The gaining of wisdom

I read something recently, maybe it was on IG or elsewhere which essentially said – by the time you are old enough to have gained wisdom it is too late to use it, therefore you should seek wisdom in the form of a coach or mentor.

I thought this was really cool and relevant – much of my early career, especially the first 10  years, I was very fortunate to have access to mentors and coaches. Some of these were formal mentors and some were informal.

I had different types and different seniority and different fields of work – HR Directors, Marketing Directors, Worldwide Senior VP’s, sometimes they were unexpected but appreciated.

In order to use a mentor effectively you need to bring them the questions you are wrestling with or wish a second opinion on:

-              A confronting employee or teammate issue

-              A tough customer situation

-              A business operational issue

-              A ‘ I am doing everything right but it’s not working ‘ issue

-              How do I get promoted

I remember I was struggling with a situation and I ran it past several mentors and the remarkably said similar response, ‘Richard, you can’t be driving down the road at 100 miles an hour and change 3 tyres at the same time ‘ – or ‘ Richard, you just need to focus on 3 things and delegate the rest ‘.

You want a coach or mentor who is different from you and how you think, you want someone whom will challenge and be confronting – otherwise what’s the point? Sometimes we are so convinced the we know the answers and yet the results aren’t coming and we start to blame external factors or everyone else.

Success at work and life is often about how much you are prepared to put in, solve problems and keep moving – adding a sounding board and great advice just makes it that little bit easier.

What’s the difference between a coach vs mentor? A coach helps you extract the answers from within yourself and a mentor uses experience to provide advice and guidance plus some coaching.

If you’ve had a wisdom injection from a coach or mentor – let me and others know !