“One good mentor can be more informative than a college education and more valuable than a decade’s income.” -Sean Stephenson
Mentors. Get a mentor and go to seminars, workshops and listen to knowledgeable people that present what you are interested in. Listen to CDs and watch DVDs of people doing exactly what you want to do and teaching about the things you want to master. ALWAYS KEEP LEARNING AND YOU WILL ALWAYS KEEP MOVING FORWARD. The quote from my favorite book says, “Ask, and you shall receive. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened unto you.” But if you don’t ask, you won’t receive. If you don’t seek you will never find and if you don’t knock it will never be opened unto you. Learn this life-lesson well.
We tend to look at people who are successful and think that things were handed to them on a silver platter or they were extraordinarily lucky. Most people had to work hard to get to where they are in life; either working hard at being a success or working hard at being a failure. If you look closely at a person’s life, you will probably find that they are modelling their life after someone they have installed as a mentor, either someone that officially mentors them or an unofficial mentor (someone they watch carefully and try to be like) and admire.
But beware. Mentors are only human beings that may have something to share. They’re not Gods. Mentors can blow it and make mistakes, just like we all do. Whatever you learn, test it out, think it through and understand that just because it worked well for someone else at one point, doesn’t mean it will work the same for you now. It may or it may not, but it is a guide to what has worked in the past. It is always good to have a mentor in your tool kit.
THOT:
Books, videos and CDs are all fine mediums for learning. But if you can find one person who is great at what they do, to mentor you, show you how they got to where they are and what to do and not to do, you have found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
– Robert Gray