Mentor Programs and Mental Health

Hello, and I'm back again just to have another chat with you to share some insight into some things we need to be aware of when it comes to the implementation of a mentoring program. One of the things that I have started to recommend to individuals, organizations, when they go to implement a mentoring program is that they take a look at the aspect of mental health being part of that. Let me give you an example is that when it comes to young entrepreneurs who are striving forth to take a concept, an idea, a dream, and turn it into a reality, they will encounter a number of different challenges from a mental health perspective as they go along their journey. I've mentored a few individuals that, you know, initially right at the very beginning of the mentoring relationship, we identified that there were some mental health challenges that needed to be at the forefront of our conversations so that we were able to deal with those as time evolved through the mentoring relationship. One of the things that I found that's really important to sort of be mindful of is when you go to implement a program in an organization is to make sure that you take advantage of this opportunity to create that support structure for mental health and for your employees in the organization. If you'll recall, we did a post, a video on the agriculture industry and dealing with the aspect of grief and how it all impacted their mental health and being an old farm boy from way back when, I know for a fact, I know that that's truthful, is that the lifestyle and everything that you had to deal with on the farm certainly led to more and more involvement with the mental health part of your life. What's interesting is that back in my younger years, we didn't talk about that stuff very much because it just was not something that you did, but as time has progressed, we're now talking about it. But my point is that talking is great, that gets it out there, but we're not providing any steps in order to be able to deal with it, to give people the tools that they need in order to be able to deal with mental health and that. In the agriculture industry, not to revisit what we talked about already, but the grief causes anxiety, stress, and a number of other factors that need to be addressed. We can't really afford to look the other way, as I can tell you from firsthand experience, the consequences are not always what we had hoped for. It's really important for us to be able to recognize the power that mentoring can have in a mentoring relationship, especially when it comes to working with individuals who are in fact struggling with mental health. So I encourage you to, wherever possible, and if you need to reach out to me, please feel free to do so, but we need to have that conversation around the aspect of where does mental health fit in my organization? Where does mental health fit in my business? Where does mental health fit in anything that I do as an individual? So looking at it from those sort of those three different pillars. And so I encourage you to take a moment and think about that, and think about your mentoring programs that you may or may not have in your organization. And can I implement a mentoring program and include mental health as part of that? So in closing, I wish you all the best. And like I said, if you have some questions on that, please feel free to reach out to me and we can have a conversation about those. So please take care and God bless.