The Circle of Trust

Think about the best mentor you've ever had. Is he still your mentor??Do you think he will still be your mentor 10 years from now?

We've all had mentors: our parents, our teachers, our first boss. But life changes in front of us, along paths that our past mentors never crossed. The mentors who will show us the roads of the future won’t be those of the past.

Mentors represent a model of what we want to be, they are a map of the future.

More and more, we have mentors for a certain period of time. Or we have different mentors for different issues.

How do we find mentors to help us on our path through the future? First we have to know which path we want to follow. And before that, we need to know where we want to go.

As many of you might have done, between last Christmas and the New Year, I wrote down my goals for 2023. I was happy because I managed to reduce from a list of 12 from the previous year to only 4.

All happy, I presented those 4 goals to my coach. Her feedback: I don't see any personal goals here. They seem to be expectations from those around you as to what you should do, but there’s nothing that leads to your personal satisfaction.

I was surprised. So what do I want anyway? I started googling for desires and found the 16 Basic Desires Theory, by Steven Reiss. Steven is a Psychology and Psychiatry professor .

The 16 most common desires he identified are:

power, status, revenge, honor, order, savings, acceptance, family, social contact, romance, idealism, food, physical exercise, curiosity, independence and tranquility.

These desires are not the same for everyone. I am not attracted to power, status or revenge, but I like to be independent and I am a curious person. ?I discovered that I like to learn, I like to travel and know about new places, to have outdoor physical activities, to meet people with different experiences. And so I am already more awake to what I want, to people who are like me and who in some way could be my partners or mentors. I should probably work for an airline, a hotel chain, or a travel agency. And my mentors should possibly be people with a passion for life, travel and learning.

Whatever my dreams or my goals are, my mentors should be the first to know, so they can help me get there. I say mentors in the plural, because there are several types of mentors, all of whom are needed:

1. Those who have the knowledge (or other resources) we need to reach our dreams: professionals in the same field, more experienced Toastmasters, gurus
2. Those who make us accountable for the goals we set and who tell us when we are drifting away. They are like the janitors of time. It can be our better half or a friend
3. Those who help us discover our fears and free ourselves from our limitations. This may seem unimportant to you, but fears are what prevent you from achieving your dreams. Fears hide subtly. When you honk at the driver in front of you, when you badmouth someone. For example, what would a perfectionist be without fear? Psychotherapists and some NLP coaches can help us with this.
4. Those who question us and make us think about where we want to go forward. You know the power of questions, don't you? Coaches and many of our friends are the ones who can help us
5. Those who are role models of who we want to be. Most of my close friends, I must say.
6. Those who inspire us or awaken our dreams. There are those who have this natural gift, and there are also those who specialize in storytelling or Ericksonian language

Keith Ferrazzi in his compelling book “Who’s Got Your Back” can tell you more about how to create your circle of mentors.

To conclude, these are the key ideas about how to find your future mentor:

1. Be very clear about which desires you are most attracted to.
2. Find activities that move you towards your desires.
3. Try to create your circle of trust, your bodyguards or guardian angels, covering those 6 areas: Knowledge and resources, Controllers, Fears and limitations, Questioners, Role models, Inspiring people

Remember:

Each year has 52 weeks, but each life as just 4,000 weeks.

You only have one life, live it well.?