Children Cannot Dream About Worlds They've Never Been Allowed to See.

Mentorship

We ask young people one of the biggest questions of their lives very early:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Then we act surprised when the answers are limited.

Athlete.

Teacher.

Doctor.

Rapper.

YouTuber.

Police officer.

Maybe entrepreneur.

There is nothing wrong with any of those dreams.

But sometimes the list is short because the exposure has been short.

A child cannot seriously consider becoming something they have never seen, never heard explained, never watched someone do, and never been given permission to imagine.

That is one of the reasons mentorship matters so much to me.

Sometimes a young person does not need another speech about dreaming bigger.

Sometimes they need somebody to show them what bigger looks like.

Exposure Creates Possibility

I believe one of the greatest gifts we can give young people is access.

Take them into the boardroom.

Take them to the college campus.

Let them meet the business owner.

Let them sit with the engineer.

Let them talk to the attorney.

Let them see the kitchen behind the restaurant.

Let them understand how a bank works.

Let them walk through a television studio.

Let them hear from somebody who grew up in a neighborhood like theirs and built something they did not know was possible.

Exposure stretches imagination.

You cannot choose from options nobody ever told you existed.

That is why Proverbs 29:18 always comes to mind: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

Vision requires something to see.

Sometimes adults have to help provide the view.

This Is Bigger Than Career Day

Exposure should not be a one-time event.

A career day can introduce a possibility.

Mentorship helps a young person understand what it takes to pursue it.

There is a difference between meeting a business owner for twenty minutes and learning how a business actually operates.

There is a difference between touring a college and understanding admissions, financial aid, campus life, networking, and what happens after graduation.

There is a difference between telling a child they can be successful and teaching them the communication, financial, leadership, and decision-making skills success may require.

That is where education, business, and mentorship should meet.

Businesses should not only sponsor youth programs.

They should open their doors.

Schools should not only prepare students for tests.

They should help students understand the world beyond the classroom.

Mentors should not only encourage.

We should translate unfamiliar worlds.

We Have to Stop Assuming They Know

Adults sometimes forget how much we learned simply by being around certain people.

We learned vocabulary.

Professional behavior.

What questions to ask.

How meetings work.

How people introduce themselves.

How opportunities are discussed.

How decisions get made.

Young people cannot learn what nobody allows them to observe.

And when access is limited, talent can remain hidden behind a lack of information.

That is not a lack of ambition.

Sometimes it is simply a lack of exposure.

Your Journal Work

Think about the young people in your life, classroom, church, organization, or community.

Ask yourself:

What world do I have access to that they may not?

Who could I introduce them to?

What experience could I create that would make a new possibility feel real?

What do I know now that I wish an adult had explained to me earlier?

Then do something with the answer.

Invite a young person to a meeting.

Take them on a campus visit.

Let them shadow you.

Explain how you earn money.

Show them how a proposal works.

Teach them what networking actually means.

Help them build the vocabulary before they are expected to enter the room.

Because sometimes a young person does not need more motivation.

They need a map.

They need access.

They need someone willing to say:

Come with me. I want you to see something.

Children cannot dream about worlds they have never been allowed to see.

So open the door.

Then teach them how to walk through it.

"Mentorship is what happens when somebody sees something in you before you know how to see it in yourself."