This past week we volunteered to help raise money for a great charity
– Youth at Risk. The power of this charity is that it teams up an
adult mentor with a teenager who is struggling to stay on track. At
the fundraiser, a woman stood up and shared her story about how 19
years ago she was a struggling young teenager. She was into drugs,
hanging with the wrong crowd, failing out of school and she saw no
hope for her own future.
Luckily someone knew of Youth at Risk and they convinced her to get
into the program. There she met a mentor that helped change her life.
Her mentor shared her own experiences, gave her the support and
love that was so badly needed, and showed her that there was hope
and there was a way to achieve her goals.
Today, 19 years later she is still in touch with her mentor and she is
still touched by the experience. She is a successful woman.
This whole experience made me think. Why don’t we all reach out to
someone at work, in our neighborhood, in our family, or anywhere and
provide some mentoring? In a changing world, where we are often
working alone and just trying to survive, it’s too easy to forget to
reach out and help someone else.
In my many years in the fire service if there’s one thing I learned
its that helping others is a great way to re-energize ourselves.
By Scott Peltin, Founder, Director of Performance
TIGNUM - Institute for Sustainable High Performance
– Youth at Risk. The power of this charity is that it teams up an
adult mentor with a teenager who is struggling to stay on track. At
the fundraiser, a woman stood up and shared her story about how 19
years ago she was a struggling young teenager. She was into drugs,
hanging with the wrong crowd, failing out of school and she saw no
hope for her own future.
Luckily someone knew of Youth at Risk and they convinced her to get
into the program. There she met a mentor that helped change her life.
Her mentor shared her own experiences, gave her the support and
love that was so badly needed, and showed her that there was hope
and there was a way to achieve her goals.
Today, 19 years later she is still in touch with her mentor and she is
still touched by the experience. She is a successful woman.
This whole experience made me think. Why don’t we all reach out to
someone at work, in our neighborhood, in our family, or anywhere and
provide some mentoring? In a changing world, where we are often
working alone and just trying to survive, it’s too easy to forget to
reach out and help someone else.
In my many years in the fire service if there’s one thing I learned
its that helping others is a great way to re-energize ourselves.
By Scott Peltin, Founder, Director of Performance
TIGNUM - Institute for Sustainable High Performance
At my company we really encourage our leaders to mentor future leaders. It's a great way to develop our culture and a great way to develop meaningful relationships. I would encourage it to every leader.
Posted by: BStern | July 06, 2009 at 05:24 AM
Scott you bring up such a great point. With so much bad news filling the airwaves, doing something nice for someone is a great positive distraction. Thanks for the reminder.
Posted by: SteveO | July 06, 2009 at 05:19 AM