“If you luck into friendship, money, wealth, success…. then you will always live in the constant fear of loosing it. If you build your friendship, money, wealth, success.… then you will live with the confidence that you can rebuild, so choose to be a builder.”

Anonymous

People who build their success usually have the wherewithal to hold on to it and build further; they do not wait for ‘luck’ to pave their path to success; on the contrary, they pave their own path. And, in ‘paving their path to success’ these people stay focussed and do not let distractions get the better of them. They do this by being aware and then internalising some fundamental and timeless principles of success, of which mentorship is one.

If you observe carefully, you will notice that successful people share characteristics such as keeping one’s word, prioritizing and managing time, choosing to focus on the positive side of everyone (including those who are negative), bringing out the best in other people, uplifting others to great heights, leading by example, taking responsibility for losses and giving credit to others for the wins, willing to learn, grow, and get better….sounds familiar? How many of us live embracing these principles on a daily basis? Most of us get off to a great start and then compromise somewhere in between and then look for explanations and justifications for why we could not accomplish something. By contrast, successful folks look for big enough a reason to go for it and, as a result, the tune they get to sing is why and how they did it. Of course, there are those who will say: “oh! they lucked into it!” Did they? Or as a very successful businessman put it: “luck is a loser’s excuse for a winner’s commitment.”

In this rather short article, I want to examine one characteristic that all successful people share and that is mentorship. For the purpose off this article, I will use a very simple definition of mentorship and success. Mentorship is the process of allowing someone (i.e. a mentor) to shape our thoughts and actions in a manner that inherently empowers us and therefore benefits us directly.” So according to this definition, mentorship cannot be forced upon anyone; only earned from those seeking it, and for that reason seeking mentors is a conscious choice, not a subconscious act; it is not an experience that takes place without our participation and is, therefore, different from influence, which as we all know, can also be negative. Mentorship is a positive force and experience. Success in general is the process of achieving one’s goals in different areas of our lives. As such one can be a successful housewife, successful CEO of a company, successful athlete, and so on. In this article, I am focussing mostly on long-term entrepreneurial and financial success.

In observing the lives of successful people over the past several years, I have noticed that they all have mentors, and in this article I want to dwell a bit on this connection in the hope that you can put yourself in their shoes and benefit from it.

Successful people chase dreams; not money. They are purpose-driven. It is no wonder then that they look for mentors who can help them breathe life into their dreams. For successful people, money is the result of a passion they have for something meaningful i.e., their dream. In fact, at times they stay so focussed on their dreams that others around them (usually without a similar passion for their own dreams) feel that they have their head in the clouds. Usually the difference between successful and unsuccessful people is just that small: unsuccessful people choose to focus on the impossibility of realising their dreams and successful people choose to believe in the possibility of achieving their dreams.

Moreover, lack of money or time never stops successful people from chasing their dreams. Instead of asking themselves “what if I don’t succeed?” they choose to inspire themselves with the question “how can I succeed?” and the difference in the result is enormous. As a matter of fact, they have the same fears and apprehensions as anyone else but they go ahead and chase their dreams anyways. In difficult times, mentors play a very crucial role. Most reading this article are probably familiar with Robert Kiyosaki’s experience of when he was without a house and a job for a couple of weeks and all his friends (most probably from the E and SE quadrants) kept telling him to go and get a job. That was definitely a moment of personal growth for him – in fact, it turned out to be a turning point of his life because instead of going out and getting a job, he held on to the integrity of his thought and made a conscious choice to have faith in the lessons he learned from his mentor - his Rich Dad – and that is why he often says “Use your mind to overcome your obstacles.”

Here is another account. One gentleman I interviewed in Montreal was born in Quebec City. At a very young age, he started announcing to his family members that very soon he will go to New York City. Of course, his family members reminded him of everything from lack of money to not knowing how to converse in English as reasons for him not to go. He went anyways! Is it a coincidence that the right people started to come into his life and he went on to become very successful in New York City and in many other cities since then? No! it is not a coincidence for everything starts to fall in place after we make a decision; not before. It is very true that when we believe it, only then we see it. Successful people have developed the ability to visualize their success and breathe life into their dreams even when others around them are painting a very vivid image of their failure. As a matter of fact, it is in such moments that we find out who we really are and what we are made of. Furthermore, our maximum personal growth occurs not when things are going our way but when they are not going our way. Successful people choose to focus on possibility of a positive outcome; in fact, they belief so strongly in that possibility that things do work out for them – actually they figure out a way to make things work for them.

Successful people seek out mentors to be on their dream team. Since they understand that their environment is stronger than their will power, they surround themselves with mentors who encourage them in the direction of realising their dreams. Sharing our dreams and aspirations with our mentors is like taking seeds and sowing them in fertile ground. Mentors provide us with that nurturing environment in which we can learn how to protect, strengthen, and realise our dreams. Conversely, what happens when we share our dreams with negative people? The hostile environment destroys our dreams and that is like trying to sow our seeds on a concrete floor. Successful people don’t have just one mentor, but several in their life time. In the early stages, usually their parents are their mentors, then teachers at school and university, and then professionals in the industry they happen to be. Additionally, they may have spiritual mentors or life coaches, etc. All this is to say that having a mentor is a way of life for successful people.

Successful people trust that when their mentors find the key to their heart, they will turn it with integrity. Therefore an enjoyable part of being mentored is being able to share sensitive information with mentors without worrying about being punished. This is a very important characteristic that separates mentors from manipulators. Unlike the latter, mentors are very big and secure on the inside because of which they can be honest and gentle on the outside. Often we hear people say: “I want to be a mentor to so and so,” or “I want to inspire others,” or “I want to be a leader,” and the like. However, very few to understand that they cannot just want to be a mentor or a leader; they have to ‘become’ and earn that role, and that others decide if they are their chosen mentor or leader.

Successful people understand that mentors are not afraid to displease or disagree with them because their mentor’s principal role is to help them realize their full potential. A mentor’s ability to give depends upon the receiving capacity of those being mentored. There is much truth to what Harv Eker says in his seminars: “It is not enough to be at the right place at the right time. You need to be the right person.” Successful people understand that they have to be mentally ready for mentorship i.e., they have to humble themselves to learning from their mentors and completely do away with the internal chatter, which goes like this: “I already know that!” Successful people are constantly in the mode of “becoming.” In fact, the owner of a very successful car dealership in Montreal told me: “the road to success is always under construction; I need to keep getting better and better in different areas of my life.” This man is in his seventies and still passionate about what he does. I doubt that his hunger for learning will ever let him age! Moreover, not only is he mentoring others to be successful, he still has his own mentors to keep him on track.

Although a great deal has been written on this subject, we cannot be reminded too much about the importance of having mentors in our lives. At crucial junctions, they could make the difference between our success and failure.

For a moment, lets us talk about you. Do you still have dreams or were they part of your life when you were a teenage. It is very likely that at that time, you did not have a clue nor were you too concerned about where the money would come from to finance your big dreams. In fact, your dreams were so big that your parents got scared on your behalf! But you? You thought to yourself: “if I can think it I can achieve it!” Then you went out and got yourself a job or started a little business and saw the worth of your pay cheque – that got you to live a realistic life in no time! In effect what that mean’t was that you shrunk your dreams to fit into your pay cheque. Since deep down, I mean really deep down those dreams were still there, you could not help it and mortgaged your future on credit, but you still could not live the dream you once had. Why not?

I am sure you have heard it over and over again that most of the obstacles in our path towards our dreams are created in our minds and are self-imposed. If that is true then why don’t we just change the way we think and get out of our own way? If our thoughts were like a brick and mortar wall then we would go out and get the right tool to bring down the wall and then build another one with better material and technology, but our thoughts don’t lend themselves to be seen, felt, and touched in the same way as a brick and mortar wall. In fact, from the outside, our thoughts seem to have deep invisible roots that are constantly changing and we don’t even know where to strike and with what to strike. This is where mentors can help, that is if we allow them. They have the tools needed to work with the apparently invisible mind. If you allow them, then they can help you to observe your thoughts, control them, and use them to change your reality for the better. They can help you to define and visualize your success the way it should be, and once that is done, it becomes easier to take action. Just as believing that something will not work is a learned skill, so is believing that something will work, so why not choose to learn from mentors who know how to believe in the results that have not yet caught up with the vision of the mind? Try it and you will be pleasantly surprised at how further you are in empowering yourself.

Here is something for you to visualize and strengthen your mental muscles: These days Linda and Bob are very secure financially and emotionally but that is not how it always was. Just a few years ago, they were caught in the typical trap of home to work and home to work, but as chance would have it, they became friends with their neighbour who helped them get started in a business. In the beginning, it was a very scary experience, given that neither of them had any previous business experience. With the support of their team, however, they took one step at a time and developed a thriving business and a wonderful lifestyle. One day (when they were already successful), Linda walked into her daughter’s bathroom and she was speechless at what she saw. Her daughter’s bathroom mirror and the bathroom walls had sayings like: “Emily you are the best horse rider there is in all of United States,’ “Emily your horse is so strong and handsome,” “Emily you are number one,” “Emily you are winning so many trophies every year.” The amazing thing is that when Emily wrote those affirmations, she neither possessed a horse nor knew how to ride one! The point is that Emily spoke into existence her dream on a daily basis and one day she was living all of her dreams. That day when Linda walked into Emily’s bathroom she realised what a profound influence she and her husband had had on Emily. They did not realise that when they were chasing their dreams of financial independence, Emily who was quite young then, would notice them fall down and get back up, fall and get back up, fall and get back up, and that one day their experience would give her the courage to have her own dreams and the discipline to put in the necessary effort to realise her dreams. Without being aware of it, Linda and Bob were Emily’s first mentors. Isn’t it true that the more parents in this world have the courage to follow their dreams, then the more their children would not settle for less and would not allow obstacles to steal their dreams from them? Now, that would be some legacy to leave behind for generations to come, know?

THE END!