Importance of Having Mentors
I really believe in having a diverse group of mentors, and mentoring others as well.
Benefits of having mentors:
1) Gives you perspective: You don’t know what you don’t know. There are risks and pitfalls that you might have never considered, or an innovative way to achieve something.
2) Life skills: One mentor taught me how to deal with an extremely difficult person − skills you can’t learn from a book or a course.
3) Learn by example: Hearing real life stories from my mentors has helped me tremendously in my spiritual growth and my own beliefs. Also finding inspiration and the motivation to keep going during the tough times.
4) Saving time: When someone knows you well, and can see the situation from the outside, their advice is tremendously valuable. They can cut your progress by years by giving you sage advice.
Benefits of being a mentor:
1) It forces you to sort out your knowledge and experience into concrete ideas and systems on paper, and to pass onto another human being; and then being challenged, so perhaps clarify and tweak the idea until it’s solid!
2) Seeing people you mentor succeed is an extremely gratifying feeling. It gives you energy to move forward with your own pet projects.
3) Building community: Idea is a magical thing that spurts and evolves, and you never know what the final outcome might be. I like sharing my knowledge, creativity, energy and contacts with others. A little bit of passion and thinking outside the box can get many projects started. People like to be involved in worthwhile projects!
4) Attitude changing: I have often met two types of young people − one is the naive with 150% confidence, thinking they can do everything and finish it tomorrow. The other is the type that don’t know what’s out there, so they are feeling their way around the world and taking baby steps. A mentor is good to give them a reality check. For the first type, get them to do more info sessions and research so they get a firm grasp of the reality, and years of sweat and tears it takes to make something happen. For the second type, provide encouragement and recognition along the way to help them build up their self esteem.