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Looking back on the employee portion of your career, I’m betting you can easily name a dozen informal mentors who made all the difference in your journey.
But when you’re an entrepreneur, especially when you operate primarily digitally, you have to work a little harder to solicit helpful advice from the right people.
And if you’ve identified an especially lofty goal for yourself—well, surrounding yourself with wise mentors becomes even more critical.
Envision a wise and trusted advisor, counselor or teacher: they may be full of life wisdom (looking at you Yoda), and/or have highly specific domain expertise that can help you avoid pitfalls and keep unproductive detours to a minimum.
The price of admission to adding a mentor into your brain space is that they must be both trustworthy and wise about something you value.
The trick is not to get overly focused on one person, one approach, but to assemble a cadre of people.
So you can weave together the things that work for your style, your vision. And ignore those that don’t.
Because no matter how enlightening any given mentor is, I guarantee there are pins they just can’t drop for you:
The one whose worldview is all about hiring teams will not help you stay solo.
The one with incredible insight into branding probably can’t teach you how to make a 1-1 sale.
The one who is a big picture genius may not have the warm and fuzzies you need now.
Yes, learn from them—soak in their relevant wisdom and expertise—but stay acutely aware of their limitations and who else you need to complete your circle of mentors.
I can picture the mentor who taught me how to be a consultant—he was a genius packaged as the toughest taskmaster I ever experienced (I adored him). But recommend him as a mentor to someone who couldn’t deal with unvarnished feedback? Not so much…
Try this if you’re not 100% happy with the mentoring you’re getting right now: jot down your current slate of mentors (including the “invisible”—those who have no clue who you are because you’re lurking in the shadows).
Take a good long look at your list and soak on it—what skill sets/mindsets are missing? Who have you outgrown?
And then start thoughtfully crafting the exact circle of mentors who will help you fully leverage your current chapter or plot your next adventures.