10 Points to Remember About Mentoring


  1. Plan to surpass your mentor. Don't put your mentor on a pedestal— remember that mentors are human beings, with flaws and faults of their own. So even though you may look up to your mentors, don't let them hold you down. Don't let them argue that theirs is the only way; take the best they have to offer and make it your own. As you grow and learn and expose yourself to new experiences, you may see beyond your mentor's vision.

  2. Find mentors in different areas. Most people think there is only room for one "great" mentor in their lives. The truth is, there is room for many wise advisors. Some may apply to your business or career, some to your personal life. Find people who are different from each other so that the knowledge you get is not skewed only in one direction.

  3. Find one great person to emulate. This is not really a contradiction to point number two, although it seems like it. Amongst the many mentors you cultivate, find one who is the most respected, the ultimate authority, or a genius in his or her field. Find someone who has broken the mold in your industry and has come up with amazing and innovative ideas.

    He that walketh with wise men shall be wise...

    —Bible, Proverbs 13:20

    Walk with people who are thirsty for knowledge. Those are the people you want to be around. Search out that person who has a passionate interest in something that interests you. In college, people do internships to learn from experienced elders. This is a practice we should continue throughout life.

  4. Read biographies. Role models don't necessarily need to be people we see around us every day. Go back into history and look for those men and women who have achieved greatness. Study their lives. Take notes. If something they have said or done inspires you, write it down and put it somewhere you will see frequently.

  5. Get rid of "anti-mentors." Mark Twain once said, "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambition. Small people always do that, but the really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great." There are some people who are anxious to tell you not what you can do, but what you cannot do. Every time you think of a new idea or new way to go, they tell you you're going in the wrong direction. They try to push you toward their own solution and make you feel that your solution was wrong. They say they want to see you grow, but their actions belie their words. Don't let them pull you down—get rid of them. Don't let anyone undermine your enthusiasm for growth.

    Explore the truth. Test and retest what people tell you. Find out for yourself how much merit and relevance their ideas have for your life.

    Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher.

    —Buddha

  6. Eliminate your own anger, envy, jealousy, and ego. Sometimes, instead of looking up to those who have more than we do (at the moment), we are jealous of their accomplishments. It's human nature to feel this way. Just don't get stuck on these feelings because they will get in the way of learning. Our own ego puts up barriers to listening to what others have to say. Letting go of that ego allows us to open up and admit that others may have much to contribute. What someone else has will never takes away from what you can achieve.

    There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried... Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

    —Ralph Waldo Emerson,
    philosopher and poet

  7. Emulate, don't imitate. You want be like your mentors, you do not want to be your mentors. Take what they have to give—collect the information they have to pass on and use it to your benefit. But use it in your own way. Learn from the best, but hold onto your individual uniqueness and style.

  8. Revisit greatness. When you find something or someone that has a message for you—a quote, a book, a special person who infuses you with excitement—return to it again and again. Don't throw away a great book after you've read it. Don't disregard a mentor after you think you've learned it all. Experience and age make many things new again. You are a different person than you were five years ago. Go back to your sources and see what they have to say to you now. Once you come back to a source, it sings to you in a different way. What was valuable before is now even richer and more salient.

  9. Become a mentor yourself. Find one person or a group of people who can benefit from your skill and knowledge, and teach them. You'll be amazed at how much you learn. Every time I do a seminar, I realize how much I learn when teaching others. Not only do I share my knowledge with others, but, more importantly, I refresh and remind myself of the basics I sometimes forget. Being a mentor is when you truly learn the most.

    I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.

    —Robert Frost,
    poet

  10. Mentor by your actions. What you do can have a lasting impact long after your words disappear. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson (who said so many great things), "Who you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying." Children, for instance, will imitate their parents' actions.

    Winifred Barnes Conley is a psychotherapist and CEO of the National Learning Laboratory in Bethesda, Maryland. Conley tells of one family that came to her because the children would not do their homework. It turned out that the father insisted on watching television from the moment he came home from work until the moment he went to bed. So the children were constantly sneaking away to watch television instead of doing their homework. It wasn't until the father gave up some of his television time that the children began to improve their study habits.

I Dare You...

Outline a lifelong program on growth of the mind and experience. Take a piece of paper and start by looking one year ahead. What books am I going to read in the next year? What people am I going to contact to impact my learning and my growth in my business? Who will I turn to for advice in my personal life? With whom can I share the knowledge and experience I have gained over the past year? Every 30 days, go over this list and make sure you have made progress toward accomplishing these goals.

Do research before you ask a mentor for help. Joseph Culligan, licensed private investigator and author of You Can Find Anybody, suggests going to the library and looking up the Book of Associations. There are more than 94,000 associations listed—there is an association for every profession you could possibly imagine. When you find an association that's relevant to your interest, go to their Website or call their media relations department. Get a sense of what's going on within that association (which will tell you what's going on in that industry). You'll learn a lot about the hot topics of the day. Then when you approach a mentor, you can talk about some of these hot topics and your mentor will be impressed with the knowledge you already have.

Read every single day. Even if it's only two or three pages, find a book about something that interests you and feed your brain. Otherwise, it will feed upon itself and shrink.

Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were already what he potentially could be and you make him what he should be.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
writer




Diamond Power. Gems of Wisdom From America's Greatest Marketer
Diamond Power: Gems of Wisdom from Americas Greatest Marketer
ISBN: 1564146987
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 207
Authors: Barry Farber

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