The Value of Mentors - Brian Tracy
The Value of Mentor By Brain Tracy
Benjamin Franklin once said, "There are two ways to acquire wisdom; you can either buy it or borrow it. By buying it, you pay full price in terms of time and cost to learn the lessons you need to learn. Be borrowing it, you have to go to the men and women who have already paid the price to learn the lesson and get their wisdom from them."
This is the essence of the mentor-protégé relationship. By going to people who are ahead of you in the personal or professional arena, and by opening yourself to their input, advice and guidance, you can save yourself the many months (maybe even years) and the thousands of dollars it would cost to learn what you need to learn by yourself.
Kop Kopmier, the famous success authority, said that one of the most important secrets of success is to learn proven success methods. He once told me that perhaps the fastest way to get ahead was to study the experts and to do what they do, rather than trying to learn it all yourself. In fact, he mentioned that no one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.
The mentors you choose, should be people you respect, admire and want to be like. The advice you seek should be guidance regarding your character and personality and specific ideas on how you can do your job better and faster. Remember, you can't figure it all out for yourself. You have to find men and women who will guide you and advise you on the road of life, or you will take a long, long time getting anywhere.
There are two vital aspects to look in a mentor. The first is character and the second is competence.
Character is by far the most important. Look for a mentor who has the kind of character you admire and respect. Look for a person who has high degrees of intelligence, integrity, judgement, and wisdom. The more you associate, even in your mind, with men and women who are advanced in the development of their character, the more you will tend to pattern them and to become like them.
The second thing you look for in a mentor is competence. This means that the person is extremely good at what he or she does. A good mentor in your career is one who has the knowledge, skills and abilities to move ahead far more rapidly than his or her peers.
The impact of a mentor on your life is dependent on two additional factors. The first is your degree of openness to be influenced by another person. Openness is so important because many people, especially young people, are extremely impatient, always looking for shortcuts. When they get advice that another person has spent many years learning, they often add their own variations and improve on it without ever having mastered the original instruction in the first place.
Remember, when you open yourself up to guidance and input from another person, concentrate first on understanding and learning exactly what that person has to teach you. Afterward, you can modify can change the lesson to suit you changing circumstances.
The second factor that determines the influence of a mentor on your life is the willingness of the mentor to help you in every way possible to achieve your personal goals. We know that the more emotionally involved someone is in our life, the more susceptible we are to be influenced by that person. When you consciously and deliberately seek out a mentor, you must look for someone who genuinely cares about you as a person and who really wants you to be successful in your endeavours.
Over the course of your life can career, you will have many mentor-protégé relationships. As you grow and develop, you will move on to mentors who can give you the kind of advice that is most effective for your current situation.
The most wonderful thing about this process is that successful people are very open to helping people who want to be successful. This is especially true if you are willing to be a mentor to others who are younger and less experienced than you. The more open you are to helping others up the ladder of success, the more open they will be to helping you.
The fastest way for you to succeed is by piggybacking on the good advice and counsel of men and women who have already spent years learning how to succeed. When you do this on a regular and systematic basis, you will open up doors of opportunity and possibilities for you that today you cannot even imagine.
©2000-2001 Brian Tracy. All rights reserved.
Benjamin Franklin once said, "There are two ways to acquire wisdom; you can either buy it or borrow it. By buying it, you pay full price in terms of time and cost to learn the lessons you need to learn. Be borrowing it, you have to go to the men and women who have already paid the price to learn the lesson and get their wisdom from them."
This is the essence of the mentor-protégé relationship. By going to people who are ahead of you in the personal or professional arena, and by opening yourself to their input, advice and guidance, you can save yourself the many months (maybe even years) and the thousands of dollars it would cost to learn what you need to learn by yourself.
Kop Kopmier, the famous success authority, said that one of the most important secrets of success is to learn proven success methods. He once told me that perhaps the fastest way to get ahead was to study the experts and to do what they do, rather than trying to learn it all yourself. In fact, he mentioned that no one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.
The mentors you choose, should be people you respect, admire and want to be like. The advice you seek should be guidance regarding your character and personality and specific ideas on how you can do your job better and faster. Remember, you can't figure it all out for yourself. You have to find men and women who will guide you and advise you on the road of life, or you will take a long, long time getting anywhere.
There are two vital aspects to look in a mentor. The first is character and the second is competence.
Character is by far the most important. Look for a mentor who has the kind of character you admire and respect. Look for a person who has high degrees of intelligence, integrity, judgement, and wisdom. The more you associate, even in your mind, with men and women who are advanced in the development of their character, the more you will tend to pattern them and to become like them.
The second thing you look for in a mentor is competence. This means that the person is extremely good at what he or she does. A good mentor in your career is one who has the knowledge, skills and abilities to move ahead far more rapidly than his or her peers.
The impact of a mentor on your life is dependent on two additional factors. The first is your degree of openness to be influenced by another person. Openness is so important because many people, especially young people, are extremely impatient, always looking for shortcuts. When they get advice that another person has spent many years learning, they often add their own variations and improve on it without ever having mastered the original instruction in the first place.
Remember, when you open yourself up to guidance and input from another person, concentrate first on understanding and learning exactly what that person has to teach you. Afterward, you can modify can change the lesson to suit you changing circumstances.
The second factor that determines the influence of a mentor on your life is the willingness of the mentor to help you in every way possible to achieve your personal goals. We know that the more emotionally involved someone is in our life, the more susceptible we are to be influenced by that person. When you consciously and deliberately seek out a mentor, you must look for someone who genuinely cares about you as a person and who really wants you to be successful in your endeavours.
Over the course of your life can career, you will have many mentor-protégé relationships. As you grow and develop, you will move on to mentors who can give you the kind of advice that is most effective for your current situation.
The most wonderful thing about this process is that successful people are very open to helping people who want to be successful. This is especially true if you are willing to be a mentor to others who are younger and less experienced than you. The more open you are to helping others up the ladder of success, the more open they will be to helping you.
The fastest way for you to succeed is by piggybacking on the good advice and counsel of men and women who have already spent years learning how to succeed. When you do this on a regular and systematic basis, you will open up doors of opportunity and possibilities for you that today you cannot even imagine.
©2000-2001 Brian Tracy. All rights reserved.
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