How to Find and Work With a Professional Mentor

1. Introduction

A mentor can be an invaluable asset to your career. A good mentor will help you learn from your mistakes, give you honest feedback, introduce you to new opportunities, and help you develop both personally and professionally.

But how do you find a mentor? And once you’ve found one, how do you make the most of the relationship? This article will give you some tips on how to find and work with a professional mentor.

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2. Why professional mentoring is important

Professional mentoring is an invaluable relationship that can help you grow in your career, gain confidence, and navigate the professional landscape. It can also help you make better decisions, avoid costly mistakes, and develop better relationships with colleagues and management.

Mentoring can provide you with a sounding board for your ideas, help you develop essential skills, expand your professional network, and open the doors to new opportunities. Mentoring can also help you gain insights from those who have gone through similar experiences, provide an accountability partner or a second opinion, and ultimately expand your perspective.

Having a mentor can help increase your confidence and self-esteem, and help you be more successful in your career. With a professional mentor, you can learn how to make the most of every opportunity and reach your career goals.

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3. How to assess if a mentor is right for you

When assessing whether a mentor is right for you, consider their background, qualifications, and experience. It is important to review their credentials and research their background. Ensure that their qualifications and experience are relevant and in line with the type of mentoring you’re looking for.

You should also consider the mentor’s communication style. Do they communicate clearly and effectively? Does their style and attitude reflect your own? Do they listen to your concerns and views and provide constructive feedback?

It is also essential to cover expectations upfront. Your mentor’s expectations, including their availability and times for meetings, and their expectations for you, such as how often and for how long you should meet, should all be clearly discussed beforehand.

Finally, when choosing a mentor, you should consider their personality and whether you’re comfortable with them. Is their personality compatible with yours? Are you going to be able to be open and honest with them? Your relationship with your mentor should be mutually beneficial, so make sure your expectations and personalities align.

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4. How to get the most out of your professional mentor relationship

Now that you have identified and selected a mentor, the next step is to make sure you get the most out of the mentorship.

Start the journey by setting a goal for yourself. Make sure you can articulate it to your mentor. This will help narrow down tasks and focus on what you want to achieve during the entire process.

In addition to a goal, create a timeline that includes checkpoints and tasks you need to complete. Determine a timeline that allows you to accomplish your goal with realistic expectations.

You should also have an open discussion with your mentor. You should feel comfortable enough to be honest with them. After all, they are here to help you. You should also be flexible and have a structured yet open conversation.

In the end, be aware of the communication boundaries and respect them. Keep your communication to scheduled meetings or agreed upon times. You should also thank your mentor for their assistance and And always show your appreciation.

Following these steps can help create an environment for success for your professional mentorship.

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5. Making the most of your professional mentor relationship

Once you have identified and selected a professional mentor and set a goal for yourself, it’s time to make the most of the professional mentorship.

1. Create a Bond: It’s important to establish a bond with your mentor. This trust and strong connection will greatly benefit both parties in the long run. To do this, find common interests and connect with your mentor on a personal level. It’s essential to build a task-orientated relationship, but this should be balanced with other aspects such as shared hobbies and interests.

2. Ask for Advice: Asking your mentor for advice or guidance when needed is crucial. This is the main reason you sought out a mentor in the first place. Don’t forget to make use of the expertise they can offer you.

3. Set Clear Expectations: It’s essential to make sure that both parties are on the same page when entering into a professional mentorship relationship. Have a discussion about expectations, deliverables and results so that neither of you is left feeling frustrated or overworked.

4. Communicate Regularly: Being open and honest with your mentor is one of the most important aspects of a professional mentorship. Make sure to check in with your mentor often to review progress and share successes and challenges.

5. Make Time to Connect: Just because you have a professional mentor relationship doesn’t mean that you need to spend hours discussing your progress.

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6. Common challenges in professional mentor relationships and how to overcome them

Navigating a professional mentor relationship can be challenging. There are several common challenges that can arise, and it is important to be aware of them so that you can prepare and be ready to overcome them. Here are some of the most common challenges you may face when working with a professional mentor:

1. Time – Finding the time to both dedicate to and continue the professional mentor relationship can be difficult. Time can easily slip away, which can cause tension and disappointment.

2. Availability – Your mentor may have other commitments that limit the amount of time they have available. This can cause delays in the mentorship process, leading to frustrations.

3. Communication – It is essential for both parties to keep the lines of communication open throughout the duration of the professional mentor relationship. When communication skills are limited, it can be difficult to make progress and bond with one another.

4. Goals – If expectations are not clearly defined, it is easy to fall into the trap of meeting with no clear goal or focus. Without clearly defined objectives, progress may be slow.

5. Style – Every professional mentor has a different style and approach to mentoring, and it’s not always easy to adapt to the different styles. It’s important to find a mentor that aligns with your own style and approach.

It is important to be prepared for any of these challenges and armed with the best strategies on how to overcome them. Being proactive and having

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7. Wrapping up

Your professional mentor relationship is coming to an end, and now it is time to wrap it up. As you finish your journey together, it is important to recognize the hard work and effort from both parties to make this successful.

Take the time to reflect on the journey and the progress made. Celebrate your accomplishments, and thank them for being part of it. Schedule a final meeting to review your progress and any lingering challenges. This is also a great opportunity to discuss and share your plans for the future.

If the course and progress have been satisfactory, it is a good idea to discuss the possibility of continuing the relationship for the future. But, if the time has come for you to go your separate ways, make sure to stay in contact with each other and refer your mentor when you come across potential clients or career opportunities.

By following these tips, you can help ensure that your mentorship experiences are as successful and amicable as possible. Remember that when working with a mentor, providing feedback and nurture is just as important as refocusing and redirecting while pursuing common goals. Doing so will create a meaningful mentorship that is both satisfying and beneficial.

LinkedIn is rolling out a free service to pair users with mentors

LinkedIn, the Microsoft-owned social network for the working world with over 500 million users, has put a lot of effort into new areas of business like content, education and bringing on new users in emerging markets; but today it’s embarking on the roll out of a new service that plays squarely into the bread and butter of its business: looking for work.

Today, the company is debuting a new service that identifies potential mentors and people who might be looking for mentorship in a specific area, and then helps match them to each other. The service (which started with a small test last month) is free and will be available first to users in San Francisco and Australia, Hari Srinivasan, Head of Identity Products at LinkedIn, tells me.

 

 

Initially, LinkedIn has tapped a hand-selected list of potential mentors, who will come up as a list, Tinder-style, to people who indicate that they are interested in getting some mentoring, so that a match might get made. Mentors are given options about who they would prefer to mentor, be it people in their first- and second-degree networks, in their region or their former school. Over time, Srinivasan said that the option to become a mentor will be open to everyone, which makes sense: we call could stand to learn something from everyone.

On the mentee side, after you indicate that you are interested in getting some advice or feedback on a particular topic, LinkedIn then gives you your own potential parameters to narrow down your search (again, initially these are whether you want people near you, or from your alma mater), or if you potentially want a list of potential mentors that is as wide as LinkedIn’s user base.

Once you match, you can then message each other, and either side can terminate the communication at any point.

Source: LinkedIn is rolling out a free service to pair users with mentors

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In Arizona, entrepreneurial mentoring is not optional – Phoenix Business Journal

Arizona’s entrepreneurial ecosystem continues to grow and prosper. New incubators and support programs continue to grow and evolve to support what the Kauffman Foundation has recently ranked as the fourth most active system for entrepreneurial activity in the nation.

The rise of this ecosystem has led to increased angel funding, growth in numerous business sectors and unleashed a new set of entrepreneurs with various skill sets. Some entrepreneurs in the system have had had multiple successful exits and raised tens of millions of dollars. Most, however, are not that fortunate and are seeking the right tools to build the dream team, raise capital and bring products to market.

Source: In Arizona, entrepreneurial mentoring is not optional – Phoenix Business Journal

Mentoring is Not About Creating Clones

“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.” — Steven Spielberg

Over the years I’ve mentored dozens of people in a mutitude of industries, real estate, musical retail, software development, gaming and more. There seems to exist a mindset in some circles that the mentee should emulte thier mentor as much as possible if they wish to achieve similar success as their mentor and I say that’s total bullshit. I got to where I am through a lot of hard learned series of trial and error, success and failure. What I desire more than anything as a mentor is to spare my mentee the pain and loss accociated with my many errors and failures in my life and career. If I can help them avoid the same mistakes as I made then hopefully they can achieve even greater success in a shorter period of time.

3 Reasons Why Social Entrepreneurs Need A Mentor

Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” For social entrepreneurs, this quote is understood at the core. If you’re dedicating your career to changing your community or society at large, you’re likely in your line of work for its benefit to others. But, as a leader with lofty goals, you must take a break from the give to make sure you have enough get.

January is National Mentoring Month, the perfect month to assess how you’re being filled up and rejuvenated as a leader. Though social entrepreneurs are externally motivated and focus their time and ambitions on others, it’s important not to forget to give back to yourself, for your sake and for those you are helping.

 

Source: 3 Reasons Why Social Entrepreneurs Need A Mentor

How this Syrian refugee became a tech mentor

Asem Hasna has come a long way in the last few years.

In 2012, he was a university student in war-torn Syria. Now, he’s a a refugee in Berlin who’s helping teach other young refugee students the technical skills of computer coding and robotics.

Europe is dealing with the long-term consequences of the Syrian crisis. More than 1 million people migrated to the continent in 2015 alone. In the United States, President Donald Trump has framed refugees as potential threats, and he tried to temporarily ban Syrians from entering the country.

But Hasna’s story provides a different perspective — one of opportunity. As people question what can be done to help those fleeing war, his journey provides a potential model, melding personal resolve with assistance from nonprofits and corporations.

It started when Hasna lost part of his left leg in 2013. He says an artillery shell hit the ambulance he was driving in Syria.

Source: How this Syrian refugee became a tech mentor

Top 10 Best Practices for Mentors | Center for Mentoring Excellence

Our recent annual Mentoring Matters Reader Survey revealed dozens of best practice topics. This blog is the first in our series of mentoring best practice posts soon to follow.  Based on our survey results, here are the top ten:

 

 

1. Start by getting to know your mentee
   • Make sure you take time to get to know your mentee before you jump into the work of mentoring. Nothing of substance will happen until you establish a trusting relationship.

2. Establish working agreements
   • Agreements lay the foundation of a mentoring relationship. Build in basic structures about how you will work together moving forward. Make sure you and your mentee agree on ground rules.

3. Focus on developing robust learning goals
   • The purpose of mentoring is to learn. Learning is also the payoff. Make sure the mentee’s learning goals are worthy of your time and effort. Developing robust learning goals takes time and good conversation.

4. Balance talking and listening
   • It’s easy and natural to want to give advice, especially because you’ve “been there and done that.” But mentees want more than good advice. They want you to listen to their ideas as much as they want to hear what you have to say.

5. Ask questions rather than give answers
   • Take the time to draw out a mentee’s thinking and get them to reflect on their own experience. Ask probing questions that encourage them to come up with their own insights.

6. Engage in meaningful and authentic conversation
   • Strive to go deeper than surface conversation. Share your own successes and failures as well as what you are learning from your current mentoring relationship.

7. Check out assumptions and hunches
   • If you sense something is missing or not going well, you are probably right. Address issues as soon as possible. Simply stating, “I want to check out my assumption which is … ” will prevent you from assuming your mentee is on track.

8. Support and challenge your mentee
   • Work on creating a comfortable relationship first before you launch into the uncomfortable stretch needed for deep learning. Mentees need to feel supported (comfortable) and yet be challenged (a little uncomfortable) in order to grow and develop.

9. Set the expectation of two-way feedback
   • Candid feedback is a powerful trigger for growth and change. Set the expectation early on. Be prepared to offer candid feedback, balanced with compassion. Model how to ask for and receive good feedback by asking your mentee for specific feedback on your own mentoring contribution.
10. Check in regularly to stay on track

• Keep connected and develop a pattern of regular engagement. Both partners need to be accountable for following through with agreements. By holding an open, honest conversation about how you’re doing and what you need to do to improve, you encourage mutual accountability and deepen the relationship.

Source: Top 10 Best Practices for Mentors | Center for Mentoring Excellence

Study: Startups See a Need for Diversity, But Fail to Deliver

7 in 10 startup founders say diversity is important, but only 1 in 10 startups are “diversity leaders” according to report released at Denver Startup Week.

Source: Study: Startups See a Need for Diversity, But Fail to Deliver

The Power of Mentorship – Sven Winter’s Story

This inspiring young man, Sven Winter, is a new contact of mine on LinkedIn. He had already been a champion in the sport of ski cross at an international level which is something I have spent my life attempting to do and he retired at a young age after connecting with a mentor. Now he’s mentoring young business minded people through an organization called World Changers International volunteering his time to the initiative. The irony for me personally is that he represents the mirror image of my life in that he retired from ski racing to become a mentor and I’m doing the opposite. I have decided to retire from my career as a professional advisor & mentor to persue my lifelong passion for competative ski racing and coaching at the age of 58 which I chronicle about in my publication “Unsafe At Any Age” Coincidence we met? I think not. Here’s a video of Sven telling his story.

If we raise a generation of leaders who are certain in who they are, what they are meant to do with their lives and know exactly how to get there we can impact the world with the truth that:

“You can do something great with your life and live a life of fulfillment” and we will equip you on how to do so, so that you can help others do the same.