Mentor as the Main Driver of Your Career

Gil Petersil, networking mastery expert and a visiting professor at Skolkovo Startup Academy (leading business school in Russia), shares the value of mentors and the ways they can help you move up your career.

The word “mentorship” is extremely boring.  It makes my jaw hurt upon hearing it. An image of my ex-boss arises in my head: when I worked in London, he used to close the door of his office and lecture me. Sad thing, as the key point of mentorship is much wider now. My goal is to show you the ways it truly works, and dispel the common myths that Russian people have about it.

Everyone needs a mentor, no matter what step of the career ladder you are currently at, whether you are a freshly graduated young adult, or a top manager suffering from professional burnout and bumping the “glass ceiling”, or a middle-level manager who dreams of opening a business. Mark Zuckerberg had Steve Jobs as his mentor at the early stages of developing Facebook. Steve Jobs himself had Mike Markkula, one of Apple’s first investors and top managers. Eric Shmidt, IT engineer, was a mentor for Sergey Brin and Larry Page from Google. Do you really think these guys were less self-confident than yourself? No, but they needed help, as well as you do. A mentor is the best tool for those who want more from their life.

Why do you need a mentor?

  1. He shows you the best way to reach your goals. Tells you about his own mistakes. He made them, while you, with his advice, won’t. You won’t suffer from failures and won’t lose your resources, including the most important one – time. So choose a mentor from those who have already traveled the path you are just entering.
  1. He will criticize you. He is the person that you trust. So you are ready to take his constructive feedback. George Lucas, movie director, said in one of his interviews: “A mentor sees much more failures of ours than we would like him to. But he is the only way for us to grow.”
  1. He inspires and encourages you, and he doesn’t let you give up.
  1. He takes you to his level.
  1. He shares his contacts with you. Introduces you to the people from his circle, gives referrals. With your mentor’s help you can drastically expand your network of useful contacts. You get into the circles that would be extremely hard to reach on your own.

According to Forbes, employees that have a mentor are promoted five times more often than those who don’t have one. The mentors themselves are promoted six times more often than those who have no mentees. Motivating enough? According to Robert Walters plc, world-leading specialist professional recruitment consultancy, 83% of professionals would like to enter a mentoring program inside their company, but only 29% of them have such an opportunity.  I challenge you not to wait till you are elected and considered a “talent” that your company wants to invest in. Find a mentor yourself. Even if your only goal is to lose weight. Find a weight-losing mentor.

Now let’s move to the myths that I frequently meet in Russia.

Myth 1. “I will find a mentor and become successful”

It’s the opposite in the real world. You need to become successful first, then your mentor will probably notice you and want to work with you. You are the one who needs to make a mentor interested in you. How to do that? Be useful. Offer your help or volunteer in their projects. I, for instance, dreamed of Tony Robbins to become my mentor. So I brought 1 200 Russian business people to his seminar in London. It was impossible not to notice that fact, as our delegation was the largest. Tony wanted to meet me and became my mentor afterwards.

Myth 2. Choosing only top people as mentors

Yes, everyone wants Richard Branson to become their mentor. But why? Firstly, he doesn’t have time. He will refuse, then what? You will have no mentor at all. Secondly, what do you have to offer him? Relationships should be mutually beneficial. I know people that have paid for mentoring. But I don’t believe this is a good thing. The main reward for a mentor is the feeling of contentment for helping someone.

I advise you to choose a mentor from people that are in a slightly higher position than you. Let’s say that your monthly income is 10 thousand dollars. Take a person with 30 thousand dollars as your mentor. If you choose a person whose income exceeds 1 million, you will have nothing to discuss, a gap between you will be too huge, impossible to bridge. You are a specialist and want to become head of the department? At this stage take a supervisor as your mentor.

Myth 3. “I can’t be a mentor myself”

Drop that idea, anyone can become a mentor for someone. You have things to share with others. Even if you are 25 years old and work in a large international company, you will be a great mentor for an undergrad who considers his job opportunities. Becoming a mentor for someone is the best way to find a mentor for yourself. It helps you get a clearer vision of a mentor that you need, of benefits you want to get from these relations and of the ways to make them a win-win situation.

Summing up, I would like to answer the question that I frequently get: where to find a mentor? Mentors are everywhere, they are around us online and offline. You are the one who needs to make the first step: email or call them, share your goals and the ways you would like them to help you. Don’t forget to mention the value that you can bring them. Be useful, be a tool for others.

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