Mentors in a New Light (7/8/14)

As I was reading today one of my biggest beliefs was challenged. The author brought up an interesting point, successful people could have succeeded in spite of their mentors not because of them. I’m a big fan of mentors, and I never even considered the authors point prior to reading his words. However, I should have at least considered it after an interaction I had with a friend/mentor of mine.

I was touching base with my buddy Jeff because we hadn’t spoken in a while and I had a question for him based on a subject he is a subject matter expert in. After I introduced Jeff to my idea he spent the next hour telling me all the reasons I couldn’t do it, why my logic was flawed, and how I would fail.

You see I already had my own personal example of this idea of succeeding in spite of a mentor in my life. Can I make some guarantee that I’m going to prove Jeff wrong? Absolutely not. In fact everything he said could be 100% accurate. However, if I believe what he had to say then I have already failed. That’s why the author said the key isn’t to have a mentor, but to have several mentors. That’s why I have people like Wes who have the opposite point of view. It’s about having diverse opinions from your mentors so that you get the best advise possible.

I heard the story of an author who was rejected by 143 publishers before one, that was going bankrupt, finally gave him a shot. His credit was overextended and he barely had enough cash to put gas in the car. Having everything working against him there was most definitely people in his life recommending he pack it all in. Well he didn’t listen. Before his book was even published he had 20,000 letters of intent to buy it, and over 15+ years Jack Canfield has sold over 500 million copies of the Chicken Soup for the Soul franchise. What if Jack had bought into what the first negative mentor told him to do? Where would he be now?