I met with Daniel, who’s been my mentor through an EO program for the past 12 months. In this video, for once I stayed behind the camera for a good part as I was capturing a conversation between Dani and Elena. They talked about how to find yourself a mentor as well as how to become a mentor to others.
Video Transcript
So we’re just getting up and we’re getting ready to head over to the airport. It’s a short tram ride away and we are flying to Hamburg. It’s shortly before 6:00 a.m. and we’re waiting for the tram to take us to the airport and our flight leaves in about roughly an hour.
So Elena and I are headed to Hamburg. There are a few reasons. One is I’m meeting my EO mentor. We both haven’t been in a while, there are a few friends that we want to meet.
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We’ve landed in Hamburg, I slept most of the way. We’re going to meet our friend Daniel and see what we’re up to today.
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So we just enjoyed a really nice dinner. Hamburg is a lot more beautiful than I had in mind and of course, this place has a great view. We just saw the sunset and now we’re just enjoying time sitting together.
On mentorship
I used the opportunity to film a conversation between Elena and Daniel who used to be my mentor or who was my mentor for the past 12 months and who’s helped me hold myself accountable.
Daniel: I think one of the most important things or one key to success is you define some really good goals for the mentorship, for the time you are going to work together. And those, of course, have to be the goals that are important to the mentee. It can be everything almost, it can be personal things, it can be goals related to the family, it can be of course also business goals.
Elena: What is something that you personally gained from this whole being a mentor, yeah?
Daniel: It’s a nice thing, just a chance to be kind of a role model for someone. You really can grow into all areas that you are interested in.
Elena: If you do a coaching session, how does it typically look like?
Daniel: There is a little bit of guidance about it so there’s a worksheet. The mentee has to be prepared for the session.
Elena: What’s the worksheet about?
Daniel: It’s mainly about the goals. And we always focus on the three main goals the mentee has. The main thing is about asking the right questions and not giving too much advice.
Those sessions usually have a little bit of structure which is fixed or monthly update worksheet where you discuss what are still your main goals. Overall, you need to be sure the mentee is working on them.
Elena: Thanks for answering my questions, it was really, really insightful and I think I will get more into finding a mentor.
Daniel: So what was the best outcome for you?
Elena: At first, I thought this whole mentoring program would be something like a teacher-student thing but it’s really nice to see that you actually learn from each.
Daniel: Wonderful answer, it was very nice talking to you!
The value in mentorship
So a beautiful day is coming to an end. We got up before sunrise and now we just witnessed the beautiful sunset here in Hamburg. Early in the morning jumped on a plane, flew here and then we had a pretty relaxed but fun day.
And now we’ve enjoyed a beautiful dinner, we barbecued and I just listened to Ellie and Daniel talk about mentorship. Also, a few interesting things for me to take away. Daniel has been my mentor for the past 12 months. It’s been super helpful for me to have someone who helps me hold myself accountable as someone who asks questions that are a bit uncomfortable. Someone that reminds me of my goals on at least a monthly rhythm.
Looking back, it’s been a super, super interesting year. I remember 12 months ago I felt that there was not enough focus in my life and for a long time I was working on a solution. And I think having these mentorship sessions, working on the problem over and over again and constantly having that big goal in the back of my mind really helped me come to a decision and figure it out.
How to find a mentor
If you are a part of EO or most other business that works, there’s probably a way for you to get in touch with someone who could be your mentor. Even if it’s an informal program, you could just approach someone that you feel could contribute value and give you advice on a lot of the things that you are looking to work on.
Daniel mentioned a great book which we’re going to link in a post that could help you understand both the processes and questions you could ask and the way you could interact with each other to come to most success.
But if you’re not part of one of these organizations, then I think the best way is to just think about who in your life that you already know, who could be someone that you would really enjoy having a monthly check-in with. Someone that holds you accountable, someone that you respect and look up to in a certain area of life.
How to become a mentor
And if you’re looking to be a mentor, I think it’s as easy as offering people that you feel could profit from your knowledge a way to exchange thoughts and get together every now and then and talk about how you could each profit from each other.
And with that, I think we’re just going to enjoy the beautiful sunset…
Part of the mentorship was that we were running a 100-day challenge where every day we work out and we follow a certain diet. And we still have the push-ups to do tonight. So before that, we’re going to enjoy the rest of the sunset, get our push-ups done and then probably head to bed soon. And with that, I’ll talk to you tomorrow!
You can listen to the audio version here:
