When Mentorship Means Silence

Imagine walking through a door into a largely empty room. Maybe it's a room under construction in a tall office building.  Plywood floors, unpainted sheet rock, dangling wires, and high ceilings.

In the middle of the room is the tallest commercially available stepladder.  It rises to a height of 20 feet.

Above the ladder is a hole in the ceiling, perfectly centered above the top step. Let's put the ceiling at 25 feet. Sixty inches above the top set of the ladder are two inviting-looking handles made of rebar. They are perfectly positioned inside the hole, which coincidentally looks just large enough for your body to slip through. 

You don't know exactly what's on the floor above, but whatever it is it's filled with fascination, adventure, and yet-to-be-discovered and untold riches.

As an aside, and for the sake of clarity, let's agree that the average length of an outstretched two year old is also 60 inches, maxing out at 62 inches when up on their toes.

As you enter into the doorway, you witness an average-sized two-year-old on the top step of the ladder just as she's stretching up onto her tippity-toes. Her outstretched fingertips seemingly wish themselves toward the makeshift handles.

Your pupils dilate, rapidly. Your heart rate increases. Your breathe turns quick and shallow. Your stomach turns over and you suddenly feel dizzy.

You almost call out, involuntarily, but your mouth is dry and it's hard to swallow, which gives time for logic to kick in. Calling out, involuntarily or not, will likely cause distraction and the child will fall. She's focused. She's in the zone. A treacherous zone, but a zone nonetheless. 

You remain calm, try to stay out of her line of sight, and trail her up the ladder, despite your own fears, to bring her safely back down.

She has learned something. Something fantastic.

When you put your arm around her waist and lifted her back to safety, she was experiencing a lot of things. She had the success of achieving the climb and felt the satisfaction of her achievement. She went to her limits and successfully clung to the handles and felt the strength of her arms and the weight of her body dangling in the air. She was free in mind, body, and spirit.

Then, after exclaiming "I did it!, she began to wonder, "Now what?" She realized her arms were not quite strong enough to pull her up into that world of promise on the floor above her. She might have learned that it's not that easy to find your previous step when you're so focused on the task ahead. 

Turning back is not as easy as it seems.

Thankfully, because of your careful intervention, she didn't have to learn these things the hard way.

The best mentors I've had make this their practice.

An important part of success in life is reaching your limits and failing. As painful and fear-provoking as witnessing the child at the top of the ladder might be, and as important as it was for you to intervene at the right time, she is now better positioned for success in life had she not had the courage, and granted, naïveté, to get herself into that predicament in the first place.

The mentors I admire the most are keen observers. They keep me in sight and allow me to fail, even when they can see failure might be all but inevitable. They only intervene at the right time. The resist the urge to do it for me, but willingly provide the insight without the injury.

Getting to the top of the ladder and being protected from the most serious consequences of the potential fall is something anyone with more experience than us might provide. 

We don't have to go it alone. 

Perhaps rather than relying on luck, circumstance, and chance encounter, we might instead proactively seek the guidance of others who can nurture the courage in us to become our best selves.