Dear Fellow members, Distinguished guests,

Good morning.

The title of my speech today is a question: am I mentally ready for my mentor?

What do you think, friends? Am I ready? Thank you. (May ask Dashan.)

First, what is a mentor? (May ask someone.)

I look up the word mentor in my dictionary. To my surprise, Mentor was the name of a character in Greek mythology. Ulysses left his son to his old friend whose name is Mentor. Mentor was a wise and trusted adviser.

Nowadays mentor is defined as someone who guides another to greater success. A teacher is an example of a mentor. This means we all had a mentor in our life because we all went to school and had teachers. We were all a Protégé - one who is protected or trained by a mentor.

However, I am not a student any more, neither am I need protection. Why do I need a mentor?

Let me tell you a story.

It was a time when I changed my employer and joined a new company. I was in charge of a project about defining a new development process. This was not new for me and I thought I had the experience to fulfill it.

I made a plan and called people for a meeting. The meeting stucked - what I thought would be non-problem became big problem. There were things that nobody were responsible for, there were things that too many people were responsible for, and there were things I had not thought about. I could hardly move forward. I am frustrated but did not know what’s wrong.

What should I do? Right, very smart. I went to my boss for help.

My boss was very busy, but after he listened to my report he told me to talk to another person. I went to talk to the nominated colleague to whom I had very little communication in the past.

He listened to my report quietly. When I finished,

he asked me: what’s your goal in this project? I said: I will define a new development process. He asked: do you really want to do this? I said: yes, of course.

Ok, he said. You may have experience in your previous job, but things are a little different in this company. I can use my experience in this company to help you use your experience in your previous company to reach the goal. This little words of encouragement brought me back - you use your experience and I use mine to help you reach the goal.

Actually, he is a person of experience, prominence and influence. He had given me good advice in the project and the final result was very successful. He became my mentor in the company and my career is furthered by this mentor. I was very grateful to him.

This experience tells me that now matter how experienced I may be, how confident I may be, I definitely need guidance to reach any goal.

Toastmasters members have a long history of supporting and nurturing each other through mentorship. Whether it is encouragement or guidance, whether it is shared experience or wisdom, whether it is useful knowledge or skill, my mentor is helping me to gain a foundation for building skills and meeting my goals in Toastmasters.

There are many projects ahead. My mentor and I are both committed to the goals. The question should not be “am I ready?”, I should stay ready for my mentor.

Remember the little wisdom words from the mentor: You use your experience, and I will use mine to help you reach the goal.

Thank you.