This chapter is a free excerpt from The Power of Mentors: A Guide to Finding and Learning from Your Ideal Mentor.
January 20, 2009
When Obama was elected, he asked our country to come together in the name of service. MTV declared that the next generation is Generation S. For service.
So I’m thinking about service, and how all our efforts to help people, really, are aimed to make them more independent. And that's what work is about: taking care of ourselves, mentally and financially.
When you mentor someone in the work arena, you are providing that service. So often we pick the superstar to mentor. Or the up-and-comer. Or the one who can help us with our own networking. But you can use your work skills to help someone pull themselves out of a bad spot. A really bad spot. Work skills are very powerful. And so is mentoring.
So when you think about service, don't think of it as separate from work. Obama stands for all the things that we do, on this blog: Personal responsibility, transparency, honesty, change even when it's difficult. This inaugural day is the beginning of meshing the public life and work life so that we are living the values we believe in, wherever we go.
Think about how you can focus on service at work. Each of us has a lot of tools at our disposal. If we take the time to use them.