My Blessed Mentorship

I was holding a file folder in the middle of first row. Yuanqing Yang 杨元庆, CEO of Lenovo 联想,  was standing in front of a picture on the left side.

The club successfully hosted its first speech contest on March 16, 2016.

 

When I graduated from middle school at the age of 13, two paths were presented to me. One was to accept an offer from a sewing vocational school, which also granted me a stipend. Another, was to continue my education in high school, then compete for college entry, a one-in-a-thousand chance at that time in China. My Mom, who herself had not had the advantage of a high school or college education, inevitably preferred for me to attend the vocational school, so I could help reduce the family’s financial burdens.

I still recall the sheer uncertainty of standing at a crossroads, desperately seeking someone to shed some light and help me make the right decision. I ran to my teachers for help. Finally, words from my geometry teacher helped me to make my decision. She said, “Fight for life whenever you have an opportunity because there aren’t many” (人生能有几回博).”  That was it. I was back in the game. I realized my destiny was meant to become a fighter and I found my motto. Since then, I have cherished my geometry teacher as a mentor because her words inspired me to set a course to reach higher educational goals.

Have you ever been at a crossroads in life, feeling unsure about which way to turn and worrying about where your future might take you? Who is your mentor?  Do you have one?

Last June I volunteered to become a mentor for a newly chartered Toastmaster club, MoToast at Motorola. Since then, I have been excited and exhilarated by my decision everyday for the last 30 weeks.

The pleasure is all mine. Can you imagine what it means to a person whose native language is not English to mentor a group of people who are either English speakers or who speak more fluent English than me? I feel both, very  privileged and at the same time, terrified.

My first challenge at MoToast was to win their hearts and stay. As you can imagine, initially, the capable officer group did not feel it was really necessary to have a mentor there. However, with my ten years’ experience as a Toastmaster, I knew a mentor was extremely valuable for foundation building at a new club. The team was dynamic, enthusiastic and eager to learn, so we moved quickly. Pretty soon, we established a fine structure for the meetings, introduced good practices to members, and later conducted educational workshops such as how to give a good speech evaluation to members. At the end of my mentorship, I received a positive feedback from the team, “They (the old officer group) were very wrong. Good to have you there to point us in the right direction.”

My second challenge was to find a perfect partner in the journey. I would be a fool if I didn’t know how to leverage the presence and participation of a partner mentor. As a wise man once said, “Two is better than one. If one falls down, the other can help him up.” Like building a startup company, finding a partner, another mentor in this case, is critical. I quickly drew a matrix in my mind, which listed all my strengths and weakness as a mentor. Meanwhile I filled in the qualities I was looking for, which would help to optimize the mentorship experience. With the qualities in hand, I found him, though he committed to join the meetings not weekly, but once a month. He is a great speaker and a wonderful team player. I was grateful to have the opportunity to work and learn from the best. He came on board on July 29, 2015.

My third challenge was to help the team get through tough times. I arrived on June 3, 2015. The club started strong with close to 40 energetic members. In mid-August, the company went through a transition, losing more than 70% of members due to layoffs. That was a sensitive period for each member and you can imagine that Toastmasters might not be the first priority on their minds. How to adjust our strategies? We decided to re-build the officer team, change the club status from closed to “open to the public”, and we arranged a great open-house event to recruit new members on 11/11/2015. As one of the Directors from the TM district stated, “this is the best open-house I have ever seen!” As a result, the club is still alive and is thriving.

An interesting anecdote is the connection I have with Motorola, a Lenovo company. More than ten years ago, I hosted an Executive Summit in Napa. The CEO of Lenovo was one of my guests. That was a brief but meaningful coincidence, because, here I am, ten years later, having the privilege of becoming  a mentor to Lenovo’s Toastmaster club in Mountain View!

My mentorship at Motorola, a Lenovo company, has been a rewarding journey. In fact, I am convinced that my mentorship experience has accelerated and enhanced my Toastmaster experience. I find myself having more passion, energy and motivation when it comes to helping people. In helping others, I am helping myself to grow as a person.

As the old saying goes, “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” and I agree. Or, in other words, “give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life”.

Quote of the Month

“Nothing is meant to be, except for your freedom to choose and your power to create.”

– Mike Dooley, Thoughts from the Universe

Happy Spring!

Spring is here. If you want to take a look at my book, Journey to the Spring, a collection of inspiring stories and unfailingly honest reflections, please click here.