We have talked a lot about mentoring this year. We’ve covered how to find the right mentor, how to be the best mentee, and what to do when your mentor falls off the pedestal you put them on.
Mentoring has played a significant role in my career since I started in HR nearly 20 years ago, which is why I write about it a lot. I am a big supporter of both having a mentor and being one. In fact if your mentor doesn’t have one themselves I suggest you question that.
However, sometimes we can rely too much on advisors and mentors around us.
I was having a great discussion with a group of fellow entrepreneurs recently on the topic of advisors. We had all had experiences where we had made a bad business decision due to listening to our advisor. This was not actually the advisor’s fault though. They only know so much about our business. But we all agreed that in 100% of the cases we shared, we had known in our gut what to do and gone against that intuition to listen to someone we looked up to.
I will never not engage advisors and mentors both professionally and personally, however, I think it is really important to remember that no one knows what is best for you or your business/career better than you.
Gather information from experts around you and those that have gone before you, ask questions and listen, but don’t forget to weight your gut feel higher than any advice you receive. No one knows what is best for you better than you and I would back that your gut will be right every time!
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Sue-Ellen Watts is the founder of wattsnext, specialists delivering relevant HR for the modern world to SMEs across the globe.
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