Success is a long road and along the way it seems there is always someone to guide or nudge you in a positive direction. The people that do this are called mentors.
I’ve had many during my career and still do. These relationships are invaluable. These individuals took an interest in me and helped speed up my future success.
Mentors create wormholes or shortcuts. It’s impossible to see it at the time, but reflecting back, it’s easy. The guidance they give accelerates the path to achievement.
Help your mentors
One of the first things I learned about mentorship is that it’s a two-way street. I always start with the position that I need to help the mentor, not the other way around.
Early on in my career, I looked around to find people I admire. This was pretty easy at my first job out of college because there were hundreds of them. The second thing I did was to see if I could help on a project.
It didn’t matter if it was my main job or not. I was willing to work extra hours to learn from these people. By taking work off of their plate I made their lives easier. Not only was I making an impression on them, I was getting to spend more time with them. And if I was lucky, they would move from knowing me to taking an interest in me.
Sometimes I would sign-up for projects that I knew nothing about. It’s like jumping into the deep end of the pool without knowing how to swim. In these situations I always knew I was over my head. Because of this, I was always open to help. By doing the work vs. watching on the sidelines, I learned faster.
Observe and listen
In my experience I’ve found that doing is the best way to learn. But, some things you have to observe.
When I was a few years into my career, I worked on some big account teams. One of the meetings I got to sit in were account reviews with the entire executive team. They were brutal and uncomfortable. The execs always knew the questions to ask that we didn’t have answers to. It blew me away and helped me learn account strategy.
By soaking it all in, I turned these meetings into personal mentorship sessions.
Keep growing
I’ve always had a desire to grow and learn. Whenever I felt like I was standing still in a job, I started looking for a new one.
I remember one time, I was ready to leave my first job. I went to my boss at the time and he handed me a special project. 18 years later I can see how important that fork in the road was.
I led a team of consultants to develop our company’s first product management process. This was a series of firsts for me. I had never led a team nor did I know anything product management. It was exciting!
It took months to pull everything together. I was able to meet with leaders and managers across the company. After it was complete, I was in charge of rolling it out and training everyone. With that done, I moved into a product management role and put what we built to the test.
One small nudge by a great mentor, put me on a path that changed my career.
Build relationships
Beyond all the work success, what I value most are the relationships I have with my mentors. Even though most of these relationships started at work, I never wanted it to stop there.
I don’t remember ever way a mentor helped me, but I know their help is beyond measure. I would be a fraction of who I am today without these people. In fact, research shows that people that work with mentors are 3X more successful.
Even today, 20 years into my career, I still have mentors. The day I stop needing mentors is the day I stop learning and growing. I for one never want that day to come!
This post is part of a series of letters to my kids. My goal is to reflect on and capture as many life lessons as possible. Here is the current list I am working from.
