So you know you need a mentor. And trust me, I encourage you to do just that - either inside your business or outside your business. But how do you know if you will find the right one?

Well it’s a little like dating and  lot of clear markers for success.

As far as the dating analogy goes – you don’t have to go on a second date if the first one doesn’t work for you; always arrive on time and teat them with respect; and here I go again, but for goodness sake, polish your shoes.

But there are other very clear qualities you should identify in establishing an important mentor-protege relationship:

Balance
Unlike a relationship based on power and control, a learning partnership is a balanced alliance grounded in mutual respect and independence. Partners recognize their differences while respecting their common needs and objectives.

Truth
Partnership communication is clean, pure, characterized by the highest level of integrity and honesty. The path to learning begins with a mentor’s genuineness and candor. Their ability to communicate with purity and to encourage their protege to to deliver candid feedback.

Trust
Trust begins with experience; experience begins with a leap of faith. A trust-full partnership is one in which error is accepted as a necessary step from novice to master.

Abundance
Partnership-driven mentors exude generosity, love learning and are happiest they are in that environment. An abundant relationship is one in which people never take each other for granted.

Passion
Passionate mentors recognize that effective learning has a vitality about it that is not logical or  rational, or orderly. Some may exude emotion quietly, but their cause-drive energy is clearly present.

Courage
Mentoring takes courage. Learning takes courage. Great mentors are the allies of courage and cultivate a partnership of courageousness.

Great partnerships go beyond “greater than” to a realm of the unforeseen worth.

Get your learning’s worth.

listen. learn. share. repeat.