Finding A Great Mentor Vs. Getting An Education

With the cost of advanced education constantly rising, and with the common idea that a college education is absolutely necessary in order to have a successful life, how much have any of you thought about what you are giving up? For example, various Google sources say 2012 college graduates owed an average of $27,000 in student loans, graduates from smaller schools owed an average of $38,000, and a few schools had graduates owing up to $47,000. In addition, Bloomberg Businessweek says many people in their 60s continue to owe student loans; it’s unclear if this money was theirs, or did they borrow it for their children?

What does all this borrowed money get you? Bloomberg Businessweek further says the US has over 100,000 janitors with college degrees and 16,000 parking lot attendants with degrees. There is nothing wrong with any of these occupations, but it seems a waste of money for the college education, when an eighth grade diploma would do.

I have an MBA, but the reason I got it was not to get a better job, but to avoid being by-passed if an opportunity came along. It has never done me any good except to say I have it. Except for a basic accounting course and a statistic course, I’ve never used anything I studied in college. I discovered that all companies have their own versions of training programs. The main reason for a college degree is that it shows you are able to complete various projects. In fact, Bloomberg says that several of the most prestigious universities, like Harvard, have become very expensive screening tools. It’s not what you learn at Harvard, what impresses employers is the fact that you were able to get into Harvard at all.


MENTORS AND PROFESSORS
This article is about getting the best training possible to help you succeed in business. There are great differences between great mentors and normal college professors. First, let’s look at the dictionary definition for the two terms.
The definition of mentor says he is: a wise and trusted counselor or teacher, or an influential senior sponsor or supporter.

A professor is: a teacher of the highest academic rank in a college or university, who has been awarded the title Professor in a particular branch of learning; any teacher who has the rank of professor, associate professor, or assistant professor.

From these definitions you would think a professor is the best help you can get. As we shall see, this is not always true because you need someone who is well schooled in the real world to guide you through the daily problems you will often encounter.

THE COMMONLY ACCEPTED FALSEHOOD OF EDUCATION

Most of our discussion in the rest of this article is about a series of lectures by Michael Ellsberg and others. The first idea on the list is the myth, believed by most people, that the only way to get an education is to go through the standard grade school program, and then go on to college or grad school. These lectures seek to displace this progression as nothing more than a myth.

The best way to get a useful education for entrepreneurs is to find people smarter, more accomplished, and wiser than we are and hangout with them while we are soaking up the things they know. That is real education, not memorizing facts from some book.

Going to college is one way of exposing yourself to wiser, more knowledgeable people. That’s what our society says you have to do. It’s true, some college professors are among the smartest people on Earth. But, depending on what you want to do, this may be a very inefficient way to get an education.

This is so because professors have accomplished little in the real world. This is especially true of professors in the business field. They have completed years of study, they may have several graduate degrees, and they are comfortably settled in to lifetime jobs as tenured professors. What do they know about being an entrepreneur? Most know nothing at all.

It is not my intention to bad mouth all professors. There are many, particularly in the science fields, who have contributed great improvements to our daily life. So, if you are not looking to be an entrepreneur, by all means go for this kind of college education. The same is true if you want a college degree just to make yourself feel better, which is what I did. What you should realize, however, is something I knew nothing about at the time. That is what we are about to discuss, finding a great mentor and learning from them.

FINDING YOUR MENTORS

Although your professors can’t be fired, that’s not how the real world of entrepreneurs works. As an entrepreneur, if you make mistakes, your business goes broke, and you automatically get fired. That brings up something else about going the traditional education way. Everything you get is handed to you because you, or your parents, have paid for the service. You are told what books to read, and where to go for the services you have bought. Nobody ever tells you how to find a mentor who can show you all about entrepreneurship; that’s what you miss with traditional education. The people you want to hang out with, and learn from, don’t have office hours, and they don’t have a course book telling you where to sign up.

The first thing you need to learn about finding mentors is that you must give something to them in return for what you expect from them. You may think you have nothing to give, but you must figure something because one great connection can shape the rest of your life.

One way to give something is to ask a potential mentor what you can do for them. This mixes nicely with the importance of networking. When you are at any meeting or gathering where a lot of potential mentors may be, start a conversation with two questions, something like these: “What are you up to?,” and, “How can I help you with what you are up to?”

Social media like Facebook and Twitter can be useful as business networking tools. If you have met someone you want to stay in touch with, social media are an excellent way to do this. You can establish a relationship this way by commenting on things your target is saying.

If you persist, you will get your business up and running. At this time, one of your main entrepreneurial functions is that of rainmaking. To make rain, you must continue to network as often as possible. The reason is that most everything your business needs comes from referrals, which result from some kind of networking activity.

From these activities you have generated things you can give to others. You have learned enough so that you can give advice in some cases, and, most important, because you are networking you can bring relationships to the table.

Though you may think you are too inexperienced to have anything to offer a potential mentor, don’t overlook this important gift. This gift is your willingness to put your whole self, without any restraints, into putting their advice into practice. For starters, everyone wants to leave a well known legacy; the more people they have who are knocking themselves out to take the given advice, the more important will the legacy be.

An important thing to remember about mentors and their legacies is that mentors want to give their legacy to givers, not to the takers who show up empty handed, which is how most people approach a mentor. They ask for help with nothing to give in return.

The right way to approach a mentor is to first find out all you can find out about them. Google will tell you a lot about your mentor. You should spend hours reading newspaper articles and read their social media feeds to keep up with what they are doing. Find and read any blog posts they may have made, and buy any books they wrote. Read and study all this stuff so you will be informed enough to approach your mentor not acting like a taker.

A taker will say something like, “You don’t know me, but may I pick your brain about some ideas I have?” I don’t know anyone who wants their brain picked. Armed with your load of information you now have a much better way to approach your potential mentor. You can now say something like, “I read your three books and I am just so blown away by this point you made in book X, and it really changed my perspective on that. But I’ve been reading all your stuff and there’s this one point, and I haven’t seen how it could apply to my business. I don’t quite get how that would apply in my business. Would it be okay if I just ask you a few questions at some point on how to apply such-and-such to what I’m doing?”

This kind of approach shows that you care about your possible mentor and that you are willing to put in a lot of time putting their advice to work. You will be flattering your mentor while you are asking for help.


IS THIS AN EDUCATION REVOLUTION?

At the end of the lecture series the point is made that it seems the old model of traditional education may be undergoing a revolution. Young people are beginning to see they are incurring debt which could be with them for the rest of their lives to get outmoded training which means little in the real world of today.
We have already seen that a large proportion of college graduates are working in jobs that have no career opportunities, and that are totally unrelated to their college training. This ignores the fact that another 22% of people under 25 with BA degrees are unemployed. All this information indicates an educational system that is broken. The acquisition of mentors we have been discussing is a much better way to get the training we need as entrepreneurs.

CONCLUSION

The intent of this article is not to discourage you from going to college. It is meant to show you the need to acquire mentors that can actually help you become an entrepreneur. We have also shown some ways to attract potential mentors. This was something I never heard of when I was in college; it is most important for those going into business as an entrepreneur.
You will need to decide what your own course of action will be.