"I want to get through these hardships
and hold your hand"
- Future by Red Velvet (Start Up OST)
The drama “Start-Up” was trending in November 2020. The drama not only watched by K-drama fans but non-K-drama fans as well. This drama inspired me to make this JCP Features since the drama not only portrayed romance, friendship & family, but also mentorship. Have you watched the drama? If so, what do you learn from the drama?
As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, lately I felt burnout and the root cause would probably because of my workplace culture. Even though I just realized about it a few months ago, but I think it’s connected with the main topic I wanted to share in the first place.
The first time I encounter the word ‘mentor’ was when I entered university. On the first day of orientation, newcomers were accompanied by a mentor. My mentor was not really made a big impact on me, but she introduced me to the fun part of being a university student. Well, back then I have few mentors that actively participated in my life-changing journey. Even though the harsh reality separated us now, but once a mentor will be a forever mentor. Anyways, what I wanted to underline here is the importance of a mentor in our lives. After I came out to the real world, I finally realize that having a good mentor is as hard as finding your soulmate. The Oxford Languages defined “mentor” as “an experienced and trusted adviser”. And this definition has summed up all the criteria of being a mentor. Mentors themselves not always need to be older, but they might have more experience than us. Also, most of all are trustworthy. Being trustworthy means they could frankly speak about the harsh fact that we might experience or tell us the ugly truth they’ve experienced. For the past few years, there were many motivational speakers and people we looked up for that seems like a mentor to us. But, unless you know them personally, I don’t think they could be called to be a mentor. As mentioned before, a mentor should be the one we trusted. We could trust someone if we know that person personally right?
In the drama “Start-up” there is a character called Han Ji-pyeong. He is a manager of an investment company and a successful young career man with lots of hardship while he is young. Long story short he happened to become a mentor for the start-ups CEO in Sandbox, the Korean Silicon Valley. There are 3 other mentors and each mentor have different characteristics and personalities, but one thing for sure that a trust is shouldn’t be separated from mentor characteristic. A character named Alex Kwon is the most wanted mentor because he is surely an expert in the world of start-up, but he couldn’t gain the trust of the participants. Another mentor called Won Doo-jung is the CEO of a big firm in Korea. He surely has a personality that people would love to look for, but also he failed to be truthful and even make the mentees uncomfortable and lose respect for him. Han Ji-pyeong himself also not a good mentor at first, but he truly cares about his mentees. At first, he always disagrees and says the bad things only. His mentees feel discouraged and spoke up about their uncomfortableness. After some point in the story, he changed and he truly helped his mentees to be better each day. On the other side, the most senior mentor of four is Yoon Sun-hak. She is the CEO of SH Venture Capital (where Han Ji-pyeong worked) and also the head of Sandbox. She has the experience and also trustworthy, but she also had a painful past. Well, everyone has their own past and goals. Not everyone is perfect, but to be transparent and truthful is what it takes to be a mentor. Life is not always full of rainbows and tastes sweet, but there are some rain or even storm and it can bitter. Having a mentor helps you to be prepared for those bad days and have someone that can support you since they can understand your feelings because they might have experienced the same thing as you.
As I watched the drama, I learned how wonderful it was to be a mentor. I was kind of regretted that I didn’t apply as a mentor like some of my friends back in the university. But after a second thought, actually being my lecturer’s assistant for around a year also considered being a mentor. I became the person my juniors trusted and I could share some experience with them. I feel so grateful for them as they came to congratulate me on my graduation day and I’m also proud that they have successfully graduated on time. I realized that have a mentor title is not always proof that you are a good mentor, but your action is what it takes.
Even though I didn’t closely keep in touch with them, but seeing them to doing well ensure me enough that they’ve become a decent person in this wild society. Thank God I didn’t hear any bad news from them. I never thought that being able to share what you know will be this valuable experience. Actually, I, myself haven’t keep in touch with my mentor for a long time. As I’ve said before, everyone has their own goals and to-do list, which might have them to be focused on their checklist. It’s not that mentee is not important, but in reality, we have to face our own problems too. I think becoming a long-life mentor is not for everyone. It needs dedication. As long as your mentee is doing well on their own or even they became a mentor themselves is a sign that your duty as a mentor has finished. I think it’s okay to finally let off their hands so that they can grab someone else’s hand and guide them.
Currently, I’ve got no one to look up to whenever I had a hard time at work since my current workplace doesn’t have a mentoring system. I never thought working will be this mentally exhausting, but surely having someone you can look up to at work is really important. This job is my first long-term work experience and I finally learned that fully responsible for your job only is not enough. You have to be happy and enjoy your job. No wonder many quit their 9-to-5 job even though they get paid a lot.
Relying solely on other people is not good, but having someone to rely on is pretty important, especially in this vast changing phase. Unfortunately, I had to face this harsh truth myself, but learning from a real-life experience is not so bad. I hope you have a mentor that you can always look up to whenever you face a hard time. Also, you can be the figure others look up for whenever they have a hard time.
Further Readings:
https://hbr.org/2020/08/what-efficient-mentorship-looks-like
https://sheleadsafrica.org/power-of-mentorship/
