MENTORS MAGAZINE | EDITION 3 | 55are not strictly live human beings who will
meet with you in person on a regular basis
to provide guidance and hold you account-
able. Those types of relationships, while
valuable, are only one type of mentoring.
In fact, if you limited your mentoring rela-
tionships to only people with whom you
have face to face access you would be lim-
iting yourself. Simply put, one mentor is
not enough because there is too much we
need to learn throughout the course of a
lifetime, not just professionally but person-
ally. But here is the good news. The new
skills and knowledge you acquire during
your development do not stay at the office,
they travel with you at home to create a
positive impact in your relationships, fi-
nances, physical health and more. And
here is the best news, through mentoring
you don’t just become better, you will
make others around you better by exam-
ple. The more you invest in yourself, the
more you have to impart to others.
Millions have chosen mentorship by study-
ing the great people of history. Incredible
lessons can be learned from biographies.
Some are being mentored through the lat-
est NY Times best-selling non-fiction au-
thors. Yet others are mentored by listening
to TED Talks or podcasts by current ex-
perts. People who are smarter or farther
along in their learning are all around us.
Much of their knowledge is available to us
at little-to-no financial investment, howev-
er learning from mentors does not come
without cost. You must be willing to invest
yourself (heart + mind), your time and be-
lieve you are worth the investment. Imag-
ine how much you could improve each ar-
ea of your life if you dedicated down time
to improving yourself through mentoring.
The time required for mentoring is easy to
find when you leverage technology.
Knowledge can be delivered through audio
in the car, standing in line at a grocery
store, reading an article on your phone, or
on an airplane traveling in between cities
reading a book on your eReader.It’s important to note that when choosing
mentors, we are never likely to interact
with directly, the accountability aspect of
enhancing our skills remains us. We are the
only ones who will ever know if we follow
through on the actions necessary to im-
prove. When we have mentors live and in
person, the accountability factor increases
immensely. While we remain responsible
for our actions, now we are reporting our
efforts back to someone else. Remember,
no one will ever be vested in your success
as you will be. Personal accountability al-
ways trumps having another holding you
accountable.Regardless of the type of mentoring you
prefer, it’s critical to first adapt a mentoring
mindset. Choosing a mentoring mindset
involves making an intentional decision to