Here’s a story of my Mentor for Mentoring and how “practice what you preach” helped me capitalize on the value of mentoring.
When I retired in 2017, I embarked on a journey to find a way to stay connected and give back to an industry where I had spent more than 30 years. I found the answer in Mentoring. More specifically, to inform, inspire and empower individuals and organizations to understand and capitalize on the value of mentoring. I outlined a 4-step process that guides you through how to take a very intentional and deliberate approach to find and build a mentoring relationship.
I’m a big believer in “practice what you preach”. So, I put my 4-step process into practice and took a very intentional approach to seek out mentors who could help me navigate this next stage of my career and life. I was fortunate to find an amazing mentor in Shawn Mintz to help me develop my knowledge of and programs around mentoring.
When I first connected with Shawn, we scheduled a phone conversation. During that first conversation, I didn’t immediately ask Shawn “will you be my mentor?” Instead, I shared my ideas and aspirations around mentoring and asked Shawn to share his experience and insights. After our first call, we both agreed to have another call, and then another call, and so on. This eventually developed into a monthly check-in call and has evolved into a mutually-beneficial mentoring relationship.
And now, almost three years after initiating our connection, I’m thrilled to have had Shawn’s support as I developed workshops, speaking engagements and a Mentoring Toolkit that help me teach my 4-step mentoring process.
Shawn and I recently took our mentoring relationship on-line using the platform that is the foundation of Shawn’s company - MentorCity.com. Another example of “practice what you preach.” MentorCity.com allows us to collaborate on goals, messaging, meeting schedules, notes and audio conferencing. If you’re interested in learning more about MentorCity.com, I encourage you to reach out to Shawn (shawn.mintz@mentorcity.com).
In a recent blog post, Shawn shared some Life Hacks to Live By. I was particularly inspired by #7
“Good is Good. But why stick with good when you are excellent?”
Thank you, Shawn, for your encouragement to push myself beyond just being “good” and striving for excellence!
Photo by Ryan Tauss on Unsplash