5 Qualities you should Look for in a Mentor.

Generally, a mentor is someone who is ahead of you in some area of life and is capable of facilitating your growth in that area. Here are five qualities you should look for in a mentor:

1. They must acknowledge the fact that their there to give you advice and not tell you what to do.

This is a controversial point. Some mentors will only take you under their wings if you agree to do exactly what they tell you will help you reach your goal. I will never be able to agree to something like that but if the prospective mentor is someone you know you can trust and you are completely certain they care about you and can really help you reach your goal, then go ahead. My issue with such an arrangement is that we all assess risk differently. Before you take any actions, you need to be sure you are willing to live with any of the possible consequences that action entails. When you do exactly as you are told, you are letting someone else decide which consequences you are going to live with.

2. They must be a good communicator

Mentors should be able to explain the logic behind their advice. There are successful people who know what approaches work but cannot explain why these approaches work. What worked for someone else may not work for you and it would be hard for you to realize that if they can't explain why it worked.

3. They must be at least 2 years ahead of you.

The closer a mentor is to your level, the more detail they are able to give you regarding what you should do to get where they are. When a mentor is two to three years ahead of you, the experiences they had at your level are relatively fresh in their minds; they are able to relate with you better and adapt their advice to account for the changes that have occurred since they were at your level. Mentors who are further ahead of you are more suited to helping you with big picture stuff. A mentor who is a decade or two ahead of you is likely to take a high level view of the steps you need to take in order to get where they are. My advice is that you try to find one of each type of mentor. If you had to pick one though, I would recommend you go for someone closer to your level. You can always get big picture advice from the numerous interviews available online of successful people in the area you are interested in.

4. They should be willing to say so when they have no idea how to help you.

When a person has no idea how to help you, you can usually tell. If you are anything like me, you're too nice to just walk away and get advice from someone else. Depending on what your goals are, it can become a dangerous thing to follow the advice of someone who does not know how to help you. It is usually the case that when a mentor does not know what you should do in a particular situation, they know someone who does. Their ability to acknowledge the fact that they don't know how to help you is the first step they can take to helping you reach a solution

5. They should be able to make an agreed amount of time for you consistently.

As much as trying to get your mentors to agree on times when they are supposed to interact with you may come across as pushy, it also shows you're serious. If your mentor is a busy person, making sure you interact with them as much as possible is your responsiblility.

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