Translator: Jane Roffe Reviewer: Tatjana Jevdjic
Hello,
I'd like to keep you in the dark
for a moment or two.
You can even close your eyes.
You know, at night in the dark,
feelings of uncertainty,
and worries often loom into view --
and sometimes even heartfelt anxieties.
Things often take on a whole new dimension,
at night in the dark.
Let's take an example.
Do you remember how, as a child,
you were afraid, all alone in the dark, at night?
We've all been there.
And sometimes it's still the same today,
and this is often the case in the lives of entrepreneurs,
this feeling of not knowing,
of not having any markers,
nor any overview --
entrepreneurs speak of 'vistas' --
and of not knowing what to do.
The difficulty, then, of being able to make choices.
Making the right decisions isn't easy.
You know, we often speak of the solitude of entrepreneurs.
Of course, it's true that entrepreneurs take advices,
some even sometimes have coaches,
but who better than an entrepreneur
can understand the life of another entrepreneur?
And therein lies everything that's special,
all the wealth of mentorship.
I'm thinking in particular of mentorship for entrepreneurs.
Mentorship happens when one entrepreneur
is supported by another, more experienced entrepreneur.
It's more than advice or coaching,
mentorship is the sharing of experience between peers.
This afternoon, we've talked about
the sharing of experience between peers.
In this relationship, the values are
recognition,
kindness,
respect,
and giving of yourself in the service of the other.
It's an 'intuitu personæ' relationship,
free and reciprocal,
given freely in the fullest sense,
where the mentor and the mentee have chosen one another.
This is fundamental in creating the trusting relationship.
This reciprocal trust anchors the mentorship
and without it, nothing can be achieved.
The mentor's mission is to help the other --
the one we refer to as his or her mentee --
to ask themselves the right questions,
and to step back as far as is necessary to open up the possibilities,
to have a mirroring effect,
sometimes exploring other pathways,
enabling them to make choices that are well-informed.
This sharing of experience
is what mentorship for entrepreneurs is all about.
And I am convinced
that this mentoring relationship really does have universal reach.
Universal reach
in its pedagogical dimension,
in its educational and human dimensions.
Universal reach
in what each of us stands to bring to, or receive from, the other.
We all have this option of acting with kindness.
Look around the room:
you are all open to the world,
you are all communicative, connected,
and if I take information technologies as an example,
you have a thorough knowledge of it,
an experience, ways of using it,
and that's your everyday life.
No worries for you.
But just imagine other people,
who don't have the same options as you,
for whatever reason,
and very often, it is because they are inexperienced,
or ill-informed,
or simply because they don't know.
This uneasiness sometimes results in rejection, even exclusion.
So, just imagine what you could offer these people.
Imagine you being able to offer them all the scope of possibility, with kindness,
without wanting to impose your rules,
simply by helping the other to ask the right questions.
This mirroring effect.
Don't we have here the fundamentals of every educational system,
every learning system,
even throughout a whole life.
A relationship based on recognition of the other,
on trust,
and whose objective is to help the other grow,
to help the other grow.
You yourselves are here today.
You could -
indeed perhaps you already are -
you could be a mentor.
You could be a humble
mentee.
This is what the mentoring relationship is.
And this is what it can change, in each of our lives.
So tonight, this afternoon, outside,
don't stay in the dark,
let's not stay in the dark!
Thank you!
(Applause)