Find & Keep Great Mentors: 8 Tips for Mentors Who Love to Teach You
The path to great mentors is paved with honor, hunger, and gratitude. Learn guiding principles for building lifelong relationships with those with decades of expertise. Unlocking wisdom that transcends textbooks and classrooms.
Jul 24, 2024
Productivity
3 min
“It may be better to define a mentor as someone who has a deep impact on one’s life and served as either a role model or an instructor – whether the mentor was fully, partly or not at all aware of their influence on us.” - Richard Koch
Over the course of the last decade, I’ve built relationships with world-class people who have become mentors I can count on in any situation. These include real estate experts, high-level pastoral leaders, investors, incredible family men, incredible business men, and more.
Ideally, having a mentor in any major category of life is essential. I find it life-shifting. These men speak into my life, help guide me, and area. sounding board for me when I make big decisions. Imagine having someone who can help guide any major decision like who you marry, buying a house, selling a company, etc.
Here are some key tips on getting the most from the relationship and ensuring the mentor feels valued, honored, and respected.
Guiding Principle of Honor: It doesn’t matter if you agree with the mentor in every area of life. What’s important is you honor them. Honor makes room for you, while dishonor closes the door.
Guiding Principle of Hunger: If someone is hungry to learn from you, it makes teaching way easier. Come in hungry. Not full. The biggest turn-off to a mentor is a know-it-all. You will never see that mentor again if you come in with a know-it-all mentality.
Show up early: Being late to a meeting with a mentor is the first sign you don’t value their time. Bad first impression. Value every minute.
Come with questions: Questions show you are ready to learn. Have questions that they can help you with that they have expertise in. Money, business, life, family, and more.
Bring a gift: Your mentor can probably afford any book or small gift. But bring a gift anyway. One of my mentors taught me this. In this scenerio - it’s the thought that counts and if their love language is gifts, you just won major credit with them. Bonus: Bring their wife a gift (because their wife letting them hang with you is huge)
Optional: Offer services: If you can possibly help the mentor with your services, offer them. Even if they say no, that’s okay.
Say thank you: After the meeting say thank you. That evening or the next day, say thank you. Extra gratitude only shows that you value the relationship.
Mentors want to help - they are just busy. Some of my best mentors who I see each quarter, was built over a five year period. Be patient.
And maybe point nine would be pursue. You need to pursue out mentors and be persistent in the pursuit. If they are worth learning from, they probably are busy. High value people get more opportunity than they could take on, so pursue them as high-value and you will find yourself sitting under great leadership.
