Mentors are the special persons who guide or challenge you to help you making your decisions in the correct direction.

We all get advice free of cost every time from the people we know or don’t know: Colleagues, friends, relatives, family members and strangers. Most of them are completely useless or it is not applicable in our situation.

Mentors are people who will guide you in a proper and planned way, so that you can see your goals clearly and you can work upon the roadmap to work upon it. They should share their knowledge and experience and guide you through your personal and professional journey.

It is very hard to find out a good mentor. Especially if you are looking for the people around you, as you don’t know their real intentions, and if it will be applicable completely on the situation that you are in right now, and the part of the journey that you are walking right now.

Some of the good qualities of the mentors and the things you should consider for a mentor are listed below:

Always look for someone, who will teach you to challenge yourself. Mentors won’t show you or tell you what exactly you need to do, but they will guide you on how you can make an advanced version of yourself, how you can excel on skillset or particular things that you are lacking. The mentor should always push your limits and set the bar higher and higher, because we don’t know what we are capable of.

Your mentor should be experienced in whatever you are trying to achieve. If you want a mentor on a field, for example: web designing, developing, marketing, sales or anything, he should be experienced and expert in that field, otherwise it will be a waste of time for both the parties, and you should avoid that to save some time.

“If you cannot see where you are going, ask someone who has been there before.”
– J Loren Norris

Nothing comes free in life, make sure you are contributing whatever you can in this relationship. Offer something back to the person who is mentoring you, of course you can’t mentor your mentor in return. You can offer your mentor the small things, for example: you hunger and enthusiasm to learn, your energy to make something big. It could be anything, so that even the mentor gets something out of this relationship.

Make sure the mentor you are seeking are not showing off much. You will see lot of people showing off literally everything they have got or what they have achieved, it doesn’t matter how big or small they are, but they will make sure that they show off everything they have got. For example, if you see a picture of Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, you won’t see them showing off or flaunting, but they are the biggest entrepreneur in our generation. Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t even waste ten seconds in his life to select the shirt he is going to wear. Link to confirm.

Don’t be afraid to reach out of fear of getting rejected. People get nervous approaching others, for mentoring or asking for advice. Unfortunately, they let their fear to rule and influence their decision. There are high chances, that the person you are approaching, may reject your proposal but that doesn’t mean you will not even try. May be the percentage of getting accepted is mere 10%, make sure you give it a shot, what if the other person agrees to your proposal? Just imagine how much you are going to regret later.

“One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.” —Henry Ford

Mentors tell you the truth bluntly. Ideal mentors should tell you the harsh truth about yourself, and he should not fabricate or manipulate the truth, so that a proper feedback is provided to the mentee to achieve the target. Mentor shouldn’t agree or disagree with everything you say or decide to do, instead he should let you know the detailed analysis and his experience for the same, so that you can go ahead and decide it for yourself.

Mentors should be problem solving partners. An ideal mentor should be helping you with solving the problems that you will be facing in real life. Real life issues and the challenges are the best tests where you can test that if the mentor is really supporting you in your journey. Some of the mentors will not solve the problem for you, but they will help you to figure out the resolution by yourself and learn it yourself so that it becomes an experience, which will help you all the life.

Mentors support and give you courage to act. There are times, when even the hardest of people break down, or reaches such a point, where it literally becomes very hard to go forward, A mentor should help you overcome that time and point in your life, he should help you move forward and overcome that difficult time by giving you emotional and mental support.

Bonus tip: Don’t be an askhole.
An askhole is basically a person who asks for your opinion or advice, yet never uses your advice and does the opposite of what you said to do. Askholes sometimes ask questions for the sake of asking questions or making conversation. They zone out when you supply an answer, and they always end up doing their own thing.

You can read more about these species here: LinkedIn || Huffpost

“You can’t push anyone up the ladder unless he is willing to climb himself”
-Andrew Carnegie

Some of the greatest entrepreneurs and their mentors:

Mark Zuckerberg (Co-Founder and CEO, Facebook) has been mentored by Steve Jobs.
Bill Gates (Founder and Technology Advisor, Microsoft) has been mentored by Warren Buffet.
Jeff Bezos was mentored and inspired by former boss, David Shaw, the former CEO at Amazon.

Let us know, your favorite entrepreneurs and we will add it to the list.

Credits and References:
CNN
smallbusinessbc
expertisetv
Wiki

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