Mentorship to Reach Your Full Potential
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Mentorship: Why You Need a Mentor to Reach Your Full Potential
You may think you can set out on your own in your career or with a new business. You are smart, a good people-person, and you learn quickly. While these are all great attributes to have, remember you start out at the bottom. Even if you go to college, this doesn’t teach you everything you need to know to make it in your chosen field. A mentor can help you to come into your own in this situation. Let’s talk more about mentorship to reach your full potential…
I did not live the mentored life until I left my job as a classroom teacher and also gave away my best clients in my real estate business. Mentorship was not something on my radar or anything talked about by the people I was spending the most time with in those days. If this describes you right now, my advice is to immediately expand your circle of influence to include more people who understand the value of mentorship to reach your full potential.
Looking back, I now realize that I did have people mentoring me over the years, albeit in an informal way. They were typically older and much wiser, and generous with their time and knowledge. One person was a professor at the university where I received my teaching credential during the mid 1980s. He offered to help me get my footing and I took him up on that offer.
Dr. Landon would visit once a month and spend a couple of morning hours in my classroom. I’d make lunch for us — his favorite was peanut butter and grape jam on whole wheat bread — and we would stay in my classroom to discuss things. This time was extremely helpful to me. He would share stories of working in Malaysia as a teacher for two years, and also told me about opportunities beyond the classroom. At that time, I simply did not understand or appreciate what his friendship meant to my career as a classroom teacher.
If you already have someone working with you in this way, start by assuming your mentor is a good one. There is plenty of great information available on how to find good mentors. Once that is out of the way, your mentor will know your field quite well. He/she will be someone who gets things done.
