[August 29, 2023] Much has been written (and will be written) about America’s youngest adult generation. Subjects discussing our youth are many, for good and for bad, but something is going overlooked. We are beginning to notice that they reject mentorship from leaders.1
Mentorship is, of course, the most effective and efficient way to improve life and leadership skills; thus, the intrinsic value of mentors is undeniable. Successful people today will often say that they do so well in life because someone took an interest in them and showed them paths to doing well in life. There is no substitute for mentorship to help any of us, but its value to young adults is immeasurable.2
I would not have achieved the rank of General in the U.S. Army without great mentors who guided me. They gave me opportunities that never would have been made for me otherwise. They provided me with crucial information and chances to do well because I was a hard worker and someone they could trust, not because I was a so-called privileged white guy, as some would argue.
There are several lessons I learned about mentorship along my military career path, and they apply to everyone:
- Mentorship is a two-way highway: the mentee must also provide value to the mentor. That means working harder, longer, and stronger than those around you. Your successes and failures reflect upon the mentor, so your performance matters.
- Seek out mentorship: A young person must be on the lookout for those who can help. Whether formally or not, the potential mentee must go out of their way to show commitment, initiative, and a good attitude. But one must seek out the mentor and not expect them to come to you.
- Look for opportunities: Mentors are often attracted to those willing to go out of their way to do more than the 8-to-5 job. To catch the attention of someone who might be your mentor requires greater effort than others. This is called “standing out in the crowd” and making a difference.
Millennials are not seeing this for what it is. I’m no psychologist, but the literature suggests that American youth today behave differently because they are more self-centered than other generations. I’m not so sure this is true. One lesson for us all is that we must better teach our children the importance of others in their future success.
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- I have also discovered that, surprisingly, American youth are quick to reject advice on improving their lives. These are two related issues, but I focus only on leader mentorship for today’s article.
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrismyers/2016/02/21/mentorship-is-key-to-career-success-for-young-professionals/#7c1e731921b8
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Gen Douglas my friend. Stop on mentoring. This is not new. Mentoring started in the bible when Moses was a mentor for Joshua. Moses even though he lead the people through the crossing of the red sea. It was Joshua who took them to the promise land. New Testament Paul mentoring Timothy. The greatest was Jesus mentoring his selected 12 disciples. Effective mentors have outstanding leadership skills and the abilities to listen and provide support for their followers.
Our new generation kids now have so much noise they have to navigate through. Noise from bad company of friends. Noise from computer, Facebook ,Tiko . Noise, noise and noise.
Excellent.
Forrest, right.
Gen. Satterfield is making many important points in this short article of his. What the main thing we need to take from it is that nothing is free and nothing of value is worth having unless you work your ass off for it. that means hard work and focus on your goals. Dr. Jordan Peterson calls this sacrifice for the future and Gen. S. has written about sacrifice many times. But our youth are told there is no need to work hard and sacrifice for the future because the system is rigged against them. That is all hogwash and that is the message we need to get out. But the schools have become nothing but a liberal propaganda machine that provides little value and a whole lot of terrible ideologies for the kids. I agree, pull your kids out of school today and teach them to be patriotic Americans.
You got that right, Max. Always great to read your take on it.
I agree and we need more brave people to stand up against this ignorance.
Gen Douglas my friend. Stop on mentoring. This is not new. Mentoring started in the bible when Moses was a mentor for Joshua. Moses even though he lead the people through the crossing of the red sea. It was Joshua who took them to the promise land. New Testament Paul mentoring Timothy. The greatest was Jesus mentoring his selected 12 disciples. Effective mentors have outstanding leadership skills and the abilities to listen and provide support for their followers.
Our new generation kids now have so much noise they have to navigate through. Noise from bad company of friends. Noise from computer, Facebook ,Tiko . Noise, noise and noise.
Eddie, my friend, you are correct. What is most sad is that our newest and youngest generation has been taught to distrust those with leadership skills.
This is why we need more family values and patriotism.
True!
Keep up the great works, Gen. Satterfield and I am looking forward to your next Letter to My Granddaughter. Loving your blog. And I just re-read “55 Rules for a Good Life,” and each time, I find more and more things worhty of thinking about.
Huge shout out to Gen. Satterfield for coming up on his blog’s 10th anniversary. I looked it up and I was surprised we’ve been on this site for a long long time and it is paying off by having a great time and learning a bunch along the way.
Ken, you, me, and Yusaf are some of the original supporters of this blog.
Yep, that is true.
Thanks for all your comments over the years, and YES, congrats to Gen. Satterfield. 👍
Thanks Gen. Satterfield, we see this every where we go. The youth of America just wants “justice” which means “give me handouts now because I’m go wonderful.” They are NARCISSISTS. That is the problem. A development of trying to improve their little brains in schools across the nation backfired on us.
Stacey, yep. Not just backfired, but the teachers, principles, teacher unions, and the US government all got together with this great idea that we could separate kids from their family values and teach them the government way and, pow, look at the results. A nation of idiots. And the parents are too the blame for allowing this to happen. Folks, grow a set of balls and pull you kids out of public school. It is just an indoctrination center.
You got that right, Jose. Look at the pure laziness of kids today.
And spending all their time whining about the world coming to end. Wait, I’ve heard this before.
Hey, crazy indian, you’re back. Hope the family is well. Did you go to the Burning Man ceremony? It was great to see a bunch of white liberal nutjobs getting arrested for block traffic and acting like little children. Great vidoes.
Yes, good to see you back, man!!!!!!!! 👀👀👀👀👀👀
Got that right. And, welcome back.