Mentoring: The most lethal question?

Have you noticed how lethal the question ‘WHY?’ can be? And the reaction it gets?

Whether in parenting, teaching, business, coaching... You name it, ‘Why?’ is a dangerous weapon.

Hmmm. Why is that?

Oftentimes the question ‘Why?’ evokes a defensive response. People start thinking they are being questioned and judged. Hands up if you enjoy that? Relating gets usurped by justifying.

Of course the impact of asking ‘Why?’ will depend on how it’s said, and can still be handy if you want to create direct confrontation or challenge someone. There is a place for that.

However - the words ‘HOW COME?’ can restore rapport.

‘How come?’ allows curiosity to be expressed; it takes conversation onward not inward, it gets to the positive intention behind a person’s action, and is safer.

How come we don’t use it more often?

You're Gorgeous

What do you say to yourself when you look at yourself in the mirror?

I regularly ask groups of teenagers this question. I present them with 30 words – such as ugly, cheerful, selfish, kind – and they get to choose any five words as to how they describe themselves. Over the past few years a pattern has emerged. When I ask how many of them have ‘more positive words than negative’ a few tentative almost guilty hands go up. Invert the question, and there is a mass rush. The stats? About 96% are in this second group.

Fact: Most teenagers have a real downer on themselves.

So, what do you say to yourself when you look at yourself in the mirror?

What would you change? What do you see that you really like?

The first time I was airbrushed was painless. It was involuntarily for the front cover of our marriage service sheet where I was made to look like George Clooney. No, actually it was just the ‘odd blemish’ that was vaporised. Man, I looked unreal.

The truth is this: Most people want to change something about how they look. There’s far too much comparing body to body that goes on and not enough ‘maybe I’m okay as I am’. Sure, many people want to look their best which is great, and that’s very different to believing they don’t look ‘good enough’ which presents itself as a constant striving for something new.

This issue of airbrushing is something that teenagers tell me affects how they feel about themselves. Girls particularly, but not exclusively. They’re clued up to the unrealism of por*ography and the intimacy-void it promotes and fails to fulfil. Airbrushed sex. Hmmm, not very romantic.

Many young people are genuinely surprised when we unveil the extent of photo-shopping in the media – natural body marks and even bones wiped out. Necks elongated, eyes widened, noses shrunk, busts expanded. It all gets ‘the treatment’.

Fact: Much of what we see on billboards, magazine pages, glossy brochures isn’t real. They’re not real people.

They don’t exist.

They’re not people you can become Friends with on Facebook.

Those finished specimens don’t have their own fingerprints.

This issue was brought home to me last week. Quite literally it was brought home to me through the letter box in a plastic wrap. The front cover model of Runner’s World UK had an image of a runner without sweat - which is fair enough because he was in a studio not the Great Outdoors. But the bloke had legs smoother than a lady from a BaByLis advert and a streamlined jaw which was too perfect for my liking. Possibly just jaw-jealousy that last bit.

Those who know me know I’m a runner.  Running is definitely not about airbrushing. Running is not about instant change. Running is not about looking perfect for a roadside billboard. Running is about coping with life’s tricky stuff whatever that is for the individual, taking control of your headspace, and by pounding the road or trails for mile after struggling mile turning it all into something positive. So you can look at your sweaty puddle-splattered body in the mirror and say ‘well done’. 

Because I do believe really and truly that it is not what’s on the outside that matters so much. But getting to a place, however skewiffy the process might have been or still is, of accepting yourself.

Being able to look at yourself in the mirror and say “Hey, you’re alright.” Honestly, when was the last time you did that?

The psalmist David uses a phrase. He writes that the The Creator of All Things looks at you and says you are ‘the apple of his eye’. Bible-speak for ‘You’re flippin’ gorgeous, just as you are’.

“Wave your hands in the air” I sometimes say to the gathering of young people. “Look super carefully at your fingerprints. Notice the swirls and loops and arches.” A hundred adolescent heads peer at their fingertips and whispered jokes begin and – honestly – looks of amazement occur. For some it’s as if they’re thinking “On my goodness! Who just put those fingerprints there!?”

“There’s the proof. No-one else on planet earth has those same marks. Seven billion people alive today, and only you have that set of marks. Proof that you are unique. You are a rare species of one. You’re flippin’ gorgeous just as you are.”

It’s a simple exercise, but a truth-filled one. If the Advertising industry had its way I daresay our fingerprints would be airbrushed away. I fear for the day that “compareyourself.com” is launched. How dare we be ourselves.

Fact: Most if not all of us want to be accepted as we are. No more trying to prove ourselves, compare ourselves, digitally enhance ourselves.

Now, what would that be like?

Yes, I have contacted Runner’s World UK about their front covers asking about their image enhancement policy. They might ignore me, again. But at least I can look myself in the eye, in the mirror, and remind myself that I’m alright. Maybe not George Clooney, but I’m alright.

And you? Hey, you’re gorgeous. Remember that next time you look at yourself in the mirror.

Mentoring: The problem with 'BUT'

Ever wondered about the impact of your 'BUT'? 

Not as in 'Does your butt look big in this?'... as in 'What effect does saying 'but' have on what you're communicating?' 

The word 'BUT' is a lazy way of saying you disagree with someone. "Yeah I hear what you're saying BUT..." (But = I don't really hear what you're saying at all...)

‘But’ is like a hole in the road.

How about using the word 'AND' instead? Far more seamless, more...elegant. "Yeah I hear what you're saying AND..." (And = I do hear what you're saying, and my opinion is different and can sit alongside yours...)

Sure, use BUT if you want to break rapport, close down conversation or stir up a heated debate. There's a time for that.... And there's also the time now to use cleaner and clearer language. 

Enjoy playing with it, and notice what happens...

Mentoring: Rear View Mirrors

It counts as one of the most, let's say "unexpected" days of my life. 


The paintballing trip for our students didn't look too promising when we had to pull our minibus over on the way there.  One unconfessing 15 year old was shooting a BB gun at the driver's head.


I was the driver.


From there things escalated into chaos, or de-escalated into hell, depending on whether you're standing on your head, because I may as well have been. Between the three staff - all of us respectable teachers from the College - we managed to round up most of our students just before the knife got used by a rivalling school gang. But not before the plank of wood with rusty nails in had connected with the leg of a kid from another School. Great planning this was. Don't ask me whether the plank 'knocked any sense' into them. 


Paintballing guns. Knives. Hoodies. BB guns. Street talk and odd hand waving gestures. I had been cast into a low grade Snoop Dogg video, when all I really wanted was Snoopy.


Reverse Gear


With the College minibus door finally shut, and a dozen roudy-singing-so-loudly-you'd-think-they-were-drunk students piling on top of each other, I stuck it into reverse gear.


That's when I had a fresh appreciation for the sturdiness of trees.


And the not-so-sturdiness of College minibuses. 


Imagine the scene: Twelve rioting teenagers trapped in a minibus that's collided with a tree in an attempt to escape World War IV. The words 'I'm a teacher get me out of here!' would rarely have been more appropriate. Thank goodness all this is nearly 10 years ago.


Rear View Mirrors Are Under-Rated


Ah, the Rear View Mirror. It's an under-rated thing, isn't it. Along with humming. Under-rated.


But there is such tremendous value in stopping and looking at what's behind us, now and again. Not just in the literal Rear View Mirror which thankfully come with most models of vehicle in the UK, even minibuses. I mean the metaphorical one that is in our imaginations. The Rear View Mirror of Mentoring, as it were. 


It's all too easy to remember and rehearse today's problems and forget that some of yesterday's or last years have gone. D i s a p p e a r e d.  Hey, how did that happen? 


Quick Thinking Task


1. Pick a problem you've come through - Something where you are now living in the light at the end of the tunnel. 
2. Enjoy the fact you're through it. Smile. Deep breath. Hey, you're through it!
3. Now think about what specifically helped you through... Can you list 5 things? 
People? Behaviours? Mental strategies? Risks? Changing something? Keep going 'til you reach at least five.
Because there's vital things to learn and carry with you for whatever you face next. You will face another mountain, challenge or problem, and part of your toolkit for moving forward is right there in the Rear View Mirror.


I like the fact that - right now - I am at home and nowhere near a dented College minibus. Or a rioting band of teenagers. 


I've learned to look around for help a little more often, to recognise my limitations a little more quickly - including minibus driving - and if something stresses you out then you've got to do what you can do, and not what you can't. Those lads also taught me that disasters aren't usually personal however much they can feel that way. Oh, and I've learned that now and again it's really good to pause and look back. 


Because you never know if someone's just planted a 100 year old oak tree next to you.

The F-Word

Roger Bannister. What a man, and what a failure.

We know him for his lung-busting 3 minutes 59.4 seconds of running on the Iffley Road athletics track on that breezy May day in 1954. The celebrated finish line moment caught on camera, his chin aloft, shoulders back, trackside timekeepers with fingers on clocks.

And there is a lesser known part to Roger’s story, before this great F-is-for-Finishing moment.

Two years previous to becoming the first ever known man in the world to run a whole mile in under four minutes, Roger was dealing with another F-word. F-is-for-Failure.

It was such a monumental let down, in his eyes, that it caused him to seriously contemplate hanging up his running shoes for good. He wanted to call it a day. “I came, I ran, I missed out”. Hardly a speech to rouse the troops.

Before the two year intense battle to run the first ever ‘sub-4 minute mile’, a battle between Roger and his two rivals – Wes Santee of the U.S. and John Landy from Down-Under - there was the small matter of the Olympic Games in Helsinki.

Even five decades ago the press were well versed in hype-over-hope and supercharging expectations. But when it came to it, however much the British press had all but guaranteed Roger the gold medal in the 1,500 metres, Roger didn’t deliver. He finished in the worst place possible. F-is-for-Fourth. He was crucified in the press.

Demoralised, defeated, down trodden. “I can’t do this anymore” were the words ringing in Roger’s mind. He had given years of his life to intensive early morning sprint training alongside the rigorous demands of training as a medical doctor in Oxford. He had other aspirations he could pursue.

But he did ‘do it anymore’.

The Japanese have a saying, ‘Fall Down Seven Times, Stand Up Eight.’

On the verge of hanging up his running spikes, Roger made a decision. A decision he had no way of knowing would be a landmark in history. A decision when His-Story became History.

We rarely get the privilege in advance of knowing that our brave decisions to Stand Up Again when we have Fallen, will yield our desired result. Perhaps it’s a matter of F-is-for-Faith.

As the apostle Paul once said, ‘We walk by faith, not by sight.’ Most of the time we have to live with the ‘sight’ in our heads of the dream we are working towards, before we see it materialise.

We’ve all Fallen. We’ve all Failed. We’ve all lacked Faith at times. It’s human and normal.

And what happens next is a choice. “Fall Down Seven Times…”

What if there is no such thing as failure? Only feedback. What if failure is just information on how to not do something?

Seb Coe, another running-hero of mine, once said ‘The paradox of excellence is built on the necessity of failure.’ That’s right, the necessity of it. However much we may not like the taste of failure, it can – if we embrace it – give us something firm to build on. F-is-for-Foundations.

Not many of us will break a world record or be the first person to achieve such and such. But our choices become part of our History, and our failures can become a rich part of our Story.

We have all failed. And we are not failures. Perhaps we are all just finding our way to run our race a little better.

Chin up, shoulders back, keep running…

Mind The Gap

Was This Slave Labour?

Cast your mind back. Do you remember ‘Bob A Job’?

If you were a Boy Cub or Scout then you may recall that special week in the year when you were given permission to go and make your ‘million dollars’ in the community. You could knock on doors down your street and offer to cut lawns, shine shoes, clean toilets… in your scouting uniform, and then when the job was done just put your hand out… and happily receive a bit of cash.

I remember potting up plants with my older brother, for 3-4 hours on a baking afternoon out the back of a huge house. For a quid. A whole one pound. Slave labour? No, I loved it. The look and feel of that hard-earned pound was awesome.

Something For Nothing

Wind the clock forward a few years and I vividly recall the first house I went to as a volunteer helper with a charity called ACET (Aids Care Education and Training).

I had successfully navigated the buses of North London, knocked on the door of the given address and waited. And…waited. I checked the scrap of paper with the address. When the door eventually opened, the stick thin man – who I had already been told was HIV+, looked at me and clearly his idea of a cleaner was something very very different to me.

I clocked the look of Disappointment.

But I vacuumed. Boy, did I vacuum clean that house. I ironed shirts (badly, but not badly-on-purpose which is a different matter), I disinfected his bathroom and I generally kept myself busy for hours. The reason was that I was a bit scared. I wasn’t prepared for the amount of ‘paraphernalia’ someone this unwell would have in the house. He didn’t talk to me, but that didn’t matter. I was there to serve. Simple.

The man is dead now but the memory of that house lives on. For one profound reason – the joy of doing something for somebody for nothing. Call it volunteering, call it giving, call it learning how to clean. There was sheer joy in the process.

Mind The Gap

My point in mentioning these experiences?

Well, a member of staff said to me in a school this week, quite seriously:

‘School’s the last place you want to come if you want to learn something’.

While it’s not entirely true, we could all have a good poke at the national curriculum for irrelevancy. I agree it needs a bit of a shake. A really good firm shake to be fair. My criticism is not at teachers, of whom I know many and they are some of the most generous, dedicated, striving-for-excellence people I know. Some of them I count amongst my heroes.

Yes of course it is a farce that the government are seeking to scrap work related learning, against the vast backdrop of evidence of Young Enterprise and the Institute for Education and Business Excellence (IEBE) amongst others.

Where in the curriculum for every child between the ages of 11-16 are those Bob-A-Job experiences where they are given permission and support (not just for two weeks) to create, invent and make money?

A National Gift


Our nation’s gift is entrepreneurialism. The world needs us to take that gift seriously and make our contribution. Until we do, the economy will stumble and poverty and disease will accelerate.

Yes, I DO mind the gap between academia and real life issues. I really mind it.

Schools should be a greenhouse for finding solutions for the world’s problems, a platform for learning how to cope and thrive, a safe place to experiment, a chance to learn about money and business and stewardship and contribution. Given the amount of hours spent in adult life engaged in business of some kind, how come the word business is so little talked about?

A New Curricular Proposal

So here’s my tongue-in-cheek proposal for the new national curriculum for 2013 or whenever it gets hit with the ‘Refresh’ button.

1.    Less Science. Oh come on, there's far too much of it.

2.    Everyone in Key Stage 4 gets a Business Mentor from the local community with chances to go and visit different businesses (not just a week of work experience).

3.    Less written work and controlled assessments. About 50% less would be a good start.

4.    Time to write your business plan and present it to Business folk.

5.    Grades/rewards given for effort and attitude... not just outcome.

6.    A chance to volunteer with a local group for an hour or more a week. D of E style.

7.    Every child sets up their own website to trade through with a % of profits going to support local charity groups of their choice.

8.    Opportunities and workshops on public speaking and story telling.

9.    You get the idea.

This enterprise-stuff shouldn’t be reserved for Business Studies A-level, it’s Life Studies.

It shouldn’t be kept at bay until students are 16, 17, 18… Young people who are 11 aren’t just Younger than us, they are also Newer than us.

Mind the gap… without a radical shake up young people will keep drifting into all the things we are already worried about for them.