Authenticity, self-awareness, and empathy for others are important qualities for mentors to develop. This includes being aware of the natural ‘ups and downs’ that everyone experiences and the specific challenges experienced in the learning cycle of entrepreneurs.
The Mowgli Mentoring Experience uses the metaphor of The Life Journey as a way of building and reinforcing this understanding. Our model for Life Journeys, the Hero’s Journey, was originally articulated by the US philosopher Joseph Campbell. It is particularly resonant for entrepreneurs. Read more about it below:
The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey or Monomyth
Within a life journey it is possible to see where choices and circumstances collide and intersect. There is often evidence of where adaptive or protective behaviours develop. Choosing to leave behind behaviours and protections that no longer serve is sometimes called ‘taking off a mask.’
The Hero’s Journey is a helpful way of understanding the most critical points at which a mentor can assist. We can understand a great deal about ourselves if we are brave enough to view our life story from a wider perspective and understand the patterns within it. Those who have the courage to use this knowledge to build and shape their behaviours can succeed, armed with this intelligence, in overcoming repeated challenges. A mentor’s role is to assist the entrepreneur to ‘step outside’ the day to day and examine the patterns and overall path which they and their business are set on, in order to recognise their personal challenges and behavioural traits.
Gergen and Vanourek in their book Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives, comment:
“It may sound easy, but precious few of us mine the chapters of our personal life story to inform and enrich our days. Most of us glance fleetingly at a rear view mirror while charging into the future.[...] To avoid getting lost, it is essential to know ourselves in full and embrace our entire personal narrative, not just the chapters stamped with a smiley face.” (2, pp41-42)
Additional Mowgli Resources:
- The red thread model – an alternative ‘life journey’ metaphor
- A perspective on ‘The hero’s journey’ within Mowgli mentoring, from our blog.
- A Mowgli facilitator describes the Mowgli Mentoring Experience, with reference to how Life Journeys fit into the mentor training.
- Critical Phases in the Life of an Entrepreneur- a paper by Tony Bury, founder of the Mowgli Foundation, and Cordelia Lonsdale (Online- PDF)
- Read more- “What is mentoring?’
Watch Tony Bury of Mowgli and Ian Prosser, Mowgli Facilitator, talk you through the importance of the Hero’s Journey:
Additional External Resources:
- J. Campbell (2008) The Hero with a Thousand Faces (3rd Ed; first published 1949: Joseph Campbell Foundation, California). Books and DVDs available from Amazon’s Joseph Campbell page.
- C. Gergen, G. Vanourek (Eds 2008), Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (Jossey Bass: San Francisco). Amazon
- Cousineau & Brown (Eds 2003), The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell, his life and work (First New World Library edition: California). Amazon
