One basic truth about mentorship is that it is very beneficial to every entrepreneur who hopes to fly high and make a maximum impact in business. It brings out entrepreneurial skills in you. And it does not only make you successful but teaches you how to handle success when it comes. Mentorship inculcates in you the classical entrepreneurial spirit to effectively organize and optimally manage resources.
If you ask most smart or successful people where they learned their craft, they will not talk to you about their time in school. It’s always a mentor, a particularly transformative job, or a period of experimentation or trial and error – Ryan Holiday.
Someone once said that the apprenticeship scheme has produced more millionaires than the university system or education in Nigeria. To borrow a leaf from this statement of fact the mentorship scheme has produced more successful entrepreneurs than our universities. This is because the university curriculum as it were lacks the rich entrepreneurial content in it. Except for a few new-generation universities mostly privately owned which have included some entrepreneurial courses in their curriculum.
Consequently, the universities are busy churning out job hunters whose employability is in doubt and bloating the already saturated unemployment community. In fact, these products of our University system must first undergo mentorship to meet the requirements of the workforce. On the other hand, the mentorship scheme has produced successful entrepreneurs and job creators who have been able to absorb as many as they can. Socrates captures this situation in his words;
Education is the kindling of a flame not the filling of a vessel – Socrates
Education at its best should kindle the fire of entrepreneurship. In other words, education should prepare us to make a change and not make us readily adapt to change. It should empower people to be creative and not the other way around. It should encourage an enterprising spirit. Rather what we have today is an education that fills us with all manner of garbage to pigeonhole us to a particular inclination. It is an education that suppresses our freedom to explore and unleash our creative talents. Also, it is an education that quenches the fire of entrepreneurship and enterprising spirits. It is tailored to fill us with this wrong mentality of studying to work instead of studying to create. This mentality is inimical to the entrepreneurial spirit.
The entrepreneurial spirit is an attitude and perception about the world around us that stirs up the desire to do and achieve more. It is a mindset of success. It is the mindset that dares you to succeed. In clear terms, it is the passion that fuels the fire of success. It is the spirit of creativity and an enforcer of change. And once you stir up the spirit, it changes the way you think, or the way do things with the sole aim of bringing smart solutions.
Major attributes of the entrepreneurial spirit include vision, curiosity, value creation, innovation, ideas, solutions, and change. The entrepreneurial spirit thrives best under the mentorship process. Mentorship makes one think big, and aim higher. And also instills the owner mentality, a mentality that every entrepreneur must possess. It is all about being proactive and exploring new opportunities under the guidance of the mentor.
Who is your mentor?
Once you embrace the absolute truth that every leader needs a mentor, you can begin to achieve the massive growth and success that you seek – Clay Clark.
Without mincing words, if you want to unlock this entrepreneurial spirit and experience massive success you need a mentor. In one of my posts, ‘unleash your talents’ I did say that for you to unleash your talents and succeed you need a mentor. Your mentor is someone who is ready to help you go beyond your limits. And I did say that the elastic band when it is under pressure or overstretch does not return to its original state. Likewise, you can never remain the same under the tutelage of a mentor. Your mentor will help to guide you to break new ground and frontiers.
My writing skill was developed because I was able to go beyond my limits courtesy of my project supervisor. Each time I go to him for supervision he would ask me to write more, to elaborate on my points, and expand my work. Then I would go back to research more and increase the write-up. My ability to write was overstretched and I later came up with a finer work that fetched me a nice grade. But today I have so much developed my writing skills and I can write with so much ease.
How do I choose my mentor?
Hence, for you to receive the much-needed push that will help you go beyond your limits you need mentoring. You need the advice and wealth of experience of a mentor to guide you into the mainstream of the entrepreneurial spirit. Through the advice and guidance of this mentor, you will be able to discover, develop, and unleash your entrepreneurial skills. You must tap into his wealth of experience if you hope to discover your own entrepreneurial qualities. Back then in school, my project supervisor was my mentor who helped me discover, develop, and unleashed my writing skills. But your question might be, how do I choose my mentor?
It is very simple. Who is that person that has done what you want to do? Or who is that person that you aspire to be like? He or she must be someone, who inspires you to greatness in any sphere of life. It must be someone whose method or approach to success appeals to you. It may be someone from the academic, professional, entertainment, creative, tech, or business industry. You must choose, follow and understudy such a person. The good thing about mentorship is that you can have more than one mentor depending on your need for development, be it personal, career, business, or professional development. But the crux of the matter is that you need a mentor to awaken the entrepreneurial spirit in you. That is a major import of mentorship.
Be inspired, be determined, and dare to succeed.