Why a Mentor is Valuable

You can build a great resume on the skills you gained outside of the workplace. So, take a lesson from your former childhood self and start filling your schedule with at least one ‘extracurricular-like’ activity and not only will you immensely enjoy the engagement and challenges but you’re giving yourself an outlet to further practice and naturally gain great skills.

I will never forget, or stop thanking the mentor I had in my corner early on in my career. He advised me on many great decisions, with two pieces of advice that ring blatantly in my mind. Firstly, he told me that a college degree wasn’t necessary for the path I wanted to undertake and secondly, that I was asking for salaries below the market value. Those two caveats given to me over just a couple of minutes, have led me to earn $500,000 more over the past 5 years.

The Industrious Framework’s goal here is to advise you on how to obtain a mentor and how to make mentorship fit your unique needs

Getting a Mentor is Your Responsibility

The first and most valuable step towards obtaining a mentor is realizing that getting a mentor is your responsibility. Many times, mentors are further progressed in their career and personal life, making them incredibly busy and arguably important people. From this truth comes many things:

Clear and Concise

When approaching a mentor, keep all your asks clear and concise. Here’s an example:

If you are a law student, reach out to a mentor and say “Hey, I want to be a lawyer, and I see you have your own practice. I was wondering if you can help me?"

I can assure you they will not respond or respond willingly to continue. Try instead:

“Hi. I want to be a lawyer in immigration law. I saw your piece on immigration law xyz. I also recently wrote an article on the issue for one of my classes. I have a great interest in being a clerk at your firm. I was wondering if you have time for a 10 minute video chat sometime. Thank you, I appreciate your time.”

With some fine-tuning, the latter sounds more like something that will grab a mentor's attention. And if they don’t have the time to answer, with a concise request they are more likely to pass along someone else who does.

First Impressions

Whether you’re a believer of “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” or not, first impressions will always be first impressions. It’s natural to pass judgment even unintentionally when meeting another person for the first time.

If you approach someone incorrectly and then follow up with a “correct approach”, it will be infinitely more difficult to show a mentor your best intentions. Adapt a “first-time” approach and prepare before reaching out to a mentor. Read up on your mentors' published accomplishments and use those to create talking points and sharpen your self elevator pitch so you can feel comfortable knowing where you want this mentorship to achieve.

Mentors Exist Cross Industry

As your careers and self improvement journeys progress, you may find yourself needing a mentor in another industry that is not your own. If this happens, you may not need a long-term mentorship but rather a few consultations. You can reach out to mentors with your intentions or even stick with finding a consultant in the field. Keep your circle of mentors tight as they offer the overall focus that you need.

People Like Helping

Team leaders, managers and those who have the experience in their field to mentor are well, obviously busy people. But they are skilled in their crafts and they usually want to help. So, when you approach a mentor, convince them that you can purely benefit from their mentorship. And in return you can always offer to help them.

As specific as a Path as Possible

A precondition to obtaining a mentor and is crucial to finding the right one is to understand the path you want to be on. If it is a self journey for improvement or a goal in your long-term career, knowing what you want will add infinet more value to your mentorship.

Once You Know Your Path - Tool at Your Disposal

There are many ways to find mentors, searching for emails, going to conferences and more but I've done quite a bit of research on this one, and I am less but satisfied with the current traditional solutions. Instead, I am going to offer LinkedIn.

Finding Someone

Linkedin is the best and only source you really need to reach out to anyone in any industry. People like posting and often welcome connections from strangers especially when an industry connects them.

Use Linkedin at your disposal. Search for someone: 1. Physically close to you or 2. In the same industry 3. With a similar role to one you want in the future 4. Who you feel you can relate to

Message one ask at a time

Once you’ve found someone to reach out to, as before keep your requests concise and especially online, message one ask at a time. Here is a template for messaging someone:

Hello , If I may, I would like to introduce myself. I am a that lives in and I am looking to advance in . If you had 3 pieces of advice for someone like me, what would that be? Thank you and I am incredibly appreciative of your time,

In this way you hit them with a question that’s hard not to respond back.

Message at a later date

To prevent your connections from fading send a follow up message at a later date. Something like this:

Hi , Firstly, thank you for your prior advice. I have used your tips and landed an offering at . Since your help was key, I am wondering if I could pick your brain again. Do you think the offer is sufficient and is there grounds for negotiating a higher rate? Thanks again,

You have made your connection part of your journey and they will most likely want to continue the help as long as you keep concise. They now know you and know your interests, so guiding you has become natural.

Push Back on New Mentors

Linkedin can offer endless connections to people but once you’ve found a mentor push back on obtaining new ones. I found that I needed two mentors ; one for my personal life and another for professional life. As mentors offer their help, reciprocate and offer something back. It can be some work or research help for the mentor but keeping the connection closed is key.

Keep it Cordial

Keep in mind some key events of your mentor:

Birthday

Remembering your mentor's birthday is a good excuse to reach out to them. Linkedin especially is keen to let connections know who is celebrating that day but also use Google calendar to remind you in advance so you can fully capitalize on preparing a message.

Family and Ongoings

You want to contribute to your mentor’s success so get to know them. Create a digital folder with some main information, like where they live, who they are married to and their kids’ names. Also, write down ideas on how you can help contribute to their success.

Be supportive on Social Media

Make sure to frequently like, share, and expose their content.

Offering compensation - Meet every 2 months

AMentors may not ask for money for the time they spend giving advice but just a few minutes with them can be invaluable. For me, a couple of minutes with mine, led to me to earn an extra half a million in my career. I strongly believe in meeting a mentor for 15 minutes every 2 months just to touch base. Offering compensation that the mentor is comfortable with will keep the connection alive and show your appreciation for them. Anywhere between $100 - $500 for their time is plausible because to get where you want to go may be nearly impossible without them, so investing is definitely worth it.

Why a Mentor is Valuable

Having a mentor is one of the easiest ways to get ahead in life. Someone who is an expert in something you want to achieve will have all the knowledge needed to get to where you want to go quicker. Even the simply 2, or 3 nudges can be incredibly valuable. I will never forget, nor stop thanking the mentor I had in my corner early on in my career, telling me college is not necessary, and that the amount I was asking for, was below market value. Those two pieces of advice, and the collective 2 minutes of time it took, have made me $500,000 dollars more over the past 5 years.

Lean Creativity as a framework will not go into the depth of why a mentor is important. However, we did want to mention it is important, and something to be very aware of. In addition, how to achieve getting a mentor in the most efficient fashion. Finally, how to make it flexible to achieve your unique needs.

Realizing Getting a Mentor is Your Responsibility

The first and foremost most valuable step towards obtaining a mentor is realizing that getting a mentor is your responsibility. Many times, mentors will be farther progressed in their career and personal life, making them incredibly important busy people. From this truth comes many things.

Clear and Concise

All asks should be as clear and concise as possible. If a mentor gets a ask such as, "Hey, I want to be a lawyer, and I see you have your own practice. I was wondering if you can help me?" I can assure you they will not respond. However, "I want to be a lawyer in immigration law. I saw your piece on immigration law xyz. I have an interest in being a clerk at your law firm, and have written an article on issue xyz on imigration law. I was wondering if you have time to grab a 10 minute video chat sometime? Thank, and I very much so appreciate your time." The latter with some fine-tuning might just do it.

First Impressions

It's very important that a first impression is important. Many times if the way you approach someone like this the first time is incorrect, with a follow up "correct approach" it will be infinitely more difficult, than a correct "first-time" approach.

Mentors Exist Cross Industry

As you progress along in your journey, you might find yourself needing a mentor in an industry that is not yours. In that scenario look less so for a mentor, and more so for a consultant. It's important to make sure you keep your circle of mentors tight.

People Like Helping

Being that these people are busy, and skilled, they want to help. Primarily, because the ability to do so, is limited. Help convince the mentor that you are being helped. Try and offer some way of helping them beyond just the regular

As specific as a Path as Possible

Getting to know what path you want to be on, is a pre-condition towards finding a mentor. Once you know your path, getting a mentor will be infinitely more valuable.

Once You Know Your Path - Tool at Your Disposal

I'm going to be honest, I've done quite a bit of research on this one, and I am unhappy with the current solutions provided. Instead, I am going to offer LinkedIn.

Finding Someone

Search Linkedin for:

1. Someone physically close to you.
2. Has a role in something you want to be in.
3. Choose someone you feel you can relate to

Message one ask at a time

Finding a mentor is a painstaking experience. In addition, these mentors will over time perhaps fade. I've experienced that once before, due to this individual just getting busier. It is something to be aware of. Nonetheless the template for messaging this person is something such as this:

Hello [Name Goes Here], my name is [Name Goes Here]. If I may, I would like to introduce myself. My name is [name goes here], and I am a [Profession] that lives in [city goes here]. I am looking to advance in [area xyz]. If you had 3 pieces of advance for someone looking to advance in [area xyz], what would that be? Thank you, and I am incredibly appreciative of your time.

Message at a later date

Hello [Name Goes Here]. First and foremost, thank you for your prior advice. I have currently received an offer at [Company goes here]. I was wondering if you think this amount is worth it, or if I can perhaps negotiate at a higher rate? Thank you.

Push Back on New Mentors

Try and push back on new mentors as much as possible. Primarily, because as important as mentors offering things to you, is you reciprocating and offering things to them. However, one thing I have found is that there is often a disconnect between professional mentors, as well as personal mentors. So I usually have two mentors. One for my personal life, and another for my professional life. Lucky is the person who can find a single mentor.

Keep it Cordial

Make sure to keep in mind some key events:

Birthday

Use Google Calendar, and have it remind you two weeks in advance.

Family and Ongoings

In your Google Drive, create a folder called "Name of Mentor". In google doc, make sure to update

1. Where they live
2. Who they are married to and kids
3. Ideas on how you can contribute to their success

Be supportive on Social Media

Make sure to frequently like, share, and expose their content.

Send Letters Every Two Months

There is nothing more personal, other than meeting in person, than letters. Make sure to send a letter every two months. Same situation, set a reminder in Google Calendar, and set notification for 2 weeks in advance.

Offering Money - Meeting every 2 months

As I mentioned previously, probably the unique 2 minute advice I received early on in my career, allowed me to make an extra $500,000 over the past 5 years. I strongly believe in meeting with a mentor for 15 minutes every 2 months to touch base. Offering this mentor what they are comfortable with, keep in mind, is always going to be worth it. I think $100 for those 15 minutes is worth it, but I personally would be more than happy to pay upwards of $500 for the right person, for just 15 minutes. Try and keep in mind, the advice, and connections these people will offer, is physically impossible without them.