Choosing a Mentor
Here are some well-tested guidelines for selecting your mentors:
-- Ideally, your mentors should share your values and possess qualities or areas of expertise you would like to see in yourself. -- Whenever possible, choose mentors who are about 15 years older than you. This allows for enough of an age difference that competition and ego are not issues.Another advantage of selecting older mentors is they have already navigated many of the aspects of life you are now just beginning to explore.
-- Your mentors should not be in competition with you or need anything you’ve got.
-- A mentoring relationship should be positive. Mark Twain advised, “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” That doesn’t mean a mentor should always be gentle.
-- Your mentors should be people you respect and with whom you can talk openly.
-- Your mentors should be willing to share their networks with you.
-- Your mentors should have time to spend with you.
-- Not every mentoring relationship is forever. Sometimes, certain people have an important role to play in your life for only a select period of time. Be grateful for what you have learned and let your mentors know how much you appreciate what they have offered you.
Excerpt from 'LifeManual' by Peter H. Thomas. www.lifemanual.com. Copyright 2005, 2006. All rights reserved.
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