Mentors are nothing new. Oprah Winfrey had one in Maya Angelou. Bill Gates has Warren Buffett. But they actually date back many centuries to Greek mythology and Homer’s The Odyssey with a man named Mentor who guided his younger charge to become a future ruler.
If you don’t have a mentor, it might be time to cultivate a relationship with an experienced professional, an astute insider or an informed friend. It’s a must for small businesses. Successful people from all sorts of business specialties tout the importance of it.
Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.
Bill Gates
The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.
Steven Spielberg
Your environment doesn’t define you. I don’t have a lot of money, but I can help train people and I can talk to people. We can all be mentors to the next generation.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
I don’t think there’s any richer reward in life than helping someone. You can’t measure it in money or fame or anything else. But if we’re not put here for anything else but to help each other get through life, I think that’s a very honorable existence.
Tom Brokaw
And it is a very personal feeling that when you help somebody, there’s a sense of satisfaction, gratification that comes over you that can’t be equaled, not even if you hit a game-winning home run. So, that little feeling inside–and it grows–it might happen the first time and you’ll say, “That’s pretty cool.” Then you do it again and that feeling begins to feed off itself.
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Get more about a perfect mentor match on The Marketing Mojo Show featuring Terry Toomey, Certified SCORE Mentor.
Do you have a mentor? Why or why not? It’s our question of the month at #mymarketingmojo.
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