What makes you tick? Which of your dreams longs for the light of day, or what do you see in others that you would love to become? Turning a dream into a viable future often involves the influence of a key person in our lives. One who teaches us how to focus, how to turn problems into solutions, how to make the best of what we have. Ultimately, our direction depends on how we choose the people around us, the good and the bad, until we get to the great.
Mary Abbajay of Forbes magazine says that the presence of a great mentor or coach in our lives, can make a life changing impact:
“For individuals, studies show that good mentoring can lead to greater career success, including promotions, raises, and increased opportunities. Organizations that embrace mentoring are rewarded with higher levels of employee engagement, retention, and knowledge sharing. In fact, mentoring has proved so beneficial that 71% of Fortune 500 companies offer mentoring programs to their employees.” —Mary Abbajay, Forbes, 2019
What is a mentor?
According to collected wisdom, a mentor is: “A person with specialized knowledge whom you may enlist to educate and motivate you, either in your personal life, your career or both.” Indeed.com, 10 Reasons Why You Need a Mentor, April 1, 2021
Similar to a coach or teacher, a mentor helps people to develop or learn specific skills, firstly by establishing trust and modeling positive behavior. Many mentors choose to help others because they understand the value of their wisdom and expertise and want to support others in achieving their goals.
What makes a good mentor?
A good mentor will possess patience and active listening skills. The most effective mentors take time to understand what's happening, assess the best way forward and then offer effective insights or solutions.
“Mentoring is as much about counseling as it is transferring knowledge and leadership skills.” —Business News Daily, Jan 27, 2020
If you think of those who have had a positive impact on your life, they may include a teacher, CEO, manager or sports coach. Great mentors can be found running anything from a local bakery, to a family home, or a cruise ship. Wherever you find them, they will have this in common: a balance of humility and nobility. All great mentors first learn by doing, or as Aristotle puts it: “He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.”
Tom Morris taught a wildly popular philosophy class at Notre Dame for fifteen years, and he is the author of 30 books including the business favourite, If Aristotle Ran General Motors. He agrees that effective mentors, coaches and leaders possess a powerful combination of attributes:
“I've long believed that the key to leadership greatness is a balance between humility and nobility. And we rarely see those qualities in balance. Nobility without humility produces arrogance. Humility without nobility leads to timidity or impotence. The great leader has to be pursuing a noble ideal or mission, but doing so with genuine humility, eagerly open to the ideas and wisdom of others. True humility is proper self-esteem combined with a sense of the greatness in others. True humility is an attitude. False humility is a pose. People can see through most poses.”
How do great mentors turn bad days around?
While we are warming to the subject, let me introduce you to a great example of an effective mentor and coach. Lance Haggith uses his extensive sporting and business expertise to help adults and children not just to overcome, but to transform the pile of rough edged stones that life has thrown at them. How do I introduce Lance to you? Here’s an idea. Imagine you have a horrible day, get home, order in and settle down to a feel good movie, like The Blind Side, or to binge-watch the irresistible goodness that is Ted Lasso. The way you feel when you finish watching these shows? That is what Lance Haggith brings to his work.
Let’s get the accolades out of the way before we get into the practical ways that Lance - and his feisty charity SportsTraider - are helping to transform people’s lives.
Among other things, Lance has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate for outstanding services to sport, he was an Olympic Torch bearer, the Prime Minster’s Big Society winner, BBC Sports Personality of the Year winner (unsung hero). And the Royal Humane Society honored him for bravery in 2001. Phew!
UK Prime Minister, David Cameron remarked why the mentoring Lance provides through the Sports Traider model is so powerful:
“Lance’s approach to helping his local community is inspiring. He didn’t just stop at coaching children, or setting up a shop to support local youth sports, he took this even further to offer work experience to the long-term unemployed and ex-offenders who can struggle to get this experience.” —Lance Haggith wins Big Society Award, GOV.UK, 2011
Where does the path to success start?
If you think back to the best times in your life, often they involve someone who changes your world for the better. For Lance, his earliest memories are of a supportive home and his mother’s dedication to helping children with special needs to live fuller lives. He reveals how this support set him, and his family on the path to success:
“I was involved in sports at a high level, and my kids are also at a high level themselves. My parents were really supportive and able to offer me the best opportunities. I decided to help young people who did not have the same opportunities and advantages that I did. Children grow out of clothes quickly, so we originally started getting old sports clothes, equipment, and trainers and redistributing them.”
After completing a degree in fashion design, Lance established a leather studio, selling from the epicentre of luxury London. Amongst other cool moments, he created leather jackets loved by pop stars Paul Young, Alison Moyet, and George Michael.
Lance went on to put his extensive retail experience to work by founding SportsTraider - Britain's first chain of charity sport shops - selling a mixture of new and second-hand sports kit and equipment. The stores make specialist clothing and equipment affordable to youngsters for whom such items would normally be an inaccessible luxury. It is a winning formula - as he explains:
“All kids have aspirations and the lack of money for sports equipment is a major disadvantage and heavily impacts young people. In some places where we have now set up Sports Traider charity stores, antisocial behaviour by young people has gone down in the area, which shows it does make a difference to give disadvantaged children these opportunities.”
What happens on days when the storm comes?
In case you are thinking all this sounds like a bed of roses, a famous Turkish proverb reminds us that, “thorns and roses grow on the same tree.” If our best times involve achievement, it’s equally true that our worst times involve loss. Loss of self-confidence, of support or love. Loss of trust when someone or somewhere stops being a safe place. A significant part of Lance’s vision for Sports Traider is that while we cannot always prevent these kinds of losses, we can help each other to overcome them.
As well as benefiting the sporting community, Sports Traider stores offer work experience to the disabled, young people, the long-term unemployed, disadvantaged groups, and ex-offenders. So far over 2,000 days of work experience have been provided.
Like many involved with Sports Traider, Lance and his family have experienced gut-wrenching challenges. At 16 years old, one of his four children, Ellis, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. Ellis was heading to join his brother Reiss at the Leicester Riders, one of the UK’s top basketball teams, having succeeded in teams for his school, county and for England.
The family had to make tough adjustments as Ellis was admitted to the care of Dr Charles Crawley in the Teenage Cancer Unit at Addenbrooke's hospital in Cambridge. Due to the severity of his condition, Ellis endured a brutal regime consisting of chemotherapy and 20 to 40 tablets everyday for 3 ½ years - an eye watering 60 chemo in the spine plus steroids.
Lance, Ellis and his family chose to believe in a positive outcome, and Ellis fought cancer as he would an opponent on the basketball court. Ellis is now over four years in remission and has since graduated successfully from Loughborough University. Coach Rob Paternostro talks about Ellis’s return to playing winning matches with the Leicester Riders.
“It’s been a long struggle for him and his family. To make those shots at the end of our match today, a real goosebump moment for me. These are the moments you treasure as the coach and as a team. The guys are really fired up for him.”
Ellis feels strongly that those years were part of his journey and is working with respected British charity, Macmillan Cancer Support to help other young people to face their diagnosis with encouragement and positivity. Adopting Lance’s entrepreneurial spirit, he is in the final stages of launching New Chapter, a clothing range designed to raise funds for young people facing cancer and mental health issues.
What kind of impact can I make?
If you are reading this and wondering what kind of impact you can make, Mahatma Gandhi’s advice still stands: “You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.”
Lance Haggith’s Sports Traider recently celebrated 10 years of providing young people with much-needed employment and sporting opportunities. Here are some inspiring numbers.
Over 1 million donations to Sports Traider stores
Over 1 million hours given by the charity’s volunteer network
Training programmes that have helped 1,200 young people get into further education and employment.
The best mentors help us, not just to overcome, but to transform the pile of rough edged stones that life can throw at us. There is no doubt that a mentor or coach can make a life changing impact. Ultimately, the difference lies in how we choose the people around us, the good and the bad, until we get to the great.
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