What is a Mentor?

A mentor is typically an older person or someone with more experience than you, who is not a parent, who is acting in a nonprofessional helping capacity with a specific mentee to promote positive outcomes in the mentee through the mentoring relationship.

How can mentors help you?

There are so many kinds of support that you can obtain from a mentor that it would make sense that having more than one mentor could be very beneficial to you. If you recruit more than one person to mentor you, then you will have access to even more resources than if you only have one mentor. Mentors can provide emotional, tangible, informational and companionship support.

• Emotional support is support from another personal that is emotional or can help you feel better. It can be in the form of empathy or compassion.

  • For example, empathetic listening, showing affection, showing encouragement, helping build self esteem.
    
    

• Tangible support is support from another person that is physical, concrete or practical.

  • For example, providing financial assistance, doing favors, coaching, reviewing a resume, making connections to other people or places.
    
    

• Informational support is support in the form of providing information.

  • For example, providing advice, helping with decision making, helping develop plans to achieve goals and helping with time management.
    
    

• Companionship support is someone spending time and doing fun things with you.

  • For example, helping you build a sense of social belonging, doing activities together, celebrating success together, and meeting regularly.

When you invest time and effort in building your relationships with others, you may be able to turn to these relationships to help you in the future. The is nothing wrong with asking for help and, in fact, most people are willing and excited to provide it.

What types of support are you most comfortable asking for?

What types of support do you need the most to help yourself and your business succeed?

In order to think about how other people can help you to achieve your goals, you have to first know what your goals are. Spend some time thinking about your personal and professional goals and make sure you learn how to set SMART goals. Goals will help you to stay focused and on track, as well as have direction and prioritize. Once you have defined your goals, you will be better prepared to identify areas where you’d like more support and can begin searching for the right type of mentor.

Why are mentors important?

Mentors can help you build or get qualities you admire in others, develop skills or knowledge, change habits or behaviors.

Pro Tip

Your mentors become part of your social capital, or your network. Your social capital can help positively change your life or help you in some way like helping you in areas where you don’t have experience, achieve your goals, get advice, or even cope with stress.