There is a wonderful way to cut twenty years off the learning curve in your career. It is to hang out with people who are where you want to be or people who have done what you want to do. The key is to create win/win relationships with them. A mentor is one of many ways to accomplish this objective.

A mentor is someone who is interested in your success, happiness, well being and believes in you and wants to help you in any way they can. And, he/she is willing to give you the benefit of:

1- Their experience.

2- Their knowledge and wisdom.

3- Their contacts.

4- Their time and energy.

5- Their insight, counsel as well as compassion, understanding and feedback.

These people dont necessarily have to be in the same business, have the same interests or have been successful in their chosen field. What a mentor brings to the mentor/mentee relationship is insight, feedback, integrity, a willingness to help and genuine concern for the mentee.

The mentor always gains something in this relationship, but it isnt always apparent what it is.

You dont need hundreds of mentors. Just one can accelerate your career, two can skyrocket it, and three can keep you learning and growing nonstop and lead you to the mountaintop.

I suggest you look through all of your contacts past and present - and see if you can find someone who you can ask if they would be willing to be your mentor. If the person is a thousand miles away, there are telephones and E-mail. A mentor doesnt have to live next door.

The key to a successful mentor/mentee relationship is setting the ground rules up front as to each persons roles, expectations, agendas, time use, accountability and feedback.

The right mentor can save you time, energy and money. They can challenge your thinking, hold you accountable and help you reach your goals.

Find someone who can help you and take advantage of his or her insight, experience and knowledge.

Keep in mind, a mentor will not: do the work for you or make excuses for you. Their role is only a coach or counselor.

A mentor can accelerate your career, save you the trial and error approach and generally add a wealth of experience to your cause, no matter what it might be.

Napoleon Hill called it a Mastermind Group. Surround yourself with people who can and want to help you not people who are filled, with; envy, jealousy, insecurity or arrogance or a big ego.

Find a group that you can get involved with that could be a mentor for you? There is someone out there who could help you by sharing his or her time and wisdom with you. Surround yourself with like-minded people. If you dont want to start a group, find someone you know who can contribute to your career in some way. Find a mentor and

begin learning, growing from other peoples experience. Also, dont underestimate the personal development opportunity to be someone elses mentor.

Role models

Who are your role models? Your heroes? Do you even have any? I believe one of the problems we have in society today is that we lack positive role models who influence us in a healthy way. Just look at many of the successful people today in: sports, entertainment, politics, business and religion. You dont have to look very far to find numerous examples of negative role models. So why bother having a hero or role model? Role models can help us a great deal as we move through our careers, relationships and lives. They can:

1. Offer us a standard of behavior.

2. Show us how to maintain proper direction in our life.

3. Help us avoid costly mistakes.

4. Teach us through their experiences.

5. Save us time.

6. Accelerate our careers.

7. Help us achieve our goals and life purpose.

Some of my mentors are:

-Will Rogers for his wit.

-Oswald Chambers for his spiritual insight.

-Abraham Lincoln for his character.

-Mark Twain for his candor.

-Winston Churchill for his courage.

-Red Skelton for his humor.

Why not take some time and think about who you:

-Respect

-Relate to

-Like

-Believe in

-Want to learn from

Then learn as much about them as you can so you can develop a model for what you would like to learn from them, emulate or avoid.