Finding natural counselors along your career ... and becoming one

(views are my own)

When speaking about my professional career I always say I was very lucky at having not only great colleagues and peers nurturing me, but also some very good "bosses that did not feel like bosses" (well, yes, there were a couple of exceptions here and there, but mostly, great bosses). Why do I stress that they "did not feel like bosses"? because while working with them, I felt that there was really nobody telling me "what to do", yet, there was someone guiding me. It was like having no boss at all and yet having someone guiding me. Working with this kind of people is fun and inspiring most of the times (again, most, there are good and bad days with everyone). But the best thing about those great bosses is that, when our formal reporting relationship was over, a "counseling" relationship remained. I feel extremely lucky at having found those "natural counselors" along my career.

?So, what do I mean by natural counselors? While there are professional coaches, mentors, and counselors out there, with formal definitions of what each does, these people I call natural counselors have a mix of every one of those, plus a shared history and friendship with. In most cases, they are not even trained as a counselor or coach, but that counseling aspect emerges from them naturally. I can call them whenever I want to, and they typically are ready to share a word over a coffee or over the phone. They are professionals I profoundly respect, and their advice is always not only valuable to me for its actual content, but because it is injected with great intention, emerging from mutual care (often turning into a friendship) and professional respect.

?I have natural counselors from different moments in my life and they typically help me with different aspects of my career. I asked for their advice when I faced difficult crossroads, when I felt lost or demotivated, when I had a difficult project or relationship I had to fix, when I felt I had lost my true north, among others. Sometimes, when facing a specially challenging situation, I even have a conversation with more than one of them (separately, most of them don't know each other) to get different perspectives. In all cases, I stress, not only I get valuable advice but also this feeling that these people also want the best for me.

?While I initially stressed that most of my natural counselors were former bosses, truth is that as I progressed in my career, I found others who were not really bosses, but also clients and even peers. As I reflect back, natural counselors emerged?when a great professional respect formed between the other person and me, complemented with a strong personal affinity (that often turned into a friendship) and a mutual interest to help each other to do well in life and at work.

?There's yet another aspect that nurtures the relationship. Some of those natural counselors met me at a younger age and less mature professional evolutionary state. As I evolved both as a person and as a professional, our conversations grew from a mentor-mentored conversation to a conversation among mutually respecting peers, where we both greatly benefit from it. While most of these counselors told me they always nurtured from counseling me, I have found that as I grow, this mutual nurturing turns stronger.

?Finally, a key aspect of this natural counselor relationship is generosity. First, from the counselor to you, but also from you to the counselor, as you will find times when the counselor needs your advice, too, as your relationship evolves. This type of relationships works if you both maintain this interest to really help each other thrive and evolve. But maybe even more important is your own generosity to others to become natural counselors to them. As I progressed through my life and my career, I started to become a natural counselor to others, too. Only then, I think, I realized how generous my own natural counselors have always been!

Sometimes people get surprised when I tell them I'm still in contact with a person when both met a long time ago. That's typically because many people have a very utilitarian approach to professional relationships. I, on the other hand, typically keep alive professional relationships that are mutually enriching although there may be no longer business activity between the other person and me. Some of those relationships become friendships and a few of them become natural counseling relationships, whether the other is the counselor ... or the counselor is me.