“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
— Jim Rohn
1. How to find a mentor
Paragraph inspired by Tony Robbins source
Mark Zuckerberg considers Steve Jobs a mentor. Bill Gates mentioned Warren Buffet as a mentor. Maya Angelou mentored Oprah Winfrey. Sheryl Sandberg was mentored by her college professor Larry Summers. Tony Robbins even had mentors of his own. None of these powerful people would have gotten where they are today without the guidance of someone who had been there before. They knew the secrets of how to get a mentor, and you can, too.
Oprah said, “A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” It can be someone you work with, someone you meet through networking or even someone you follow on social media or whose content inspires you. Tony Robbins has mentored millions through his content, events, Results Coaching and more. The important thing about a mentor is that they inspire you to achieve – and give you the real-life advice you need to take action.
Looking for expert mentorship? Why do I need to get a mentor?
If you want to get ahead in your current profession, make connections and learn insider information that can give you a head start on the competition, you need to find a mentor. Business mentors are one of the most common types, but mentors can help you get ahead in any field, from writing to politics to engineering and computer science. Mentors can also help you start your own business or take a new product to market. Actors and entertainers have discovered the power of getting a mentor, as have sports stars and more.
Those who are just starting out often need a mentor – college students and professors are a mentor pairing as old as time and doctors’ residencies are a form of mentorship as well. If you are just starting out, it is essential that you learn how to get a mentor, but a trusted advisor can also help you at any time in your life. Hit a roadblock in your career? Can’t seem to smash that glass ceiling? Just want to try a new career path? Mentors provide invaluable guidance in all of these situations. How to get a mentor
Start by asking yourself the right questions to determine the mentor you need. Put yourself out there to find role models. Follow these steps, and you’ll find a mentor who is right for you.
1. Determine your needs
Getting a mentor who is aligned with your needs for personal growth is a vital step. A mentor cannot give advice – at least not good advice – about a problem that they haven’t solved themselves. Ask yourself why you want to find a mentor.
2. Create the opportunity
When you’re considering how to get a mentor, don’t just make a list and start calling people. Getting a mentor is about building relationships. Most people have potential mentors around them – college professors, higher-level executives or employees at your workplace.
3. Find the right person
Once you know what type of mentor you need and you’ve created the opportunities to meet this person, it’s time to narrow down your options. These traits make the difference between a good mentor and a great one:
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They are not threatened by your success; they are proud of it.
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They don’t try to compete with you; they lift you up.
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They are not just interested in your success, but completely invested in it. When you succeed, they succeed.
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They know how to motivate you and challenge you to achieve more. T
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hey see areas for improvement and are completely honest with you, but are always respectful.
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They don’t push you to fit a certain mold or to be more like them.
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Great mentors recognize your personal strengths and help you use them to become successful. They are trustworthy – a mentor’s advice is only good if you trust them enough to take it.
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Expertise: Look for a mentor who has expertise in the area you want to develop. This could be a specific industry, skill or subject matter. Make sure they have the necessary knowledge and experience to guide and advise you.
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Availability: A good mentor should be available to meet with you regularly and provide support and guidance. Make sure they have the time and willingness to invest in your development.
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Communication style: Consider how you prefer to communicate and look for a mentor whose communication style aligns with yours.
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Personal connection: Consider if you feel a personal connection with the mentor. A mentor-mentee relationship is built on trust and respect, so it is important that you feel comfortable and confident in the mentor's ability to guide you.
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Additionally, you can ask for referrals from people you trust, reach out to professional organizations or look for mentorship programs that match mentee and mentor according to their needs and goals.
4. Ask in the right way
Once you’ve chosen a potential mentor, you need to ask them if they are willing to work with you – and you must do it in the right manner. Remember, they are doing you a favor by taking time out of their busy schedule to meet with you. Don’t immediately make a big ask, like requesting they meet with you weekly for a year. Instead, just ask if you can take them for coffee or lunch. Be gracious and work with their schedule and don’t get impatient or demanding.
5. Evaluate the fit
Just because a mentor looks good on paper doesn’t mean your fit is guaranteed. When you find a mentor, you need to spend some time with them before you can decide if they are the right match. You may not know during the first meeting whether you connect successfully – it may take several meetings to know for sure. During this time, be aware of how this person makes you feel. Do they listen deeply to you or do they spend the entire time talking about themselves? Are they supportive or dismissive of your dreams? When your time with them ends, are you energized or disheartened?
6. Follow up
Whether you decide to pursue a potential person as a mentor or not, it’s up to you to follow up after your initial meeting. Always thank them for the opportunity to talk with them and for their time. If you think it’s a good fit, request another meeting. If you don’t, be honest and move on. When you find a mentor you deeply connect with, consider a hand-written card or small gift to accompany your ask for a continued partnership. This will show them you acknowledge the importance of your request and that you value them.
7. Commit to the partnership
When you find a mentor, you have to commit to working with them. This means making your meeting with them a priority and at least considering all their suggestions and advice. Whether you’re discussing the creation of a personal growth plan or how to be more assertive, you need to be ready for difficult discussions and not give up when things get tough. Remember, you wanted to learn how to get a mentor so you could change and grow – and growth does not happen without at least some discomfort.
2. How to find a mastermind group
Successful people leverage the power of proximity and build inner circles that empower and uplift them. One way to do this is through mastermind groups - a group of peers who meet to give each other advice and support. Unlike mentoring, in a mastermind group, you will both give and receive advice. These groups can involve brainstorming, educational presentations and even discussing personal issues. The benefits of mastermind groups are vast: they hold each other accountable for their goals, provide a peer community that elevates your life, share business contacts and provide recommendations and references, brainstorm with you, provide a different perspective and poke holes in your strategies, bring together business people at different levels of success and with different strengths and weaknesses, and offer support, advice and celebration. Before joining a mastermind group, consider if you are willing to be honest and what your purpose is. Understand how it will help you fulfill your ultimate purpose in life and find a group that aligns with that.
3. Peer communities
Ever hear the saying, “You are who your friends are”? You might have heard it from your parents in grade school, when groups started to form around different personalities and interests. Cliques start to form, often centered around similar expectations and behaviors — watching the same television shows and movies, forming similar habits, and even speaking and dressing like each other.
This all seems fairly innocuous at first, but ultimately, you become who you hang around with, or “the company you keep.” We’ve all heard the story about the “good kid” who began hanging out with the wrong crowd, going down the wrong path, becoming a product of their environment, so to speak. They lowered their expectations to meet the level of the people around them.
And now, as adults, the same principle applies. The difference is we are no longer unaware of the influence our peers have on us; we know better than to fall in with the wrong crowd. We are responsible for being vigilant about our surroundings and choosing a group of people that will elevate us, not bring us down.
Here are some things to consider as you choose the company you keep: do you look up to the people you surround yourself with?
Do they embody qualities you want to acquire?
Sometimes we meet people that blow us away. Do you know someone with so much charisma and positivity that you are intrigued by their very nature, and maybe even crave their company? Or perhaps someone with a collection of positive habits and demonstrated discipline that you think, I wish I had that? Whatever qualities you want to acquire, surround yourself with people who have them.
Look at the group of people you spend the most time with
If you take a good hard look at the people you hang around with most, then do some self-reflecting on who you are, you will find you are the average sum of them all — almost as if you carry a little piece of each of them with you. Do you want all of those pieces? If not, it could be time to re-evaluate your decisions.
4. Innovate in your relationships
Business is all about marketing and innovation (and a bit of accounting). Marketing = getting someone to want to do business with you. Innovation = finding a better way to meet their needs than everybody else has. If you stop marketing and innovating, you increase your chances of failure. Same goes for relationships.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9LQaAb4hfo