Becoming a Leader

Your success as a leader depends on having these three people in your life

1. You need a mentor – an older person to give you guidance

2. You need a companion – a person who will listen and encourage you

3. You need an apprentice – a person you are training

The Mentor

A mentor teaches you faster than you can teach yourself. The stories, the guidance, the wisdom that they provide give you the benefit of understanding the world we live in before you actually live it. And the emotional support and reassurance that somebody who has "been there and done that" can offer to a greenhorn is invaluable as you navigate your way through new experiences.
One of the most beneficial steps you can take is to seek out mentors. It is no accident that Luke Skywalker needed his Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars series, that Daniel-san needed Mr. Miyagi in the classic Karate Kid movie series, or that Alexander the Great needed Aristotle as his teacher and mentor. Each of these mentors played a huge part in the success of their apprentice.
Every young hero (you) needs a master to learn from so that you can grow in knowledge, insight, understanding, and wisdom. You need the guidance of somebody with greater experience to act as a sounding board and sympathetic ear in those confusing and difficult times.
I urge you to seek out a mentor. Whether it’s an old boss, a more senior colleague, or simply and older person that you admire, develop those relationships that can make your growth and development richer, better-informed, and more successful.

The Companion

The companion is that person who knows you so well that he can read between the lines of what you say and hear what you aren’t saying.

Your companion must share your core values, those things that make you who you are, those values that you never want to compromise even when you are all alone and no one is watching.

This person must be of the same gender, close to your age, and have things in common with you. This person listens to you when you’re happy, when you’re sad, and when you’re angry.

This companion is more than just a friend. This companion is the person you can count on to come help you at 2:00 a.m. when you are working night shift and your car breaks down on the way home.

This is the person who cares so deeply about you and your success that he will give up his own convenience for your good.

The Apprentice

The apprentice is the person you are teaching, mentoring, and pouring your life into to help them in the same way your mentor is helping you.

We never really master a subject until we have taught that subject to another person. You need an apprentice for you sake as well as for his sake, so that as you help another person you yourself are mastering the subject.

As you teach another person the knowledge you have gained become clearer, you begin to see how that knowledge and shaped you, resulting in your successes or failures. In other words, that knowledge becomes wisdom as it moves from simply head-knowledge to heart-knowledge.

Until we begin teaching what we have learned and experienced our knowledge remains foggy and unclear. The lines never become defined so that we can explain why we believe what we believe, so that we ourselves cannot make full use of the knowledge we have gained over the years. But as we begin teaching another person we rethink our experiences and explain them through examples to where they move from our head to our heart, and the result is that we ourselves establish a firm basis for our own personal convictions and believes.

Until next time…

Jim