Your Mentor May Live On a Different Planet
As I say in this two-minute clip from a speech I gave at the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series, I never met my two most profound mentors: Southwest Airlines Founding CEO Herb Kelleher and management theorist Peter Drucker. But, I carried on a pen pal relationship with the former for ten years and tapped into the latter as I was writing my first book.
You have so many ways to connect with a potential mentor—social media messaging, watching speeches on YouTube, suggesting a 15-minute video call at whatever time of day best suits them. Don’t feel like you have to meet your mentor in person to get the full effect of a “mentor capitalist” in your life.
You might ask yourself why some wise individual would be open to offering you some of their sage advice? I’ll give you four reasons: 1) maybe they were the beneficiary of a mentor earlier in their life and now want to pay it back; 2) perhaps they relate to your personal story or ambition; 3) maybe you’re catching them at just the right time when some space has opened up in their life; or 4) perhaps you have something to offer them as well. Remember, mentorship is a two-way street.
Who could you reach out to create a mentor relationship even if you’ve never met them?
