Leveraging software mentorship to grow people & Jay Shetty highlights

Leveraging software mentorship to grow people by Mark Pearl

I've known Mark for a long time now and I get quite excited when he shares a new talk. I always learn so much from the way he shares information. This talk was presented at the Xero offices in Auckland at a meetup group called: "The Leadership Grind" which is organised by Hady Osman.

My takeaways from Mark's talk:

• I learnt about "The Hero's Journey"
• Just because someone reports to me, doesn't mean I'm the best-placed person to mentor them.
• Encourage my reports to find their own mentors, this changes the concept of mentoring to being a "pull" system instead of a "push" system.
• It's up to the mentor/mentee to review and renew their arrangement if it is still working for them and they're deriving value from it.
• Set up some rules for the mentoring relationship:
  • "There are no stupid questions. Ever."
  • Confidentiality is paramount.
  • Identify clear goals and outcomes of the relationship
  • Meet regularly

Jay Shetty - Impact Theory (highlights)

The whole interview with Jay Shetty on the Impact Theory show was excellent. I remember watching it and loving the way he told the story about his life. Recently these highlights were put together and published. I watched this 3 times today and I'm still working through it in my mind.

These are the things that stood out to me:

• "We should plant trees under whose shade we do not plan to sit" - Selfless Sacrifice
• "We live in echo chambers"
  • Although I disagree with this, I can see what he means. If we only surround ourselves with people that share our thoughts, beliefs and cultures then this would be true.
  • I think we should seek out people with opposed views and explore them, not attack them.
• "I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think I am. I am, what I think, you think, I am."
  • Besides needing to listen to this sentence a few times to get it, I think it's a fascinating idea.
  • I do wonder whether I fall into this trap. I would like to think that I am "my own person", this is something I'll need to try observe.
• "You can't be what you can't see"
  • I immediately equate this to The Four Stages of Competence
  • Again, I see his point and disagree with it at the fringes. Someone needs to be the first at something. Often this wouldn't be an intentional thing and once they've blazed the trail, others can follow.
• Detachment is not that you own nothing, it's that nothing owns you.
• When you feel like something isn't going well in life, ask yourself these three questions:
  • Is my environment out of alignment?
  • Is my energy out of alignment?
  • Is my element out of alignment?