How to Find—and to Be—an Everyday Mentor

If you're fortunate, you have one or more mentors that you have known for some time and from whose experience and knowledge you've gained a great deal. These relationships are vital to us as we do our work to catalyze and implement change. They sustain us.

Mentoring can also happen for a moment.

It's important to be on the lookout for everyday mentors. And also to be an everyday mentor whenever you have the opportunity.

What's an everyday mentor? She is a person you might see every day but you hardly know. They are someone you meet at a conference and might never see again. He is the random LinkedIn profile you clicked on to whom you decide to reach out with a question.

Each of these becomes an everyday mentor when they unexpectedly teach you something, or help you discover something, you might never have found had you not crossed paths.

How do you find an everyday mentor? How do you become one?

Be open.

That's it. Just be open to the idea that anyone you meet might be someone you can learn from. Anyone could have had experiences that can shed light on your own. Anyone might be ready to share a word of encouragement, or to challenge you in a way that takes your thinking to the next level.

And you can do these things for anyone else.

Hint: Sometimes it's the people we meet that we're not sure of, the ones we think we'd never be able to have a conversation with, that have the most potential as everyday mentors, or to benefit from a moment of mentorship from us.

We should all be grateful for lifelong mentors from whom we learn so much. Here's to appreciating and celebrating the everyday mentors, too!