You Need Mentors To Succeed. Here’s Why

It’s a fundamental truth: no matter your profession, if you want to become great at what you do, you need the help of a mentor.

Mentors come in different shapes and sizes, and you’ll often find them in the places you least expect. The traditional definition of a mentor is an experienced person and a trusted advisor. But that definition has changed. Now, the more modern definition is anyone who can help bring out the best within you.

Mentors push you. They guide you and lend you their wisdom. And if you invest in your relationships with your mentors, they’ll work hard for you, too.

You can think of a mentor as a coach — someone inspired to help you become the best version of yourself that you can possibly be. Someone who’s on your team without actually being part of your team.

I’ve been lucky to have many mentors in my life. Personally, I owe all the success I’ve achieved in my career to what I’ve learned under my mentors. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them. I consider the relationships I’ve built with my mentors to be the best investments I’ve ever made.

Here’s why.

Mentors tamper your self-doubt.

Everyone doubts themselves. Maybe there’s been a time you’ve doubted your technical abilities. Maybe, in the face of adversity, you’ve doubted your diligence or your ability to persevere.

This is natural. But most of the time, doubt is a manufactured thing. It’s artificial — a product of paranoia. And it only serves to hold you back, which is why it needs to be eradicated.

Mentors can help you do this. They help you identify when your self-doubt is unwarranted. They are well-positioned by way of wisdom and familiarity with your character to provide you with that sort of clarity.

My first mentor was my manager at the software company where I started my career. I met him at a time when I was struggling to build up my technical skills. I was putting in long hours, and most of the time I was feeling like I wasn’t getting any better at what I was doing.

My manager noticed that this was taking a toll on me. So he made a habit of coming to my cubicle every day to check on me. One day, I told him that I didn’t think I was getting any better.

“I’m working so hard,” I said. “But I’m not seeing results.”

He could detect the dejection in my voice.

Other people might have lended me some cheap sort of assurance. But he stood up straight, looked me right in the eye, and said, “Suck it up, Krishna. This is how life works. Keep working hard. You’ll get there.” As a mentor, he understood that all I needed was a strong push.

It was exactly the kind of reality check I needed.

When your concerns are warranted, mentors help you problem-solve.

Everyone makes mistakes — even people with extraordinary talent.

But unlike self-doubt, mistakes are tangible and often result in repercussions that require careful consideration and problem-solving.

When faced with these situations, mentors make great — and often critical — resources.

Mentors care about you, so they’re willing to spend time thinking seriously about your problem.

But they’re not going to sugarcoat things for you, either. Instead, they’ll help you identify where in your process things went wrong and collaborate with you to find a solution.

I still call up my mentor any time I’m in need of his help.

“Have you thought about approaching the problem this way?” he’ll ask me over the phone. “Or, have you thought about it like this?”

The reason I still rely on my mentor in this way is because I know I can trust him. He doesn’t care about company politics or impending performance reviews — he only cares about helping me succeed.

To have someone like that in your life is invaluable.

Mentors can help you turn your good ideas into great ones.

Aside from providing you honest feedback and advice in times of trouble, mentors can also help turn your good ideas into great ones.

I use my mentor’s brain as something of a drawing board. Whenever I have an idea for something that I’m excited about, I give him a call. Sometimes simply vocalizing my ideas to him and listening to his honest reaction proves inspiring enough. The process often helps illuminate solutions or identify holes in my thinking.

But I don’t just rely on my mentor for help — we collaborate together all the time. My mentor helps me see what aspects of my idea could be improved or what elements of my process could be tweaked. He does this in the way that a cricket coach might make minor adjustments to a player’s swing.

It’s because of their ability to identify those minor adjustments that mentors can help you go from good to great. Those adjustments might make the difference between your success or your failure.

Sure, everyone’s lives and situations are different. The way that you go about finding a mentor or establishing that sort of relationship with someone is going to look different than the way I went about finding mine.

But if you don’t have a mentor at the moment, you should start reaching out to people you admire. Let them know why you look up to them. Be honest about what you’re seeking.

Mentorships are built upon foundations of friendship and trust.

And remember that the definition of mentorship has evolved over time as the needs of leaders have changed.

In recent years, I’ve been lucky enough to meet people from many different cultures and fields of interest. But despite those differences, I was still able to build a relationship with a few of them to a level where I consider them my mentors. These mentors directly or indirectly taught me how to be more effective as a leader and how to lead life with full potential.

One particular person who inspired me to do more — and always will — just does it with a single sentence: “You’ve got this!”