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In addition to seasoning the ways we think and act, the ageing process arms us to successfully lead the younger.
You’ll notice yourself adopting the mentor role with individuals who recognize your experience in the domain you’ve grown skilled in. Subordinates will schedule one on one meetings in an effort to learn something from you. They will send emails in search of advice in relation to which course of action they should pursue in their personal or professional endeavors.
Some of the pupils you mentor in life will become a little bit too infatuated with you. It is often difficult to draw boundaries in an effort to limit the adoration we express those whom we admire. The ones who respect you can grow to adore you to the point of negatively affecting both themselves as well as you.
This article is about why it’s a good idea to introduce the students you have in life to other experts in your field.
Limiting Worshiping Behavior Will Keep You Honest
A major issue with surrounding yourself with people who take the words you say as truth without doing their skeptic due diligence is the atrophy of your skill-set. As if being life’s cruel way of balancing out the influence that certain individuals possess over others, humans are easily enticed to worship those whom they respect. In addition, the ones being adored by others often fall victim to the traps that blind adoration births.
The respect you earn from those you tutor and guide will leave you surrounded by people who hold you in high regard. There would be a marked difference in how the things you say today are perceived versus what you said in the past however. Since your track record would prove it, people would instantly perceive the things you say today with the same level of trust that your prior lessons had to earn.
In past times, the people around you were newer to the lessons that you taught and the examples that you showed. Your prior words and actions thereby required more proof of expertise. The things you said prior to attaining the respect you possess today would have been more ridiculed and tested with vigor in the past. Those past lessons wouldn’t have been perceived to be correct at face value.
The dynamic you want to steer clear of is one in which your pupils perceive you to be right prior to finishing reading your articles or listening to your lessons.
The introduction of other professionals in the same (or similar) field will thereby introduce your pupils to lessons which may differ from yours. They may even garner evidence that points to some of your lessons needing tweaking and reanalysis.
Allowing those who respect your expertise to interpret the expertise of other peers in your field will subtly employ them to keep you on the straight and narrow. Maintaining a communication channel with them as they learn things other professionals teach them will serve to teach you too. You’d be able to better test the lessons that you influence your students’ minds with, and will feel a certain competitive anxiety to ensure of your correct orientation toward what’s deemed empirically true.
Their Disappointment With Other Experts in Your Field Will Be a Win for You
From the competitive perspective, the students who grow to respect you can naturally become used to the quality of intellect you possess and share. As time goes by, the teachers we deem to be skilled begin to seem like they’re simply speaking common sense. Their manner of presenting new information starts to feel like we possessed that knowledge all along but weren’t able to tap into it prior to their guidance.
Taking the ones constantly around us for granted is a saddening human tendency. The act of taking the people we live with for granted, for example, breeds feelings of regret when those people are no longer there. The best teachers you’ve had in life were likely labeled as such after your tenure with them came to an end. When someone’s no longer around, the quality behind their actions, words, and mannerisms we grew used to begins to shine bright.
A deep sense of respect for your craft will encourage you to successfully compete against others in your field. That sense of respect for your craft will lead you to understanding the value gained in allowing your pupils to explore people you compete against for themselves. As they do, your desire to continue improving will grow.
The peaceful confidence in the skills and knowledge you possess will encourage them to be highlighted. Rather than restricting the publication of those whom you compete against in your field of work, allow your students to discover every detail for themselves. Your goals would be to simply be better than your competition. In being easy going with your students’ tendency to explore those who try to take bread off your table, no course of action would seem more enticing than performing at a higher level.
Allow your students’ interests in your peers drive you to be the mentor whose quality they grow to respect only after meeting your competitors. Let your competition play their part in highlighting just how far ahead of them you are.
Students’ Adoration of Other Experts in Your Field Will Expand Your Network
Should you lose your admirer’s interest to someone better, you’d still always be labeled as that student’s early mentor. The students you lose to other mentors will likely improve in their own ways. They’ll transition from being a full time student to being a part time contributor to important work. As they do, you’d be deservedly credited with instilling good habits early in their journey.
We tend to like those who introduce us to new customers, students, or connections. Being the intermediary often pays dividends, and your network can see great benefit from you being encouraging of your students’ exploration of other experts’ skills. As with any business or profession, successfully growing your network depends on providing tangible value to those whom you desire to establish a connection with.
Referring your pupils to others in the same, or similar, fields will do well to establish and maintain a professional network. You’d not only be in the know about any opportunities through your continued interaction with your students, but your chances in developing a strong professional network would only grow in conjunction with the quality of pupils you release into the wild.
Your students serve as seeds for your influence over your chosen field when they migrate to other mentors. Rather than allowing the negative feelings associated with loss encourage you to seize communication with those who leave, be supportive of their dissemination of your knowledge.