There is a mentor in everyone around us!

With the recent spurt of young minds embracing entrepreneurship around us, the need for mentors to help them the bridge the gap, due to relatively less experience in walking the corridors of organisations and institutions, is imminent. The mentor stereotype is the experienced entrepreneur who has the ability to impart his / her travails into well-articulated advice. There is a sense of Utopian pedagogy at play here where the more experienced take it upon them to educate the less experienced around them and help them bridge over issues and difficulties. But frankly, an altruistic mind such as this ideal is hard to find and perhaps non-existent.

Organisations like TiE Global, entities which run incubators and accelerators for entrepreneurs and even academic institutions are far and few in between and the average entrepreneur does not get access to most of them. When the advice is needed, one cannot be in perennial wait for the next mentor clinic or workshop. Mentoring is a one to one relationship, the mentor and the mentee, based simply on the needs and aspirations of the mentee and the abilities and resources of the mentor.

But the fascinating aspect of mentoring is, if we are ‘mindful’ there is enough opportunity to learn from everyone around us. We live in rich clusters where there , if we are ready to soak in, there is enough around us. The ‘mentor’ could be a lot of people around us and here are some of them:-

The vibrant peer: Bounce off ideas with that loquacious peer, who is ever ready with advice. She may not be able to give you concrete ideas and technical inputs but can pose critical questions that will poke holes and make you revisit some of your assumptions. Believe me, you have a lot of them who can be of value.

The cynical elder: The risk averse adult who could also be a parent will give you the best ‘risk framework’! They will express concern on the uncertainty, every possible calamity and force majeure and will eke you to think a lot more than taking the plunge.

The retired ‘finance’ professional: We have a great ‘bank’ of retired finance professionals in India. Most of them can give you solid tips and ideas to manage your finances. When you have not dealt finances (even the fresh Ivy league MBA), some of the basic methods with elude you. Capitalising expenses, neglecting the value of ‘gifted’ assets like your parent’s vacant property, and more worryingly the tendency to pay back initial loans from capital. Even the golden question:- What should be my salary? is not easy to answer!

The golden star entrepreneur: Few of us are fortunate enough to hear the ‘My story’ of an established entrepreneur. It is a short term course of entrepreneurship in itself. But always remember, there is a narration fallacy to these stories. In retrospect, everything seems visionary, decisions seem prescient and bullet proof. But you cannot compare your Chapter 1 situation to his/her Chapter 25 advice.

The networked connector: At times you need that connector in life who helps you move forward. In order to make sure that you build up your own list of contacts, it is paramount to find the people around you who know everyone. Have them help you to meet new people. You will find them in conferences, flights and on LinkedIn!

Your listening soul mate: It is crucial to share and have regular dialogue with someone who understands you and where you are in your career or entrepreneurship cycle, who can listen to what happened. Mostly in life, you aren’t looking for a solution or a motivational speech—just some validation of what you do did at a difficult moment.

In most situations in life, you will not find someone who will exactly give you a roadmap of activities nor a specific ‘To Do’ item. True learning is listening to mull over it, looking at what make sense to you and doing what seems appropriate to you! Did you get it wrong – don’t worry tomorrow is another day!