Genius on Tap: What Makes a Good Mentor?

“Get your­self a whole bunch of genius on tap, even if you only access it now and again.” — Quadru­ple Your IQ, Your Oxy­gen Mask First

I was talk­ing to a col­league this morn­ing in prepa­ra­tion for some work on my new book. We talked about a time when he had hit a real­ly rough patch in his career and felt lost, with no idea what to do. He was tran­si­tion­ing from one busi­ness to anoth­er and there were a lot of deci­sions and chal­lenges to work through.

I asked what had worked for him – or not – and he talked about a men­tor who had helped him to work through everything.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, many of the sup­port­ive peo­ple clos­est to us many not be the best choice because they can get very excit­ed and pas­sion­ate and pro­tec­tive. It’s not right or wrong, but they are often too close to have per­spec­tive, and may not have the skill sets and expe­ri­ence and we need

Through­out my life, coach­es and men­tors have been most valu­able when I’ve been in change and tran­si­tion — either of my choos­ing or forced on me – and I’ve found their expe­ri­ence incred­i­bly valu­able. It’s been fas­ci­nat­ing and eye-open­ing to see the num­ber of exter­nal advi­sors, coach­es and con­sul­tants that the high-per­form­ers I’ve worked with over 25 years use to help them with dif­fer­ent situations.

What makes a good Men­tor, coach, or advisor?

It’s a very per­son­al ques­tion because it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly some­one who has a spe­cif­ic per­son­al­i­ty type, des­ig­na­tion or train­ing. When you have a mas­sive oppor­tu­ni­ty to cap­i­tal­ize on, or are chal­lenged by a mas­sive obsta­cle, you need some­one with the wis­dom of ​‘been there, done that” to tap into, to give you the clar­i­ty you need to push ahead and to get what you want.

And, it’s some­one who is a good match for you – some­one who can work and com­mu­ni­cate in a way that allows you to eas­i­ly get what you need and to move ahead.

The Chal­lenge

• What advi­sor, con­sul­tant or men­tor would be most help­ful to you right now?
• The Expert Score­card on pages 155 and 156 in Quadru­ple Your IQ, Chap­ter 11 of my book can help you to eval­u­ate your cur­rent advi­sors and iden­ti­fy one you may need.

And, if you need help find­ing some­one to help you, let us know. We have a num­ber of dif­fer­ent peo­ple, with dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence, on our team and know many oth­er experts around the world.