Mentoring is just about the best thing you can do to discover your potential. And I'm talking about both having a mentor and mentoring someone else.
The right mentor will encourage you, call you out on your B.S., push you toward the right opportunities, and ultimately help you to see what you're really capable of. And the right mentee will inspire and challenge you to offer your best ideas.
The wrong mentor, on the other hand, will needlessly frustrate you, and encourage you to pursue opportunities that could be destructive for you. Similarly, the wrong mentee will drain you, and drive you toward burnout.
So what's the difference between the right mentor/mentee for you, and the wrong one?
In a previous post, I outline the 6 most important things to look for in a mentor. I wrote that the best mentor for you is someone who has something you want. If you wanted to be a millionaire, it would be unwise to go to a nun, who has taken a vow of poverty, for advice. Obviously, you'd want to talk to someone who knows what it's like to see seven figures in their bank account.
But it's more than that.
It is important to look for someone who has what you want when you're seeking a mentor. Unfortunately, relevant experience isn't the only thing required to be a quality mentor. The truth is there are bunches of people out there who have the experience you're after who would make terrible advisers for you.
I'm talking about the kind of people who lack the humility and wisdom to only offer you advice they've already had success with. An arrogant mentor, thinking he knows better, may send you down any number of dead end streets. I know this is because I've been that ignorant mentor before. I've felt the frustration of watching mentees struggle and fail after diligently working a dysfunctional program that I recommended.
Give what you got.
I've learned that the best mentors won't offer you advice that they aren't sure about. They won't try to help you if they're not sure they have something truly helpful to offer. I have a mentor who's advice I hold in extremely high regard. I go to him for advice more than any other mentor I've ever had. He has the best advice about a number of topics.
He's also on his third marriage. And he gets huge respect points from me for the simple fact that when the topic of relationships and marriage comes up, he'll always say, "keep in mind, I'm on my third marriage. I'm probably not the best person to be giving you advice on how to have a healthy marriage."
When you're mentoring someone, your best advice is what has been successful for you, or what you have seen work for someone else. There's a great deal of humility involved in telling someone where the boundaries of your experience are. But the payoff is great because that humility allows you to offer the most useful advice you have.
As you work with your mentors over the next week, make a point to ask what worked for them. And as you work with your mentees, focus on offering the advice that has worked really well for you. And keep the following quote in mind as you seek and give advice.
"A good mentor's humility will fuel his helpfulness."
Photo courtesy of Anna Levinzon at Flickr.com
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