Become a mentor: have one hand up and one hand down

Mentoring, pass it on

Success is hard … once you get there, chances are you have benefited enormously from a large number of teachers, mentors, entertainers, and high achievers who took the time to share ideas and brainstorm ideas with you, and they served you as advisers or probes. -boards or partners. I have learned that mentoring and helping others to do so can be as rewarding as it is for me.

Success is not always easy and you have to earn it sometimes through years and years of trial and tribulation, through many close battles to get to the next level.

Some don’t make it, ever.

So if you stick around long enough to be successful, let me share something with you – now it’s your turn to give something back and be a mentor to someone else.

Once you have accumulated a lifetime of practical and business experience and a wealth of financial and marketing knowledge and knowledge, don’t be greedy! Don’t waste all that powerful knowledge keeping it all to yourself.

Take someone just starting out and give that person the benefit of your hard-earned knowledge and experience.

Advise them.

Encourage them.

Contribute to their success as others contributed to yours.

There really is no better legacy you can leave behind from your entrepreneurial career than doing your part to make it that little bit easier for the next dreamer.

This time, I’m not asking you to take my advice.

I tell you, you must give them yours.

You have it in you to change lives for the better!

The mentoring relationships in my life as I have gained more and more business experience have tended over time more to being a mentor than being a mentor. But that does not mean that I still do not reach out to those who know more and have done more than I do, to ask for their advice, seek their advice and benefit from their encouragement. I will always have mentors, because I have gained so much learning from others that I can never imagine myself without seeking advice and mentors from those who can help me on my journey.

It simply means that today when I raise one hand to reach out to someone of a higher level, I often have the other to help the next generation of doers.

And if you have accomplished some impressive feats in your entrepreneurial career, I hope you will do the same. Do you remember all those times that someone opened a door of opportunity for you, made a key connection for you, explained something difficult so you could understand it, or taught you how to do what they did so that you could get the same results? In my opinion, you have an obligation to pass on those lessons.

In the world of business that moves at the speed of light, the lessons learned over many years of hard trial and error are of timeless value that only diminishes when you keep them for yourself. The moment you open your mouth to start teaching others, I assure you that if you keep your ears open, you will not only pass on the knowledge to others who will benefit greatly from it, and I will thank you very much for doing so, but I am willing to bet. everything you will learn from your tutors too.

And who knows, you might impart some of your hard-earned wisdom to some ambitious, rising superstars who continue to do even more important things in business than you do. Isn’t that something to be proud of? Sure, it’s from a disinterested perspective.

But from a purely selfish, profit-driven standpoint, it also makes sense to share your knowledge and mentor others. In my experience, this is one of the best ways to discover new relationships with potential business allies, strategic partners and lucrative opportunities with other decision makers who understand what it is about, know the value it brings and are looking to reciprocate by helping you like you. you helped them.