Reasons to Become a Mentor
Many of the most successful and wealthy business leaders and entrepreneurs—Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group—credit their mentors for helping them achieve their goals. The altruistic reasons to mentor someone are fairly obvious, but it’s not a one-way process. Mentoring has the potential to change — even radically transform — not just the mentee, but the mentor as well.
Here are just a few reasons to become a mentor:
Changing a young person’s life. Having the opportunity to positively impact someone’s life is amazing. As a mentor, you can help open up new possibilities, including helping someone make their first sale, inspiring new marketing ideas, or helping an entrepreneur achieve their business dream! If you were ever fortunate enough to have a mentor, you understand how it can change the trajectory of someone’s life.
Gaining a fresh perspective. The feedback you get from those you mentor can provide a new perspective and give you an opportunity to reflect and grow. Self-reflection is an important part of both career and personal growth. Mentees can offer new ideas and creative solutions for problem solving or even future projects. As Sylvia, a Skysthelimit.org mentor, explains, “Mentoring Brianna helped me think through how I should structure mentorship in my own organization.”
Enhancing your leadership skills. Mentoring requires that you not only share your expertise, but question and refine your own thinking and approaches. Working with a mentee at a different stage of life and from a different background can help you push yourself to grow. Managers seeking to make the jump to leadership will grow by questioning their own perspectives and assumptions as well as reflecting on how things are going and what can be communicated better. Mentoring provides a foundation for managers to develop that awareness.
Keeping up with the latest trends. You may have a wealth of knowledge about business or your specialty, but a mentee may provide insight into an ever-changing business world. There is always something new to learn and a young person or one new to the field can keep you current. One of the keys to staying ahead of the competition is to always be learning and your mentee may be a big help in that area.
Career development. Volunteering as a mentor can unlock opportunities for career development that were previously inaccessible. It is something you can add to your resume, but more importantly, it’s an opportunity to develop your own Power skills while helping someone else develop theirs.
Reap the intrinsic rewards of helping others. This is the reason you hear most often, but it's a powerful one. Mentoring can increase your own happiness.
Becoming a mentor can lead to experiences and challenges that you can't begin to anticipate when you start the process. In helping others navigate the issues in their work lives, you’ll undoubtedly look at your own life and work processes—and find yourself changing some for the better.
When you seize the opportunity to guide someone through the business world, you can impact two lives, yours and your mentee’s, and you can do your part to change the world for the better! What could feel better than that? So, what are you waiting for?