- Mentorship can save you time, money and even your life.
However, mentorship has protocols and you need to know the right way to go about finding mentors. One of my mentors kept me in the shadows for a very long time.
I liked every instagram post, greeted her after church, smiled like a fool whenever she was within smiling distance and guess what?
She simply smiled back!
Mentorship Helps You Succeed Faster
It is true that mentorship is the surest way to succeed especially if you are young, ambitious and don’t want to waste time chasing shadows.
In this article, you will learn why your mentors run away from you, why you can’t seem to find or identify mentors, how to find the right mentors, how to keep them and how to make the most out of the relationship.
Why Do You Need Mentors?
Education has moved out of the four wallls of the classroom and its now with those who have notable results.
The average university graduate either stays back at home or apply for a Masters when no job is forthcoming.
This is what you should earnestly avoid at all cost: going back to school because the first education you received was not profitable.
Again, you spend four to six years in the university only to finish and discover you aren’t even “qualified” to start work in the industry. Yet you have a certificate that says you are fit to start.
Learn by Mentorship or by Experience
Learning by experience comes with a lot of unwanted baggage: frustration, depression, failuresssss, financial bankruptcy and too many formulas.
Learning through mentorship reduces your chances of making a fool of yourself and wasting precious time you do not have in the first place.
Why?
Well a mentor is one who not only represents and is currently living the life you desire to have, he is also one who has made all the mistakes you might make trying to obtain that same result.
Mentorship or Masters Degree?
Supposing you want to excel in an industry that did not exist for instance until just seven years ago, What school will show you how to learn the ropes?
This is why you need mentors in your life. The answer to the problem you’re currently facing is not a Masters Degree, it is a mentorship programme.
Mentors Gives You a Better Life
Until you learn how to excel by making good use of your time, you will never amount to anything in life.
Mentorship accelerate your progress in life by adding to you the time they have spent acquiring useful, relevant , strategic and profitable knowledge.
Gain Clarity Through Mentorship
They give you a clear picture of how you can build your life and help you find the best platforms for the skills and talents resident in you, after you must have practiced of course to the point of mastery.
How You Can Identify Mentors
1. They are thought leaders and innovators
Your mentors are the thought-leaders, innovators and exceptional successes in your industry.
If you don’t know them yet, you are not ready to reach out to them. Your assignment at this point is to go study your industry.
2. Your willingness to listen
Your willingness to submit yourself to their teachings and instructions is also a measurable index of how open you are to learn from them. A person is not your mentor if you despise or ignore their instructions.
3.They do some or all of these
A mentor / mentorship platform should:
- · Inspire
- · Motivate
- · Proffer solution
- · Engage
- · Teach
- · Correct
- · Rebuke
- · Transform
- · Endorse (after you must have proven yourself competent)
4. They have results in the area you seek help!
Why Your Mentors Ignore You
1. You are opinionated
You approach them with bull-headed opinions you refuse to discard even after they must have shown you the right approach to whatever you asked them.
2. You treat them as colleagues
A mentor is not your friend.
You are not at liberty to treat the knowledge of a mentor as opinions. Meditate on it and if it does not violate your conscience, values and convictions, apply them to your life.
This is why you need to identify a mentor or mentorship platforms that speak the same things you believe. No need trying to apply the principles of Buddha to your life if you actually profess Christ.
You get my point?
Some of you want a relationship as beautiful as that of Stephen Curry and his wife but you call Cardi B your mentor. You get your mentor’s result!
3. You have not learnt the protocol of greatness.
NEVER walk up to a total stranger and say, “I want you to mentor me.
Don’t even talk about mentor ships when you’re meeting them for the first time.
You have to woo them, show them how intentional you are about your life by doggedly following them on every platform they own.
4. Your disinterest in their life and what they represent is unbelievable
Comment on their post, attend their events, tell them how much something they did or said changed your mindset or your life.
Go the extra mile to study, research and learn everything you can about how they stated, why they do the things they do and their personal life if available.
Begin your conversation with them from the standpoint of what they love and not what you want from them.
5. You begin your interactions with them on a foolish note
Instead of telling mentors your awful life story, ask questions around your areas of interest if you believe they have answers to them. Don’t talk about the Ex who dumped you and or fed your carcass to the vultures.
Say things like “I noticed I fail at every relationship I attempt and now, this new guy likes me but I’m afraid. Is there something I can do to excel in my relationship?”
Or “I realize I am financially indisciplined and I want to be intentional about my money and spending habits now. Please how can I stop myself from this onward march to irresponsibility I have embarked on?”
Asking questions like this already helps you assume the position of one ready to learn. A true mentor will look beyond your faults and see your desperate need for change and willingness to apply their wisdom.
6. You are lazy
Volunteer/ Service.
The power of volunteering has been watered down by our generation. Everyone wants to be a CEO, nobody wants to be the CEO’s assistant.
If you know you need mentorship in any area of your life, please identify a platform that dishes out value and life changing information.
Volunteer and serve under such people. A man never ignores the people who help him behind the scenes.
7. You want something for nothing.
Offer value
From scrubbing their floors to helping them out with laundry to representing them at places where they cannot be, think of something you can do for them excellently, pitch and insist on doing it.
8. You don’t share their content
Instead of the useless skits and comedies you waste your data subscription on, share their contents and do so genuinely.
9. Your dishonor for their person and principles is tangible
They say one thing, you do another. Learn to put your one cent wisdom aside and listen to their wise advice.
Don’t dish out flattery if you neeed mentorship from someone. They are already too wise to fall for such.
Send them a thoughtful message once in a while reminding them of how grateful you are for the gift of access and how humbled you are they even consider you worth mentoring (even if you have never asked).
10. You are stingy
Send a thoughtful gift.
Don’t wait until you can buy them a private jet…from birthday cakes to ball point pens that have their names engraved on it, you can choose a wonderful gift that shows you appreciate their presence in your life.
11. You are proud
You know nothing but yet you walk around like an oversized baloon. Be slow to speak and quick to apologize.
When you’re in doubt, please say nothing.
When you are wrong, be quick to apologize.
Did I forget something? If you promise to send that important person a message appreciating them today, say “YES!” in the comment section!
Faya on!
5 Comments
Yes
Some paradigm shifting thoughts right there. You will think you know stuff until you see a more profound view into what you already think and so this is definitely a YES!
THANK YOU.
Yes
Remember to let prospective mentors know what benefit they get from mentoring you. Are you of a younger generation and they’d appreciate their point of view? Are you a photographer and could offer some free shots for their website? Let them know, then pick their brains. They’d feel happy to reciprocate.
YES!