11 Reasons To Get A Mentor

If you’re like me, you want to get from where you are to where you want to be as quickly as possible. However, you may have found that as you raise your sights higher, the setbacks get more challenging. It’s easier to be confused about which road to take and sometimes you just feel like giving up.

It’s during these periods of confusion that you need someone to step in, clear the clouds from your eyes and get you back on track.

Here are the top 11 reasons to get a mentor:

1.   Saves time – any lasting success takes research and trial and error. But what a mentor can do is help you hop over much of your research. Getting a mentor with a proven record saves you time you’d normally spend in the library or on your computer researching. Also, your mentor can keep you from the errors of trial and error. Since they often have already made the mistakes, they save you the time invested in those errors.
2.   Specific feedback – One argument against getting a mentor I often hear is that you can just buy books and read up on how to do something. Reading books is good and I recommend doing that, but a mentor is able to tailor specific advice to you. A book can’t give you specific feedback that meets your specific needs – a mentor can.
3.   Increased motivation – If you are caught in a slump where you feel you are just spinning your wheels waiting for the next landmark, a mentor can put wind into your sails. He or she can give you specific actions to take immediately that will lead to progress… and progress by its very nature is motivating..
4.   More contacts – A rarely mentioned advantage of hiring a mentor is their Rolodex. A mentor who has proven track record will have contacts who can help you too. An example of this in action is the marketing consultant Jay Abraham; many people pay $3,000 to $5,000 per hour for mentoring. Often all he has to do is pick up the phone and call an associate and make a contact for you. It sounds expensive, but when you consider that for $3,000 you can ride the elevator to the top floor, the expense is easily justified.Lesser known mentors have contact lists too. They can open doors to joint ventures, support groups in your area and other people you might not have access to otherwise.
5.   Mastermind group think – In Napoleon Hill’s book Think And Grow Rich, he recommends mastermind groups. The way this works is when 2 or more people get together, a magical idea generation happens. Your mentor may not have all the answers, but as you talk and bounce ideas back and forth, the mastermind principle starts to work. You’ll get breakthroughs that simply won’t happen if you are talking with a friend or relative.
6.   Saves Money – In nearly any pursuit, you’ll find fads and quick fix opportunities on the market that can take your money and leave you discouraged and broke. A good mentor has “seen it all” and can help you save money that you might invest in the next big “investment opportunity” that comes along.
7.   More Confidence – As you put new plans into action, there is always a little doubt over whether this idea or that will work. Since your mentor can easily separate winning actions from the losers, you’ll have more confidence and dedication. Let’s say you read a tip in a well hyped book and it doesn’t pan out in a couple days, it’s natural to want to give up. However, a mentor can point to the experiences of their other clients. The track record inspires confidence and purposeful direction will keep you going.
8.   Know when to quit – Contrary to the advice you might expect on my blog, quitting can be good. I wouldn’t want you wasting a year of your life taking part in a Ponzi scheme or any other dead-end activity. A mentor will easily spot if you are wasting your time and money on stuff that doesn’t work.We all have only a limited amount of time. Wasting our precious time on something that has no hope of success is a waste of your life. The best thing to do is get on the right track as quickly as possible. A mentor should advise you to what you should be focusing your time and effort toward.
9.   Emotional support – Let’s face it, sometimes success has it’s tough times. There can be a few sleepless nights while building a business, when losing weight sometimes cupcakes can call your name. That’s where the investment in a mentor pays off royally. A good mentor doesn’t want to let you fail. If you fail, you won’t pay. If you don’t pay, the mentor doesn’t make a living, so there is considerable pressure on a mentor to make you succeed. How much easier would it be for you to succeed at your goal if it wasn’t just you who cared, but someone else who needed you to succeed too?
10.   Break out of A Rut – A good mentor will give you new insights and new actions to take. These actions will have different outcomes meaning that you’ll be able to bust out of a rut.
11.   Realistic timetable and expectations – Are we there yet? When you are in a dip or slump, you always want to know when you are going to get to the finish line. Is the end even in sight? A good mentor should be able to calculate where you are and what some reasonable outcomes are.

Some of you may still argue that you can’t afford the price of hiring a mentor. I’d say if you are reaching for something big, then you can’t afford not to hire one. The hurdles for success are high. Jumping them all by your lonesome takes months, maybe years of study and trial and error. If you can leapfrog ahead with the help of someone else, why not take that shortcut?

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