This post will cover the first of two meetings with my mentor last week. In my first post, I mentioned that my mentor enjoyed making fun of my two or so minute tardiness. As my mentor and I planned for our next meeting (about one month ago) via text, I informed him that I wanted him and his wife to have a joint cookout with my dad, my brother, my brother's fiancé, and I. Yet, as sometimes happens with mentor, he did not respond that day, the next day, or that week. After a second week without a response from my mentor ensued, I assumed that he either had traveled overseas, a neck of the woods near his family home that has poor WI-FI, or he was willfully ignoring me for some unknown reason. I came to find out early this week that my text had simply gotten lost in the shuffle of his unending string of unanswered texts. After his profuse apology, he and I had a conversation concerning my plans for the end of the semester and we planned another meeting later in the week, in addition to a soft agreement for a joint cookout for his family and my own.
From this conversation, I was able to learn an invaluable characteristic: humility, wisdom, and commitment in the face of a mistake that has unwittingly been made on your own end. While it is easy to believe that as long as you commit to your work, and intent fully care about your friends, family and coworkers, that you will be able to make the right decisions and be successful in doing so, this world is unfortunately subject to flaws and failings. With this considered, my mentor stressed the importance of accepting and owning the mistakes that you make, while committing to taking steps toward making things right, or more importantly, simply doing what needs to be done.
On my own end, I learned that not only do circumstances such as this require forgiveness by the party that was inconvenienced (myself), but it requires the individual to ask if there were steps that could or should have been to taken on his or her own end, to prevent or change the outcome. In doing this, I realized that I was at fault for not taking the incentive to follow up possibly within that weekly, but most definitely as the window of inquiry and response expanded to two weeks. In the end, mistakes were made on both ends, but both my relationship with my mentor and the knowledge base for my working career benefited.
Grant,
ReplyDeleteAnother great post, my friend. I am always eager to open my portable laptop in the morning with my cup of coffee and ponder your wise words.
1. I am glad you included nothing of Qdoba in this post, it's trash.
That's all.
Forgiveness is such a huge role in relationships. I am so glad that you are learning that healthy relationships whether it be with a friend, a girlfriend, a coach, or a mentor require forgiveness on both ends. Communication is also key. I think these are two of the most important aspects of relationship and you are learning them both with your mentor. Bravo, Grant.
I pray that you will continue to learn more about yourself in the coming weeks of meeting with your mentor. Make it your goal to step out of your comfort zone and stretch yourself. Be vulnerable and always seek forgiveness.
God Bless.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGrant,
ReplyDeleteAs Luke said, "another great post, my friend." I think that not responding to texts is a crime that I commit quite often. Not to justify that, but in the world we live in today, we get hundreds of notifications each day, which can be overwhelming at times. I think that's just another factor of the break in communication which you were describing in your post. I'm glad you were able to get past that and meet with your mentor after all.
Let me know the date of the cookout and what you want me to bring.
Yours Truly
Grant,
ReplyDeleteI resonate with what you said regarding accepting and owning one's mistakes. We live in a society where people are so eager to point fingers and others are so quick to take the blame off themselves and thrust it onto others. It's so easy to lie when you make mistakes, but this is something I have been actively working on. It's important to be someone of integrity, someone who is willing to accept that they're wrong and/or made a mistake. Thanks for sharing!
George
Grant,
ReplyDeleteAs Max said, "I'm glad you were able to get past that and meet with your mentor after all." Forgiveness is such a key part to relationships. We are all sinners and pretty stupid at points. We are always going to make mistakes and others are going to make mistakes that effect us. I'm glad you have learned this and also acknowledge that you can still do more to help when one person has made a mistake. I enjoy your posts and I am very appreciative of your comments on my blog.
Kvam
Grant, it is interesting to see how a relationship can be effected by a mistake by your mentor. It seems today that so many people are busy because of technology and that they can lose messages easily, and how easy it is to miss a message. Im glad that you were able to take away a lot from the meeting with your mentor and how the mistake really made you think about what was going on. Keep up the great work and i look forward to seeing what else happens.
ReplyDeleteGrant,
ReplyDeleteAlways a pleasure to see your posts, my friend. It's got to be a cool turn-around to go from the one being late to not hearing back from your mentor. The fact you took that with so much grace and humility is amazing, bro. As far as asking to get together with your mentor and his wife, that's such a great idea and something I will have to ask my mentor to do as well. To get to know them beyond your conversations and in the context of their own family will be awesome for you. Blessings to you, brother.
Kevin