Investing in Mentorship for Exponential Returns

I rarely speak with a group at this point without referencing how blessed I’ve been through the relationships I now have with so many amazing people. Each time I share this, I’m intentional in detailing that the very best of these relationships came from strategic investments of time and energy, and always had a goal of being mutually beneficial. And while all the great relationships I have today add value to my life, the ones that provide exponential returns are those that involve purposeful mentorship. I’m thrilled to see how collaborating with others as a mentor has helped me multiply the impact I can have, and we’ll look at that in more detail soon, but I can say with confidence that any mentorship I could have hoped to offer would have had far less value without the mentors in my life.

To this point, I’ve mentioned several mentors who provided me with guidance in very specific areas but I’ve only scratched the surface! I remember a time early in my career where someone suggested that I should only have one mentor to avoid confusion. Looking back, that may be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever been told - and it was clearly geared at serving their interests more than mine. Think about it, is it remotely reasonable to believe that one person could provide all the insight we’d ever need on even a single topic, let alone every aspect of our life? And would it be fair to expect them to? Now take that a step further and consider the level of arrogance that one person would need to have to imply they were capable…

Terry has provided me with input on numerous things for more than two and a half decades, and he still does. Similarly, Rod has also shared insight with me for close to twenty years. And my dad has done that for longer than the two of them combined, even if I didn’t always listen as well as I should have. All said, each of them have expertise in their own areas and as I’ve done things in other fields, I’ve had to work to identify mentors with experience related to each new issue. This has never been a knock toward any one mentor. To that end, the manager I reported directly longer than any other - who also taught me more about workplace safety than anyone else on the planet - actively encouraged me to seek out learning opportunities from every source I could. He even suggested that I interview for a different position outside the company at least one a year, just so I’d be prepared if I ever needed to make a job change. 

Since going into business for ourselves, we’ve had to look for a much wider range of mentors. Some have helped us learn how to create and package training curriculum, a few have helped us hone our message when speaking to large groups (which is vastly different from delivering training for a small group), and others have been instrumental in helping us write proposals and set pricing structures. None of the outstanding mentors who did so much for me in my full time roles could have provided this same guidance because they hadn’t dealt with these things themselves.

In each case, I was very deliberate about putting myself in a position where they saw value in offering their initial input. I’ve always worked to demonstrate how I put their suggestions into practice and I’ve actively looked for ways to not only show appreciation but to add value back to them as well. My goal in each mentorship relationship has been to demonstrate how much I’ve valued their investment into my life and career. While there’s no way I could ever list each person who’s filled any type of mentorship role for me here, I can emphatically state that all of those mentorship relationships are yielding lifeline leadership dividends. And much of that has been in helping me grow to a point that I have something to offer others, paying it forward through collaboration that multiplies the ROI I’ve gotten from those who mentored me - and we’ll dig into that next.

For now, though, I’ll challenge you to consider one specific area of your life or career where you’d benefit from strategic mentorship. Who has the experience that could help you grow? What steps can you take right away to engage them in a mentorship relationship?