By Crystal Chan
What comes to your mind when you think of mentoring? Who can be a mentor? Do mentors have to be of a certain age, race, gender, or possess certain qualifications? Where do our ideas about mentorship stem from?
Mentorship comes in different styles and it can take place at any stage of our lives. One can have multiple mentors on different subject matters at the same time. Funny enough, many mentors also mentioned that they end up learning a thing or two from their mentees! Therefore, a mentorship is definitely not a one-way relationship.
Here is what James Alutcher said about mentors in his fun and inspiring piece at TechCrunch “The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Reinventing Yourself”,
- Direct. Someone who is in front of you who will show you how they did it. What is “it”? Wait. By the way, mentors aren’t like that old Japanese guy in “The Karate Kid.” Ultimately most mentors will hate you.
- Indirect. Books. Movies. You can outsource 90 percent of mentorship to books and other materials. 200-500 books equals one good mentor. People ask me, “What is a good book to read?” I never know the answer. There are 200-500 good books to read. I would throw in inspirational books. Whatever are your beliefs, underline them through reading every day.
- Everything is a mentor. If you are a zero, and have passion for reinvention, then everything you look at will be a metaphor for what you want to do. The tree you see, with roots you don’t, with underground water that feeds it, is a metaphor for computer programming if you connect the dots. And everything you look at, you will connect the dots.
If you do not have a “mentor” right now, perhaps now it’s time for you to explore the many benefits that mentorship provides?