Yesterday I attended an outstanding seminar on mentorship hosted by Arlyn Reid and presented by Laura Reid for the Legal Marketing Association Vancouver Chapter. The handouts and PowerPoint slides were detailed and packed with great ideas. They will be up on the LMA Vancouver website later this week.
I walked away from the lunch with a number of great new ideas on the subject. But here is my number one take-away from the session:
Mentors – don’t stop at one, have three, have four, have as many as you need.
That was a very new concept for me. I was always of the view that if you are lucky you have one mentor – and by mentor I mean someone who is actively playing that role in your life as opposed to someone who was assigned the role but doesn’t show up for the job!
Laura has a number of mentors. Recognizing that no one person has all the answers Laura has collected an assortment of mentors with different strengths and perspectives. For instance she has a hard-nosed business mentor who can be counted on to give her the “reality check”. She has a creative mentor for bouncing ideas around with. And she has a number of other mentors as well.
I’ve wasted no time and am immediately expanding my team of mentors while taking on some more mentees of my own.
If you are interested in bringing some mentors into your own life, take a moment to review the handouts on the LMA Vancouver site, and contact those people who you would like to have as mentors. Most people are honored to be asked. If you are practicing at a law firm that assigns a mentor, you don’t have to stop there. Consider taking the initiative to add another mentor with a different skill set to your mix and double your opportunities for learning. Mentorship relationships can be a great source of professional development.
“A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.” (Chinese proverb)
