The gaining of wisdom

I read something recently, maybe it was on IG or elsewhere which essentially said – by the time you are old enough to have gained wisdom it is too late to use it, therefore you should seek wisdom in the form of a coach or mentor.

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I thought this was really cool and relevant – much of my early career, especially the first 10? years, I was very fortunate to have access to mentors and coaches. Some of these were formal mentors and some were informal.

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I had different types and different seniority and different fields of work – HR Directors, Marketing Directors, Worldwide Senior VP’s, sometimes they were unexpected but appreciated.

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In order to use a mentor effectively you need to bring them the questions you are wrestling with or wish a second opinion on:

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-????????????? A confronting employee or teammate issue

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-????????????? A tough customer situation

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-????????????? A business operational issue

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-????????????? A ‘ I am doing everything right but it’s not working ‘ issue

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-????????????? How do I get promoted

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I remember I was struggling with a situation and I ran it past several mentors and the remarkably said similar response, ‘Richard, you can’t be driving down the road at 100 miles an hour and change 3 tyres at the same time ‘ – or ‘ Richard, you just need to focus on 3 things and delegate the rest ‘.

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You want a coach or mentor who is different from you and how you think, you want someone whom will challenge and be confronting – otherwise what’s the point? Sometimes we are so convinced the we know the answers and yet the results aren’t coming and we start to blame external factors or everyone else.

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Success at work and life is often about how much you are prepared to put in, solve problems and keep moving – adding a sounding board and great advice just makes it that little bit easier.

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What’s the difference between a coach vs mentor? A coach helps you extract the answers from within yourself and a mentor uses experience to provide advice and guidance plus some coaching.

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If you’ve had a wisdom injection from a coach or mentor – let me and others know !

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