The Low Down

Good mentoring relationships can be richly rewarding, not only for the person being mentored, but for the mentor too!

Matt Ryan | Can Provide

I can, among other things, provide exceptional learning experiences for you and, in doing so, expand your awareness, insight and perspective....... experiences I have learnt in life and how I think I can be a changing factor in your life as your mentor.

I have personally achieved success in cycling by being realistic and credible in my ability and, the area where I'm looking for support. For this reason, I will offer guidance to help them develop your specific skills or qualities in cycling, or to help your reach important decisions with your cycling future. This doesn't mean that I can answers all your questions but together we will find answers to these questions with logic from your own thinking, with some help from my experience to support them.

Be Positive | Learn From Others

I am always a positive person and find the positive in all situations being role model and lifter will always allows us to find the positive in your situation. I can always learn a lot from simply by watching you how you behave in any particular situation. I will also look out for experiences, or even create situations in which you can become involved to learn new things, for example, providing a look behind the scenes or a glimpse at how other people live or do things in the profession and amateur cycling world.

Personal Interest | What Makes a Good Mentor?

I will be genuinely interested in you as an individual. A mentoring relationship is a very personal one, which is often very important to you, so, as a mentor, I need to get to know you personally, about your hopes and dreams, so I can help you in a way that meets your personal cycling best interest. Sometimes for this reason, a parent is often not a good mentor for their child, as their parenting relationship and emotional connection will influence your guidance. That's not to say that a parent can never provide a mentoring moment for their child - they can - however, a parent can't be as objective as a person like myself who's independent of the parenting role. In the same way, a manager is also not the best person to mentor someone on their team, as they'll often have a conflict of interest to contend with, between what's in the best interest of each individual and what's in the best interest of their cycling team.

Shared Experience | Helping you to Grow

In sharing my experiences and insights, choosing events that I feel are appropriate and helpful, I will always try to do so in a neutral way, without any attachment on how you will use this learning. I will always be open to sharing my mistakes and failures too, as we all know that these are often where our biggest lessons inn lie and cycling are learned. this will also help you be aware that challenges will arise, and the way I dealt with the situation might also help you gain insight about how to build resilience.

I Will | Matt Ryan Promises

I will ask open questions asking you open questions will help me to identify your actual and very real needs, values and passions. It's also a great way to get you to think through situations yourself and draw out the consequences of the various choices or courses of action you can take. During these conversations, I will try to share my wisdom, without making decisions for you. THAT'S YOUR JOB.

I will be your sounding board I hope you can greatly from the opportunity of having someone to listen to you. I want you to allow yourself to explore your thoughts and ideas openly with me. This will often help you unravel their thinking and gain insights about a situation as you share their concerns with me.

I hope to provide a fresh perspective One of the key benefits of working with me is that I will often provide you with a fresh perspective on a cycling issue. I hope to often have the clarity of distance from a cycling issue or problem that's needed to provide objective feedback to you. Often I will try to hold a mirror and let you see what everyone is seeing and this can sometimes give you the fresh perspective you may need.

I will always attempt to provide helpful feedback Not all feedback is helpful. As I personally gain more experience I hope to understand this and will try deliver feedback in a way that will help you gain insight to further develop specific cycling qualities or skills. For example, I will always ask for permission to give feedback before doing so. Giving unwelcome feedback can be detrimental to any mentoring relationship. Instead, explain what you'd like to talk about first and highlight the benefits of doing this.

I will acknowledge achievements. Sometimes driven people often get caught up from one goal to the next and any achievements you make might be forgotten!  It will be my role to just remind you of this and make sure this we celebrate any new achievements that happen in the future as we must enjoy what we do and for me a big mart of that is celebrating the victories ( not with cake) as I already weight too much...

Last, but certainly not least, I will offer you advice, but only when you ask for it. This can be very tempting for me as a mentor to just jump in and offer advice before a you have actually asked for it, especially when I've already experience a race, tactic or similar situation. Being a sounding board for you, allowing you to talk about the situation or problem, then together we think through the situation by asking logical questions and draw out the consequences of various actions.

Matt Ryan | Enabling Empowerment

As a someone who I look up to (Tony Robbins) has said, it is always more empowering for a person come to their own conclusions. By doing so, I ultimately help you to learn to think through issues themselves and trust your own judgement, valuable not only in cycling but great life skills.

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