I have always believed that one of the most valuable assets your career can have is a good mentor. It got me to thinking what the origins were of mentorship.

My research led me to learn that the original Mentor is a character in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. When Odysseus, King of Ithaca went to fight in the Trojan War, he entrusted the care of his kingdom to Mentor.  The Mentor served as the teacher and overseer of Odysseus’s’ son, Telemachus.  It is hard enough to spell these names let along pronounce them!

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a mentor as “a trusted counselor or guide. Normally a mentor is an individual, usually older, always more experienced, who helps and guides another individual’s development.

A key is that this guidance is not done for personal gain.

It takes the same level of interest, commitment, and confidence in your own abilities that it takes to mentor a student. It also requires that you be sincerely interested in someone else’s growth. You generally won’t win any awards, but you will have the satisfaction of having done an important job.
Some of us are lucky enough to have had a mentor. Others just want to help out, be a positive influence, or give something to their community. What ever your reason for being a mentor, you will find it a special experience.

Nothing can quite match the self satisfaction you get from sharing your experience to help others and over the years I have found that Network Marketing is the best environment for mentorship. So now your choice is do you want to be the mentor or the mentee? Either way you will be well served! By the way are two mentors called Mentos?

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