If you’re not currently mentoring someone, it’s time to ask yourself: “Why not?” You may feel you don’t have anything to share as you’re not experienced enough or considered a tenured professional. Maybe you don’t know who would be a good fit as your mentee or just don’t have any time.
I can attribute much of my success to the mentorship I’ve received throughout my career. I firmly believe that without my longtime mentor Tom Antion taking me under his wing when I was a teenager, I wouldn’t be where I am today. My experiences as a mentee are just one of the reasons why influencing and mentoring others are key components in everything I do. In fact, I even founded Open Me, my online greeting card company, to influence others to take a more thoughtful approach to helping others.
Here are just a few reasons why you should become a mentor:
1. You can directly influence the productivity of your employees. Through mentoring, you’ll be able to impact the efficiency of others. Are you an expert at managing your inbox? Mentoring may be your chance to impart your wisdom on those who need a productivity boost. By taking on a younger employee, team member, or intern as your mentee, you will be able to groom them to be more productive and work harder for a cause that’s relevant to both of you.
2. It’s a chance to challenge yourself. Doling out advice sets you up to stay on the ball at all times. As a mentor, you’re forced to consider your actions and experiences, learn from them, and share them. This continual sense of awareness will ensure you’re constantly challenging yourself to be better.
3. Revisiting past lessons can be transformative. Regardless of whether you’re just starting your career or you’ve been at it for 20 years, the hurdles you’ve overcome are worth revisiting. Sharing both your positive and negative experiences with others is a perfect way to revisit the valuable lessons you’ve learned throughout your career.
4. You’ll help your mentee to harness their talents. Being a mentor often means helping others to harness their own unique gifts. These might even be things that your mentee doesn’t know he or she has to begin with. As a mentor, you’ll be able to help others improve their career by keying in on and nurturing what they’re great at.
5. Giving back feels good. Let’s face it: Helping others can feel pretty nice at the end of the day. As a mentor, your advice and guidance could change someone’s life. Sharing your knowledge and experiences may help someone transform their career, start a company, or even change the world for the better.
6. There’s always something to be learned. You should never stop learning. Through mentorship, you’re essentially opening the door to a number of different learning opportunities. Your mentee’s own experiences may even teach you a lesson or at least get you thinking in a new direction.
7. There are more options than just face-to-face mentoring. Today, mentor-mentee relationships don’t just have to take place in your office or local coffee shop. Thanks to Skype, social media, and email, you can mentor someone anywhere in the world. In fact, my online writing and blogging is just one way for me to reach a much larger audience with advice.
Mentoring is an incredibly rewarding experience. Not only does it allow you to do your part to influence the next generation of workers, but it will give you a feeling of satisfaction.
Have you been influenced by a mentor?
Image courtesy of budawiggi; Flickr
