I was a child when I first wanted to play chess and I remember my brother coaching me how to play it. He explained the pawns, the roles of various pawns and their movement conditions, the moves to make and finally what’s check mate. Post this training I would always lose to him until one day I won and I doubted if he on purpose made the game easy for me to win. It turned out that he played his best but I had gotten better and that’s what I call the feeling of elixir. Today when I look back I can clearly see that he trained, held my hand, then challenged me but brought the best out of me, in a nutshell he mentored me to glory.

All of us need mentors for everything in life. We don’t, at birth, inherit all the lessons of life, we pick them partially on the journey through living, many from mentors and rest from elsewhere. The best and long lasting ones are taught by experiences of life. The ones that mould us, make us and groom us come from mentors. Not everyone is lucky to find a great mentor but everyone must look out for one.

Whether you are an entrepreneur or a doctor, a surgeon or a cricketer, a singer or a formula one racer you need to learn from those who have been there and done it. They mentor you to success in what you do. They tweak you, correct you, empower you and help you bring the best of you out of you that you one day go well beyond what your mentors were capable of.

While on one side it is important to choose a mentor, in today’s world it isn’t easy one, where a lot of them are self claimed gurus and a lot others are mentoring to their own good and favour and selfish reasons. According to my experience there are few things to keep in mind while choosing a mentor.

1. Choose someone who has interest in your growth irrespective of possibilities of mutual benefit.
2. Choose someone who is wise than being rich with information or money .
3. Choose someone who is a product of hard work, struggle & self dependency.
4. Choose someone who has excelled multiple times in what you wish to achieve and grow on to pioneer.
5. Choose someone who can take interest in your life, empower you not spoon-feed you, grow you not sub-due you, inspire you not discourage you and someone who can give you a vision and not make you follow blindly.
6. There is no “one mentor fits everything” concept and it’s also true that everything your mentor does is not right, he is wisest for his work that you might need to do.

These are few most important points to keep in mind when you are choosing a mentor. A mentor is indeed a commitment you make, to learn, to reinforce, to implement, to follow, to rise, to get wise and to make an impact that your life was meant to make. So, make that commitment with all your heart but wisely and rightly so that you don’t have to keep looking back and you aren’t left astray at any stage. If you read the hindu mythology it talks about the popular Eklavya who had been a disciple to Dronacharya but never really met him, instead just with the commitment of considering him as his guru he went on to become the most powerful archer. This is a clear example to indicate that mentor is a commitment to learning and if you can make that to yourself or someone you respect and admire & wish to emulate you have gotten half-way there. Wishing you a great journey ahead of leadership & success. May you find the best mentors at every stage and achieve all that you desire wherever you are and whichever field you are setting out to make history.