costs involved for the mentorees, but the mentors all did it for nothing – well, nothing in a monitory sense.

I have a ‘smokey idea’ in my head of starting a mentoring program as part of our consulting business, so watch this space or send me any ideas or suggestions you might have either in the comments section below or email me at ianschlein@gmail.com.

So, where does that leave us at the moment.

Well, I think we all do our bit in mentoring those around us; age is not a barrier to mentor ‘up’ or ‘down’ but I think acceptance that we have something to give and/or we have something to learn, is a bit of a stumbling block for all of us.  The stumbling blocks are, if we want to learn something who do we turn to and how do we find someone who knows what we want to know and how do we find them: conversely, if we have something to offer, how do we put our hand up and get connected to prospective mentorees?  Hence the reason I am thinking about starting up a program which provides an avenue to do this.  Something along the lines of a web page (I like the name ‘AdelaideMentors’) where prospective mentors and mentorees could put in their name and details and after which they would be matched.  This would be supported by a couple of seminars throughout the year to hear from the mentors and mentorees.  So, again, what do you think?

I think one important thing is that mentoring also provides us with the opportunity to leave a bit of a legacy behind in knowledge, guidance or just making someone a little better for knowing us.  Legacy is a wonderful word and a great concept for doing things in our lives – you can’t take your things with you when you go to that higher plain, just as you can’t take that knowledge with you.  Yeah, leave a will to distribute your ‘stuff’ but what about all those years of knowledge and experience in your head – it’s just gone…..

Perhaps, next time someone less experienced than us seeks assistance, even if we are busy, or life is getting in the way, I think we have to consider, what if that was me 10, 20, 30 years ago, what would I have wanted?  If we take that minute, or even a longer investment to be that Coach, Trainer or Guide, I don’t think it is an opportunity to just make that person a better person, but perhaps I will go so far as it will make the world a better place and most definitely it will make us better.