Hey there!
I hope you had an amazing weekend and took time to recharge your batteries. Self-care is an essential item for facilitating long-term career success. Ensure that you make it a priority!
This week I want to explore another interesting strategy for transforming your career: mentorship.
A New Era Of Mentorship: How ‘Mentors From Afar’ Can Catalyze Growth
Mentorship is an underutilized and often misunderstood strategy for enabling career transformation. Many people approach mentorship ineffectively, or not at all, believing it is not possible for them. My aim is to help correct that, putting one more tool in your career development toolbox.
To begin, let’s explore some potential benefits of mentorship.
Benefits of Mentorship
- Wisdom and Experience: Mentors can offer the benefit of their years of experience and wisdom, allowing you to learn lessons with less pain (and time). This can give you a head start in complex scenarios. Leverage lessons from those who have gone before you.
- Broader Perspectives: Mentors often have a broader perspective, derived from experience and a view from higher up the ladder. This can challenge your assumptions and enable you to see issues from different angles that you may not have considered.
- Skill Development: Mentors can help you identify skills you need to work on. By learning what they know, seeing how they behave, and what noting what worked for them, you can gain insight into where you need to further develop yourself.
- Boost Confidence: By seeing someone that has successfully done something similar to a goal you are trying to realize, you see it is possible. If they could do it, why can’t you? Seeing a success story can help reinforce your belief that your dream is possible. After all, they provide tangible evidence it can be done.
Most People Use the Wrong Approach to Mentorship
Many believe mentorship requires a formal, one-on-one relationship. This traditional form can indeed be powerful, but it may not always be possible. That doesn’t mean that you should give up on mentorship! Instead, it might be worth thinking about your approach and adapting it to fit your situation.
The more traditional, “formal” approach to mentorship involves you approaching someone and asking them to “take you under their wing”. Again, this can be powerful. Mentoring demands a significant commitment, and people are busy. You will ask a lot from them. Ensure effective use of their time if you use this approach. Don’t bother your mentor with basic questions that you should have been able to figure out yourself. If you haven’t done your homework, don’t waste their time. Ensure that you are ready and have thought-provoking questions for your mentor. Avoid making them regret spending time with you.
A Better Approach
There is a better way to leverage the idea of mentorship. Rather than thinking of mentorship in the traditional sense, consider the concept of “mentors from afar”.
Mentors from Afar are industry leaders, innovative thinkers, and people you admire. They likely don’t know that you even exist, but that is okay! You can still learn an incredible amount from them. Most leaders in today’s world create content in some form; a website, podcasts, blog posts, videos, books, articles in publications, or interviews. You can consume this content and study their approaches. This content can reveal their mindset, thinking style and approach to problem-solving. You can learn to see things through the lens they look through. How do they make decisions? What is their approach to dealing with stress, with challenging team-members, or with time constraints? These insights can be stepping stones that help navigate your journey.
This approach can offer you immense value:
- 👩🔬Access to World-Class Experts. This approach lets you learn from top industry experts..
- 💡Diversity of Perspectives. Multiple perspectives may offer different strategies for tackling similar challenges.
- ⌛Flexibility. You can learn from these experts at your own pace and time.
- 🌎 Global Accessibility. You are not bound by geographic limitations, enabling you to seek guidance from the best in the world.
It’s like having a personal advisory board of industry leaders!
But let me add a caveat: you can’t just passively consume content. That will not cut it. Instead, active reflection is key. Ask yourself, “How would my mentor-from-afar handle this situation?” “What insights can I draw from their experiences and apply to my context?”
Using your mentors-from afar just might be a fruitful path to resolving a challenge you currently face, or even to reinvigorating your career!!
If you’re intrigued by this concept and curious about how to apply it, let’s talk!
I invite you to schedule a free coaching call with me.
Together, we can strategize how to leverage mentors from afar and apply their wisdom to unlock your potential.
Remember, no one achieves great things alone. Let’s bring the power of global mentorship to your journey.
Quotation that I have been pondering
Everyone has some aspect of their life which they would like to improve. Unfortunately, it is the minority of people that put in the effort required to make the improvement materialize. This quote from the legendary basketball star Michael Jordan sums it up;
How are you going to change your approach to make sure that you are one of the minority who makes change happen? Only you have that power.
Journal Prompt
Every day we get to choose how we will act in the world. We decide what we will pay attention to, how we will spend our time, and how we interact with the world. We get stuck in our past identities, often deciding what we will do based on what we have done in the past, and who we think we are.
But those past identities are nothing more than stories that we tell ourselves. We get to decide every moment of every day who we will be.
That makes today’s prompt so interesting to reflect on.
Start off your day by asking yourself this question. Being intentional about your approach to life is one of the best ways to ensure you live the life you dream of living.
Had some career success, but feel that work is devouring your soul? Feeling like your job is keeping you handcuffed and you need to “put in your time”, like it is some sort of prison sentence?
I’ve been there. It sucks!
You need to introduce changes NOW if you feel that way; staying in that space for long has scary outcomes that you would rather avoid.
I won’t tell you to quit job and “follow your passion”. Promise.
Instead I will work with you to help you craft a job that is perfect – for you. You can (and should!) design your work so it perfectly fits with the lifestyle you crave.
Book your FREE consultation today.
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