Selecting the Right Mentor by Denis Waitley

Finding coaches and mentors is an important mission, and you will no
doubt have several over the course of your life. It is critical that
you choose them wisely. Your mentor is someone to whom you’ll be
committing a great deal of time and attention, and who, ideally, will
take a very focused interest in you as well.

The process of selecting a mentor begins, first of all, with a clear-
sighted view of what your life’s goals are, both for your career and
your personal life.

If you’re just starting out as an associate in a large law firm, you
might choose one of the senior partners as your mentor, or perhaps a
partner in another firm you’re familiar with. If you’re just starting
a family and you’re facing the lifestyle adjustments that kids
require, your mentor could very likely be someone who is reaching the
other end of this very exciting, but demanding, process. In any case,
your mentors should be people whose experiences can serve as a model
for reaching your most significant goals in the most important areas
of your life.

Selecting a mentor is not just a matter of finding someone you like or
feel comfortable identifying with. Make sure that the mentors you
choose have a genuine history of success. I’m continually amazed by
the number of people who look to only superficially successful people
as role models for achievement. Even experts can make conspicuous
mistakes of judgment in this area. The next time you’re in a bookstore
or library, take a look at the best-selling books on business and
management from four or five years ago. There’s an excellent chance
that some of the companies cited as models of efficiency are now out
of business. I don’t bring this up to disparage anyone’s business
expertise, but simply to point out the need for great care in
selecting a coach whose success will stand the test of time.

In addition to selecting your coaches based on their ability to
achieve goals similar to your own, choose mentors who, in the process,
have overcome some of the same obstacles you’re facing. Ideally, a
mentor really represents both what you want to become in a particular
area of life and what you want to do. Seeing your mentors today is
like seeing what you intend to be. The coach has arrived at or been to
places similar to where you want to go.

Choosing a celebrity or public figure as a mentor is a very
questionable decision. If at all possible, select a mentor with whom
you can actually spend time and with whom you enjoy having
conversations and exploring ideas.

Of course, you can have admired historical personages, authors,
educators or artists as role models. If you discover someone with whom
you feel a special affinity, make an effort to obtain everything that
person has written or said. Really become a student of the person’s
work and life. Don’t just admire him or her, genuinely learn from him
or her, as I have learned from the life and wisdom of Benjamin
Franklin.

One of the most interesting aspects of selecting a mentor is the fact
that one can rarely separate people’s tangible achievements from the
qualities of their character. More than their bank accounts or their
real estate holdings, role models prove by the conduct of their lives
that they’re worth emulating.