Mentoring - A Win/Win Situation

Mentoring – A Win/Win Situation

I’m a big believer that mentoring and being mentored are equally important.

Being mentored teaches you things you don’t know that you can use to improve yourself.?It saves you from failing where others have and teaches you lessons along the way. If someone has experienced success, you can follow the same path and make it your own. Most importantly, being mentored allows your ego to take a back seat for a while as you slow down and realize there is no end to knowledge.

Some people make the mistake of thinking they know everything. In reality, the day you allow yourself to believe that is the day you die. If you don’t wake up every day thinking, “what do I need to learn today?” that’s a problem.?If you thought you already knew all there is to know, what would be the point of getting out of bed and putting your clothes on?

Perhaps the most important thing about being mentored is that it teaches you how to mentor others.

Mentoring others allows you to validate your learnings – to take what you think you know and try to explain it.?You really don’t know anything until you can teach it to someone else. If you can’t share your knowledge, then you need to learn more.

When you become a mentor, you need to take into account the abilities of the individual.

Mentoring is really great when you have the right student and that person is eager to learn. When I’m mentoring someone, I’m showing them a path I’ve already walked – I know what it’s like. The person I’m mentoring can either decide to follow the same path or take a different direction. They can ignore me and do as they choose because it’s not my job to tell people what to do.?My job as a mentor is to tell them what I’ve done and let them decide what’s right for them.?

Mentoring isn’t about teaching – it’s about guiding. It’s about beacons.?

One night, I was heading to dinner with a friend whose business has gone from small to big and I was asking questions about what worked for him and what didn’t.?He was more than happy to answer my questions and I really appreciated that. ?On the way home, he had a lot of questions for me that I was equally happy to answer. I don’t think I’m smarter than he is or vice versa. We’ve just had different experiences and can serve as mentors for each other.

Being mentored is about surrounding yourself with people who’ve had experiences you haven’t.

How do you find a mentor or choose someone to mentor? How can you tell who will benefit most from your help and who will provide that kind of mentoring for you??Finding a mentor requires humility and I think that’s why most people don’t do it.

It’s actually a pretty straight-forward strategy. Start by finding a circle of peers who are already going where you want to go, then start some conversations. See if you share similar goals and interests, then check out the bios and CVs of the most interesting people you meet.?Make a call and ask a few questions.?If I find a good fit, I might ask if they would be interested in getting together with me on a regular basis. If you can show that level of humility, you’ll take most people off guard. They’ll be thinking…” what? why me? I can’t help this person.” But they can.

I don’t believe a mentor has to be years older but I do know they should have many more years of experience in the direction you’re going. And, if you’re lucky, you might have several mentors over your lifetime.?The great thing about being mentored by more than one person is that you can take the best from each and have the synergies of 40 different thoughts.

When I’ve failed at mentoring in the past is when I let myself think that I’d done so much in 30 years that there was nothing anyone could teach me. That was just so wrong. There is always someone who’s been down a path that I can learn from. There’s no business scenario that hasn’t happened somewhere, sometime.

How do you choose someone to mentor?

After years of experience, I can sense pretty quickly if someone is trying to impress me or is really interested in what I can show them. ?I’m always looking for humility. Is that person is aligned with me? Can I see myself in their position? If so, I’m willing to mentor them.?If they’re nowhere near what I am or what I was, then I can’t really help and would encourage them to choose another mentor.

You don’t pick the time; the time picks you.?

Life doesn’t operate on your calendar or your schedule – you just have to see what opportunities present themselves. And mentoring can take any amount of time – it’s not consulting. A consultant can certainly be a mentor, but the big difference is that with mentoring, there’s no payment and there are no scheduled meetings.?You just talk it out when you need to.?

Ask yourself – can you list five active mentors??If not, what are you going to do about it?