Attracting Great Mentors

In interviewing peak performers from all walks of life, for my weekly radio show on Peak Performance, I always ask my guests to share the role that being mentored has had in their success. Consistently, my guests cite having great mentors as being very important to their success.

As a result of my radio show experience, I love asking people that I meet about their mentors. As a result of this informal research, I have become a believer that there is an incredibly high correlation between those who have had the benefit of mentors and success. But, here is the important point. In the vast majority of cases, the mentee selected the mentor!

Many of us grow up with the image of the magic moment where a successful person reaches out and says “will you let me mentor you to success.” Well, successful people figure out that they need not wait for the magic moment. Often, the mentee initiates the mentoring relationship. In many cases, they never even ask to be mentored…they just start absorbing the wisdom of the mentor and consistently express their appreciation for what they are learning. From such a beginning, a fuller mentoring relationship often develops.

I have been blessed with having an incredible group of mentors. Not one of these relationships was started with a mentor offering or by my requesting a mentor relationship. For me, the key was my being open to receiving the wisdom of the mentor and being prepared to consistently reflect my appreciation for the interest in my success being taken by these successful people.

In essence, I have come to believe

that mentors…like friends…are a gift you give yourself.

I can’t imagine going through life without having a couple at any one time.

If you want to learn more about the power of mentoring, my favorite book on the subject is Power Mentoring, How Successful Mentors and Protégé’s Get the Most Out of Their Relationships. This book does a great job of explaining how mentoring has changed in recent years….including the change of one having mentor(s) younger than oneself.

One of the best ways to learn to be a great mentee is to mentor others. Time and time again, when I recommend to professionals without a mentor to attract a mentor by becoming a mentor, they report that shortly after they started mentoring, a mentor came into their life.

These are very challenging times. Navigating these whitewater times solo is just not smart. If you don’t have a mentor, make the choice to attract one or more mentors. If you are fortunate enough to have a mentor or two or three, make sure that you let them know just how much you appreciate their help.

Coming Next: In this twelve part series, I will be addressing each of the types of members of a great personal team. In my next blog post, I will be sharing information on Attracting Great Mentees. The series starts here.