4 Ways High-Quality Mentorship Can Deeply Impact Your Life
Don’t be left to flounder.
“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves” — Steven Spielberg
One of my fellow educator colleagues became my mentor. We developed a close friendship, and are still close friends to this day. I admire her, look up to her, and call on her for guidance. She has been and continues to always be there when I need a moment of clarity.
Then there is also my husband, who is always a wellspring of inspiration for me. He teaches and mentors me through many life lessons. He doesn’t even realize he does this (yes, your spouse or significant other can be a mentor as well).
At some point in life, we experience someone who lifts us up and inspires us. Someone who sees something beautiful or amazing we don’t see in ourselves.
Mentors come and go throughout life. Some remain, while others don’t.
Mentors can be a parent, a teacher, a coach, a friend, even a random stranger who passes us by in a fleeting moment of life. Mentors carry messages.
Some mentors leave a positive impact. Some mentors leave you to flop and flounder, like a fish out of water.
Unfortunately, flopping and floundering is what I experienced earlier in life by crossing paths with bad mentors. I listened to and learned from unsuccessful people. I also didn’t know any better at that time.
I’ve also experienced a few high-quality mentors. These are the keepers.
Sometimes we don’t know the difference between good and bad mentors. We think someone is doing good, when in fact, they are toxic and damaging.
The toxic mentors are the ones you want to let go of. With any luck, they will up and leave on their own accord. And hopefully, do so without leaving any permanent damage.
Who has mentored you in your life? What kind of impact did they leave?
In this awkward year of 2020, mentorship is needed now more than ever. We need positive people to turn to and to look up to. With so much turmoil this year, there need to be more moments of positivity and inspiration.
For some, 2020 has been a transformational year. Despite the turmoil, people are making positive changes in their life, myself included.
Despite a global pandemic, life goes on. 2020 is as good a time as ever to make transformations to move forward, and not get absorbed into the negative life-draining abyss of misinformation.
This is where mentorship comes in.
#1 Mentorship Leaves a Footprint
“Mentorship is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction” — John C. Crosby
We hear the term “mentorship” from time to time, but do we really understand what it is?
At its core, mentorship is an impactful relationship where a more experienced and knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced and knowledgeable person. This goes beyond just “teaching” someone.
A mentor is an individual who not only possesses a special set of skills but also experiences a high level of success; even expert status in some instances.
A highly effective mentor not only shares their knowledge and expertise but also holds the mentee accountable for their actions.
The mentor helps the mentee stretch their thinking and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. After all, life begins outside your comfort zone.
A mentee is an individual who is seeking to gain more knowledge and understanding in a particular area, thereby increasing their value and skills.
For example, if I want a writing mentor, I would not seek the experience and knowledge of someone at or below my current level. I would look at someone who is profoundly successful in writing and seek their wisdom and guidance.
This type of relationship applies to anything in life. You can seek mentorship for any career, business, finance, health and wellness, athleticism, writing… literally anything!
Mentorship is not just for any single industry or topic.
If you were to ask any of the most successful people on the planet, I’m pretty sure they would attribute some degree of their success to a mentor; someone who believed in them and helped pushed their limits.
If there is a particular area you want to learn more about and excel in, you can certainly find a mentor.
Age should never be a factor. The mentor may be older or younger than the mentee. All that matters is the mentee’s willingness to learn.
I am blessed to have a few mentors currently in my life who are helping me to seek and make profound transformations. These are the types of mentorships you want. They are called transformational mentors.
These types of mentors will not leave you to flop and flounder like a fish. They genuinely care for your goals and vision and want to see those goals come to fruition.
You will never be the same person once you experience and work closely with a transformational mentor. They always have your best interests at heart.
Transformational mentors make their mark and leave a footprint on your life.
#2 Mentorship Fuels Inspiration
“The key to being a good mentor is to help people become more of who they already are, not to make them more like you” — Suze Orman
High-quality, transformational mentors provide support and inspiration.
High-quality mentors see things that we can’t otherwise see in ourselves. They help guide people to become more of who they already are; meaning, they pull out and encourage you to be the best and most successful version of you.
Transformational mentorship acts to motivate the mentee to see things and take action, to think and act bigger, to go beyond the expectations and limits set in the mind of the mentee.
Transformational mentorship does not use tricks or play mind-games with the mentee, which is typically found in transactional mentorships.
Transactional mentorships are the complete opposite of transformational mentorships. Transactional mentorships look for a specific transaction to take place, typically where the mentor wants to look or feel good about helping someone.
Transactional mentorships tend to leave the mentee more confused and ask the question “where do I stand in this learning relationship”. This type of mentorship is not high-quality, nor is it positive.
Unfortunately, I have experienced transactional mentorship. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. In fact, the experience left me more confused and discouraged. Yet it provided me with a very profound life lesson.
In my experience, I reached out and asked someone for guidance and help on a topic I was having difficulty understanding. I was encouraged by a close friend to find a “mentor who will help you with your questions”.
Sure, that makes sense.
First, this was a big step for me because I don’t typically reach out to people (hello, introvert). Second, I should’ve listened to my inner GPS, because it felt weird from the very beginning.
But I suppressed my gut feeling, tried to keep an open mind, and went along with selecting the mentor anyway, as she was happy to help guide and answer my questions. And I guess I was just happy to have found someone to provide the guidance I needed, based on her experience and what she “sold” me.
Little did I know the background noise and turmoil my chosen mentor was experiencing in her own life at the time. This did not help the situation at all.
If you are reaching out to someone and asking for mentorship, make sure they are stable and in a good head-space. Do not opt for someone who is bringing along their own baggage to the mentorship. Eventually, I became nothing more than a sounding-board for her own frustrations and problems.
In the end, the person I originally selected to be a mentor “ghosted” me; meaning, she completely disappeared off the face of the map with no words at all. No explanation, no text, no phone call, no email, nothing. Gone.
The last words I said to her were in a text message that said something to the effect of “let me know your schedule, looking forward to talking to you soon.”
And gone. That was back in April 2020. Not a peep or blip since.
Transformational mentors do not ghost their mentees. They simply don’t behave in this manner at all.
But transactional mentors do. They take and give very little in return (hence, the transaction part).
As I have come to learn, this type of relationship is not good-quality mentorship, let alone high-quality. And it’s certainly not inspirational.
My profound life lesson here is to not ask just anyone for guidance or mentorship. And when your body gives you a certain reaction, listen to it. It’s there for a reason.
Mentorships are meant to be helpful, insightful, and inspiring. High-quality and transformational mentorships have successful people at the helm.
#3 Mentorship Develops Future Leaders
“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself” — Oprah Winfrey
High-quality mentorship provides room and opportunities for personal growth and development. In some cases, both mentor and mentee can grow and learn from one another.
Transformational mentors groom their mentees for success. They groom others for success in training, success in leading, then sustaining their success, and then eventually mentoring others the way they’ve been mentored. It’s a process.
Transformational mentors don’t just teach, they transform (hence the word ‘transformational’). They help others along their path and are invested in the mentee for the long-haul. Oftentimes, these are lifelong relationships.
Every transformational mentorship I have learned about, read about, heard about from others is lifelong. The transformational mentor doesn’t jump ship when they feel their work is complete.
It’s actually quite the opposite… they remain involved in the mentee's life in some way.
Do you need to personally know someone in order to be mentored by them?
No. While your mentor can be someone you know personally, it can also be someone you’ve never met. But you must learn valuable lessons from their example, and take action to achieve results in your life.
I have a life coach that I’ve never personally met. Yet her lessons and principles have transformed my life. I’ve been greatly impacted to make such a positive change. Her teachings are invaluable to me and will remain in my life.
In fact, I have 3 high-quality mentors I’ve never personally met (however, I have communicated to 2 of them via email). Yet their work impacts how I function so I can live my best life and be successful in all my future endeavors.
Because of the teachings of my 3 high-quality mentors, I’ve been able to produce results that I would never have been capable of producing on my own.
In doing some research for this article, here’s a few examples of some highly successful people having transformational mentors in their life:
- Steve Jobs mentoring Mark Zuckerberg
- Maya Angelou mentoring Oprah Winfrey
- Warren Buffett mentoring Bill Gates
- Socrates mentoring Plato (I read about this one in one of my graduate textbooks). Plato was a student of Socrates.
- Audrey Hepburn mentoring Elizabeth Taylor
- Sir Freddie Laker mentoring Richard Branson
This is just a brief list to illustrate that even the most successful people in business and leadership have mentors!
I hope this provides some inspiration to you as well.
#4 Mentorship Provides a Birds-Eye View to Success
“If you want to do something extremely well, you need to surround yourself with the right mentors. High-level goals require high-quality mentoring. Hire a mentor who is brilliant at what you want to do. The best mentorships are the ones in which you pay your mentor.” — Dr. Benjamin Hardy
In all the information I’ve researched related to high-quality and transformational mentorship, one simple piece of advice remains constant: Don’t settle for just anyone.
Be very selective with mentorship, even if you have to pay for services. This in turn provides value.
Because you are paying, you are investing. And because you are investing both time and money, there is value to what you are trying to achieve. You will take things more seriously than if you receive “free advice”.
This became one of my personal life lessons. Be more selective when it comes to mentorship. Don’t just study or work with anyone. Study or work with someone more successful than yourself.
Yes, I have paid for the services and information provided to me by the 3 transformational mentors I follow. When I pay for their services, I am making an investment not only into myself but to my future as well.
The primary goal of mentorship is to make your habits and values better as you become like the successful people you study or spend time with.
When you are mentored by someone more successful than yourself, you get a birds-eye view of the success that is yet to come for you. You are being prepared for success.
Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that because someone has been doing something longer, that they are better. This is not always the case. Look at their results. Results never lie.
Just because someone has been doing something for a long time, doesn’t automatically mean they are successful. When my previous mentor told me one day that her “mentees were leaving her”, that should’ve acted as a red flag for me to reconsider her guidance. But it didn’t. And in the end, I paid a price for bad mentorship.
For those who are mentors, never agree to mentor someone just because you feel obligated to do so. This does more harm than good, for everyone involved. This doesn’t set anyone up for success.
High-quality and transformational mentorship is not a simple obligation.
High-quality and transformational mentorship is a birds-eye view of success.
After Thoughts
“One of the greatest values of mentors is the ability to see ahead what others cannot see and to help them navigate a course to their destination.” — John C. Maxwell
High-quality mentors will stretch your thinking, and get you to work outside your comfort zone.
High-quality mentors will help you to transform your life and become successful at whatever it is you want to achieve. They will leave a positive impact on your life.
High-quality, transformational mentors provide support and inspiration.
Mentorships are meant to be helpful, insightful, and inspiring. If you are not being inspired to do better, you are not in a transformational mentorship. You may be experiencing a transactional mentorship, where the mentor is not being genuine in helping the mentee.
The most highly successful people all have mentors, both good and bad.
Never settle for just anyone who agrees to be your mentor. See their results, and determine if they have something you want.
Paying for mentorship is not a bad thing. It’s part of the investment you see in yourself as well as your future.
The primary goal of mentorship is to make your habits and values better as you become like the successful people you study or spend time with.
Who are you allowing to be your mentor?
