How to choose the right mentor for your career
2 things I've learnt about finding the help and guidance you need at work
The way we work, plan our careers, and move from jobs has changed dramatically, even from the last decade to now. Navigating market ups and downs, politics, career progressions, and all the accompanying decisions is sometimes just too much. All of us are overwhelmed, and all of us, at times, need help.
One way to help yourself is to find a mentor, someone to whom you can go when you need that second opinion, another view. This has helped me too, but I’ve often come upon folks who ask me how to find this particular someone for themselves. There’s a lot to break down in the mentor-mentee relationship, but I’ve tried to distill what I’ve learnt down to just 2 major points.
Here they are:
1. Genius can’t teach you how to become a genius
I believe this to be true: Genius doesn’t understand where genius comes from. It just knows what to do. This is why some people just seem to be better than us at some things. This could be marketing, or product, or just an innate ability to win from sticky situations.
Does this mean genius doesn’t practise? Of course it does. Genius also has to be nurtured, tended to. But when genius performs, gets to doing, it can reach places mortals can only dream of.
But the one thing genius can’t do is teach you to be one. It’s inside them, it’s who they are. Genius can’t be taught. This is why even if Roger Federer teaches me tennis, I’m never going to be anything more than a amateur. This is why Sachin Tendulkar is never going to be a great coach.
Genius can’t teach. Genius just is. Which is why when you are looking for a mentor, you have to stay away from geniuses. They can’t help you even if they want to.
Who can, then?
To get to that answer, first, let’s establish that what you have is some talent and a hunger to get better. You just need someone to show you the way, guide you.
So you should find someone like you, someone with talent and hunger who pushed both these things far enough to succeed.
Keeping the cricket analogy going, you need to find Rahul Dravid. Dravid was also incredibly talented. You can’t reach that level unless you are. But Dravid was not a genius, he was a trier. He pushed his talent and ability, both physical and mental, to their limits. He wasn’t a genius in the way Sachin was, but he huffed and puffed and taught himself to beat the odds.
Rahul Dravid was always going to be the better coach, the better mentor. Because he knew how to push his talent, he can teach you too.
So when looking for and choosing a mentor, look for your Dravid, not for Sachin.
2. Your mentor should be your friend
I got lucky with mentors.
Because your first mentors are always going to be your managers.
By some stroke of luck, I’ve had great ones. I’ve worked with Girish Mathrubootham, Paras Chopra, and now Vijay Rayapati. Each one is special in their own way, and each one has mentored me in different ways.
But these are all CEOs, and as time went on, all of them had very little time to spend advising me on my career and my marketing. And I realised I needed more, someone who could look at my career and self from an outside-in, compassionate perspective, and tell me things I should be or could be doing, even sometimes tell me I’m okay where I was, that I needed to pause.
I needed a friend.
And this was who became my mentor, a friend of many years, a senior in the industry, with his own career and goals, but who also actually cared for me and where I was going. I trust his judgement, and take his counsel when I need it. And based on his experience in life, he helps me make good decisions, and avoid bad ones.
So when looking for and choosing a mentor, look among your friends, among people you can trust.
A couple more small pointers:
Your mentor shouldn’t be too far ahead of you. For example, someone 20 years ahead of you may be a great mentor in life, but probably not that great a mentor in marketing. The world has changed too much for their tactical advice to be very useful.
If you can’t establish a mentor-mentee relationship with friendship at its core, say it’s more like you are acquaintances, try to see if it can be mutually beneficial. What can you bring to the table that the senior person can use? Become valuable for them, and they’ll become valuable for you.
Best of luck! A supportive mentor can be difference between a good career and a great career.
Note to readers
The newsletter has been absent the last couple of months, for which I apologise.
Work was the primary reason, and there was other stuff too. But no matter, we are back, and there is not going to be a pause until the end of the year.
What work? This work!
We announced our $11 million seed fundraise!
I was planning the PR blast plus accompanying activities with my team, and that took up the bulk of my time.
But we were able to execute well! TechCrunch covered us really well, as did Forbes. We were able to get into almost every important Indian publication too.
We also made the first proper Atomicwork video, calling it WTH is Atomicwork? The idea was to try to explain our product, and I think we got it down really well.
Have a look, and let me know how you like it. :)
It has been a gratifying time at work, and I will write about how we got this all done soon. But for now, following our funding news, and product announcement, I’m going to relax for a bit.
But that’s only at work. As I said, the newsletter is back, and you can expect it to come to you as it always has. Thank you for reading, and keep supporting The CMO Journal!