5 powerful lessons my mentors taught me which will also help you in your career!

Hello Viewers

Perhaps most of us want to have a good mentor, and it's not quite easy to have the right one. Due to internal politics in every organization, not everyone is having a down-to-earth mentor always.

But as a gift, I got real mentors with zero egos and attitude to educate me on everything they knew in the technical and professional aspects.

I Just want to present the same lessons I've learned from them to all of my viewers through this article.

Here are those five lessons from my mentors:

1 | Build relationships and have fun. 

My First Mentor was one of the partners I worked with during my Short term Deputation in Lippstadt, Germany. I realized quickly that most people enjoyed working for her more than for other partners, even though she was at times quite chaotic. So what was it that drew people in? She was always making an effort to get to know the people she interacted with her team, her clients, and other people she met along the way. She learned about people’s motivations and what’s important to them in the job, and more importantly, in their private life. She cared. And she liked to have fun with the team and we celebrated milestones and successes regularly 🎉

2 | Come prepared. 

I met my Mentor 2 at Strategy, after moving back to India. We often collaborated on thought leadership, business development, and client projects. I always admired how clearly he knew what needs to get done and how structured he was (and that’s coming from a German 😉). He always did his homework before meetings or before starting a new initiative and researched the available literature, learned about the stakeholders involved, and developed a clear vision of what success looks like. When he later left consulting to start his own company, I knew it would be successful as he always puts in the work to prepare and validate a decision. And, he just raised a successful Series A and is expanding to additional markets.

3 | Set the context. 

I had the pleasure to work many years alongside Mentor 3 while at the strategy and took away many lessons from him. The one that stuck most was “always set context” 📣. 

There was no meeting with Mentor 3 that didn’t start with context setting. Ever. 

No matter how painful it seemed and how urgently the client wanted to move to the “real” discussion points. Mentor 3 wanted to make sure everyone is on the same page. And more often than not, it was necessary to recap what got us to a certain recommendation and to deliver it with our framing. Never assume people come prepared for a meeting. And never assume someone else conveyed your line of reasoning convincing as you would.

4 | Choose and commit. 

Mentor 4 taught me to focus my attention. She at least tried to, it’s still a work in progress for me. Do you know the unsatisfied feeling of not progressing? By doing shallow work instead of deep work? Instead of letting yourself get pulled in too many directions by following a variety of interests at the same time, pick a couple that you want to focus on and commit to them for a specific time frame with a specific goal 🎯. Then, evaluate if you want to continue or pivot to another item on your list.

5 | Do the hard mental work. 

I met Mentor 5 outside of work. She is one of my teachers and an amazing businesswoman. Last year I ran into big problems when I was pursuing my short-term professional course. I fell off multiple times from the topic and was unable to focus and stick with the class, I was scared to get back on. I thought I was in way over my head. But Mentor 5 was there. She has this gift to instill a lot of confidence in you and guided me with her advice to do the hard mental work to push through my fear, get back on, and ultimately succeed. I remember until today when she said, “Pursue your course like the way you want to be!” [and don’t listen thinking about all the bad things that might happen]. Visualizing and feeling what success looks like and then executing on it has been immensely powerful and something I now also apply in my professional life.

👉 I hope you find these five lessons helpful as you progress in your career. It was fun to pause and think back at what I’ve learned from my fantastic mentors. Thanks to everyone who has been part of my journey so far and invested in me and my career!

>>>>>>>>>>Thanks for your time<<<<<<<<<<