If you run a business, you need a mentor!
Beginners know that they need a mentor, because they don’t know anything. The idea of a beginner running a large business is scary. But, they could start small. But, imagine how fast you could progress in your business career if you had the right guidance? Sometimes the right information doesn’t all come from the same person. You might get some valuable information from a former boss, a friend, a colleague, and maybe even a life changing tip from a guy at a bar! It has all happened to me. And it is all about being open! The best business advice in my life happened when a guy sat next to me at a bar. This was no ordinary guy though. He was the former manager of the bar at the most prestigious casino in Nevada!
But, what about people who are seasoned in business. Do they need a mentor? The answer is that they do. But, the mentor might not be someone you might ordinarily think of as a mentor. You need to bounce ideas of someone who can think outside the box and suggest alternate ways of handling situations. By investigating different modes of operation, you might discover stumbling blocks, or new ways of handling a situation much better.
A good mentor will get you thinking about the important things in your business and will keep you on track. A bad mentor might give you the lecture on positive thinking and thinking big. These are important, but this is just the same old motivational crap we’ve been hearing for ages. Yes, think big, but also think of how to expand. The how part is generally not easy, and with one hundred directions you could pick, picking the optimal one is the trick.
I have more than one mentor, but my main one is my psychic. He is a bit unusual because he can not only disect complicated business issues and decisions with me. He has a psychic sense of what might do well in the future. Of course he is not always correct, but he has been correct about many critical things affecting my health and business. He correctly predicted which places I could visit that would help my health and that my Twitter account would grow the fastest of all my social media accounts — and it did! My other mentor is the boss of the company who did programming for me. He doesn’t always have a tip for me, but sometimes he comes up with big ones that change my life. During a casual discussion about pecan fudge, he gave me a tip of analyzing my social media output that changed my life. We are getting 20x the volume out of Facebook as before since I decided to prioritize it. It is amazing what a little good mentoring can do.
Sometimes a twenty minute talk a few times a year is all you need. There is no measure for how much mentoring you need. Two hours a week, twenty minutes per quarter, or just when you need it. It is very difficult to tell. But, a good business person should always be weighing different ways and variations of doing things to find the most effective way. Discussing these ways with others is generally a good idea if they have some good input! Good luck with your mentor! Get one today. Network!