The Hero Leads

Welcome, The Hero Leads readers. Thank you for following the link from the book to this page.
(If you don’t have a copy yet, you can find it on Amazon.)

Chapter 4: Meeting of the Mentor

In this stage of the Hero’s Journey, you seek guidance. You have accepted your Call, but knowing what to do and knowing how to do it are different things. The goal at this stage is to find the wisdom, experience, and perspective that will help you move forward — and to be humble enough to accept it when it is offered.

Questions to ask yourself

• Who in your organization or network has been where you are trying to go?
• What are you trying to figure out alone that someone else has already solved?
• Is pride, stubbornness, or self-reliance keeping you from asking for help?
• Who do you turn to when a decision is harder than it looks?
• Does your mentor know you value their guidance? Are you showing it?
• Who believes in your Call enough to give you honest advice about it?

Find your mentor

The mentor does not always appear. Obi-Wan Kenobi does not walk into everyone’s life at the right moment. More often, you have to seek the guidance out.

Your mentor may not be a single person. They may be a book, a former colleague, a boss who asks better questions than they answer, or someone three levels above you who says yes when you ask for twenty minutes. What they share is perspective. They have been somewhere you haven’t, and they are willing to tell you what they saw.

Humility opens you to insight. That is not a nice idea; it is a practical requirement. If you approach this stage convinced you already know enough, you will get less useful input, make avoidable mistakes, and take longer to get where you are going. Who has the map you need, and have you asked them to share it?