The 5 Steps to Finding a Mentor
Jul 22, 2019Having a mentor is a huge step toward achieving success. A mentor shares knowledge provides guidance and feedback from a place of expertise and passes on the benefits of experience to you. A mentor, however, isn’t someone you can just find online. A mentor isn’t a job that’s hired out, it is someone who shares your interest in development and wants to see you succeed. A mentor is someone who represents what you can accomplish and will help you to get there.
Mentors can help you in three primary ways:
- Learn from their mistakes so you can make fewer of your own and learn from the experience of others.
- Speed up the learning curve by adapting lessons from those who have already been there and done it.
- Gain an ally in your corner who wants you to succeed and will help you promote yourself because let’s be honest, it will make them look good too.
So now that we understand the importance of a mentor, let’s look at how you can effectively find a mentor and build a successful relationship. Follow my five steps below and you will see great results.
Step 1: Never Eat Alone: Simple Social Networking Makes a Big Difference
This is good old fashioned social networking. I mean before the days of Facebook when people would actually get to know each other through meaningful face-to-face interactions. Remember that there is no one you can’t learn something from or teach something to. Understand that everyone has a story to tell and, and since people love to talk about themselves, a simple conversation can be the source of great learning potential. When you think about knowledge, consider that in any group of 100 people, you could dramatically change your life if you learned something from even half of the other people in the room. Think about this next time you are at a school, work, or church function. That stranger you strike up a conversation with could become the inspiration you need to achieve your goals, and just the same, you could be theirs.
Step 2: Find Commonality
A mentor is not simply a teacher, but someone that you have built a relationship with. The best way to build this sort of relationship is to find connections. It doesn’t have to be anything huge, the same hometown, a favorite movie or sports team in common, anything that creates a connection, helps to strengthen the bond with your mentor.
Step 3: Value their time
What is the most valuable resource in the world? Time. To get the most out of your mentor, it is important to make sure that you utilize your time well and also show that you respect their time and don’t intend to waste it.
Step 4: Think win-win
This is an important rule of achieving anything in life. The self-centered approach will not yield strong results. To get the most out of any relationship, you have to demonstrate to the other person what’s in it for them. While we are talking about the benefits of having a mentor, we have to also remember the importance of demonstrating your value.
Step 5: Follow up
A perfect opportunity to use my thank you card tip, following up after a meeting is a great way to show appreciation for what you learned from your mentor and to keep the door open for more communication and opportunity in the future.
So there you have it, my guide to getting a mentor. The really great thing about this process is that not only is it effective, but it’s also very easy to do. Take a look back through this article and you will see that the advice here is simple and basically comes down to respect and communication. If you focus on these things, you will rarely go wrong.
Thanks for reading and check out some of my other articles for tips to build a solid network and maximize your mentor!
Best Regards, 
