Why You Needs a Mentor?
(4 Min Read) A critical part of our growth journey
Mentors and coaches are critical to every individual's growth. Without a mentor and a coach, an individual can only realize one-third (1/3rd) of their true full potential.
In this series on mentorship and coaching, you will see me repeating my above mantra over and over.
In this post, we will focus on mentors and mentorship, and explore why I believe that everyone must have a mentor.
Tl;dr: Mentors are like teachers. They provide tactical and practical advice that helps overcome immediate blockers to our growth. This allows us to grow faster as we don’t have to figure out everything by ourselves
Long Form:
Before reading further, try recalling a great teacher (from school to university) who taught you a specific course or grade. A teacher who made things look easy, made learning fun, and made you look forward to their class. Everyone has at least one such teacher. That teacher was a great mentor. Now, imagine someone like that who can help you in your current situation (in the workplace, in business, or in life), right now. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Of course, it would be. So, let’s see why.
Education is critical for our growth, and in the early years of our lives, it is delivered by our teachers through educational mediums like books, videos, etc. Although we (individuals) can learn directly from educational resources as well, a great teacher helps simplify, analogize, interpret, and explain the educational material at the complexity and understanding level of each student, such that the student can progress faster.
A great teacher does not remove the obstacles for the student but teaches them how to overcome them with resources, frameworks, guidance, assistance, and techniques that enable students to overcome those challenges by themselves in the moment and in the future.
This model works great for our growth until we graduate and join the real world. At that point, we are left to figure things out for ourselves. But why does it have to be that way?
A mentor is that teacher for us who can guide us and help tackle real-world challenges.
Just like your great teacher in school, a great mentor will understand your current state and provide you with guidance, mechanisms, frameworks, and outside perspectives that will help you overcome your current roadblock and make progress. A great mentor, like a great teacher, won’t remove the roadblock for you but will ensure you are not stuck in the same place for a long time.
Can we do things without a mentor?
Yes, of course, we can. It’s just going to take longer. Similar to how long it would take us to learn everything through high school by ourselves if we didn’t have teachers.
But life is too short to figure out everything by ourselves. Lean on mentors (teachers) to make progress and become a mentor to someone else to help them progress.
Still not convinced you need a mentor?
What’s one thing that all top CEOs, athletes, and high performers have in common? They all have mentors and coaches.
It’s easy to validate this with top athletes as they talk about this in public forums like YouTube and podcasts. The same is true for CEOs and top performers in your field.
If top performers of the world have them, why can’t we?
I hope I was able to share some insight on why you should get a mentor. Before you go, I have two favors to ask:
In the comments, please share the first name of your great teacher and what made them great from your perspective.
Share this blog post with friends who don’t have a mentor.
If you find this post interesting, please subscribe as I plan to write the following posts in the upcoming days:
How to Mentor
10 Mistakes Mentees Make During Mentorship
My mentors throughout my life:
I am fortunate to have many great mentors and teachers throughout my life. Here are few:
Rajan Sir made math fun
Mukesh Sir made physics and chemistry fun
Vishal Sir made programming fun.
Dijiang made challenging things fun
Satyajayant made objective thinking and writing fun
Alan, Alex, Jamie, Jatin and many others made workplace fun