My last two articles have focused on the psychic and the effect personality types like perfectionism and highly anxious individuals have over people. Today I wanted to talk about something different but highly relevant in the field of professional development.

As you can guess by the title, today I’m going to talk about mentors, their importance for advancing in career, and how to find one in world that lacks good mentors.

Growing

Every now and then I like to remind myself that there is more to personal growth than analyzing one’s mind. After all, we learn a lot from experience. At times only actions and the right interactions will contribute to our development.

Back in college, I was in charge of guiding and developing an initiative that was designed to help families in need. Guiding them to have a better management of their personal finance. This initiative was part of the Financial Group Javeriana’ s Consulting Division Programme, designed to teach its members valuable skills in the development of consulting and advising skills.

Here’s an image of the final product just for reference 🙂

I remember struggling to guide my team into producing a quality presentation. I often found myself frequently correcting their progress. Even though there is nothing wrong with this, my objective was to encourage my team to build their own deliverable.

I had no one to ask for feedback on how to be a better leader during that time, at least not someone who was going to grab my hand and show me the way.

Knowing Mentors

We tend to think of mentors as individuals that are there to provide us a service, acting as an advisor. The reality is that this figure doesn’t exist in the way we need them. This input we usually need is very precise and it is usually found within the field expertise where one is moving.

To me a mentor is someone that, as a consequence of work or conversation, provides valuable knowledge to grow and face the obstacles. Usually the motivation is a shared objective, for example, when a group of colleagues build a report or product. One doesn’t hire the other, but rather as a consequence of them co-working, they mentor each other.

Moving back to the anecdote, during that time I was doing my internship with a consulting firm. I was in charge of keeping track of the development of a project I was assigned. I sought to help my team and project leader with the development of Excel models, data analysis, and other managerial tasks.

The experience gained as a consultant provided me with new skills to improve my leadership role in the finance group initiative. I ended up extrapolating all the knowledge and skills I was gaining into it.

Connecting the lines…

Lack of Mentors, an Illusion

I’m sharing this story to establish a point. Most often than not, we face adversity where absent mentors forces us to come up with our own solutions.

In order to resolve an obstacle efficiently we need to leverage our knowledge and skills into problem solving. This is what true mentorship is about! Not to be cheesy… but we can understand our life as a mentor by itself.

Mentors are usually in disguise, hidden in our day to day interaction. We learn and grow by sharing and asking questions to our colleagues, friends, or family. We don’t need to hire someone that claims to be a mentor. These people may not have the skills or knowledge we find useful to grow.

Mentors can be found in anyone that is walking a similar path as your own. If you can find a way to combine your interest, questions, or insights with others, you will gain the benefits of a mentorship relation with the feedback received.

Receiving knowledge

Final Thoughts

This is where I put a stake in the ground, in order to find a mentor, you have to put the extra effort in practicing and applying the things you have learned in other places.

I urge you to go out there, take calculated risks, and receive all the valuable feedback your interactions provide!