What’s A Mentor? Why Are They Important?

Most of us have been stuck at one time or another in our lives. If you’re stuck in life, consider a mentor.

A mentor is someone who offers guidance, support, and advice based on their knowledge, experience, or expertise—often in a professional or personal development context. A mentor helps another person (the mentee) grow, learn new skills, navigate challenges, and reach their goals.

Whether it’s for business, personal development, fitness, etc, a qualified mentor can help you reach your goals much faster than trying to go it alone.  I’ve had (and still have) multiple mentors and still rely on their advice from time to time.  To me, the best mentor is someone who “walks the walk” and is accomplishing their goals on a large scale.  Not someone who reads a book or watched a YouTube video and calls themselves an expert, or says, “Back in my day…”

Be very selective when you’re choosing; take your time.

As mentioned, I’ve had (and have) mentors and have mentored others.  Here’s an email that I received from Michael.

Scott,

Recently, I have amp’ed up my personal development/growth efforts, and something keeps making things of our friendship and the past. I want to take a few minutes to express some gratitude and regrets.

I want to start with my gratitude. First, thank you for being a friend. I know that we did not spend much time together when I was in Austin, and even way less now that I am in San Antonio, but I consider you to be a very great friend of mine.

I still remember showing up to FullForce Fitness (Scott’s fitness bootcamp that ran from 2001-2008) at the old location and you pushing me to climb a rope when I had never climbed one. I was scared, but something in the way you said to just try told me I knew I could give it my all. From there, I worked hard to give my best effort in whatever you put in front of us. In my adulthood, you were one my first ever coaches, and by coach, I mean more than just in the gym and a workout, but in life.

This leads to me to one of my regrets: many times, you offered yourself to me as more than just a friendship but as a life coach and mentor. I don’t know if you did this on purpose or unknowingly, but you did, and I can recall countless moments I took for granted. Many times, you talked to me about passive income, how you were making money while you slept through online products and services. I listened to these stories, but just as many do, in one ear and out the others with the tough, “That would be nice, but I don’t know how”. I remember you trying to guide me in the right direction with the idea of writing an ebook/guide on obstacle course runs, but I remember doubting my abilities and knowledge and quitting before even starting due to fear of failure.

I remember going to the seminar at Crossfit Central and being introduced to Joe Vitale, and also being surrounded by so many greats in the fitness industry. I highly enjoyed the day, but as with so many things in my life, I did not take action from anything I learned that day.

One other regret I have is missing the chance you gave me to assist and coach at your fitness boot camp. When I was there, I gave what I could as a coach, but looking back, I could have given more.

As I sit here speaking of some of the regrets I have from the past, I am also grateful for all of them because they are things I had a chance to grow our friendship with, and I can still learn from the past and avoid repeating failures. So to sum up my regrets, the ones I listed and others, basically come down to I wish I would have spent more time learning from you because I feel you offered tons of knowledge to me.

Not writing to just express regret; I also wanted to just reach out and say hi. As stated in the opening, I have been spending a lot of time with personal growth/development, and so many of the things that I regret not spending the time learning in the past still live with me today, but they make so much sense to me. I have started reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, have a life coach here in SA, and continue to find little resources like YouTube Channels about growth. I think you opened me up to the movie “The Secret”, which, seeing the movie after meeting Joe Vitale, tripped me out since he was in it. It was one of those kick myself in the butt moments with the thoughts, “I had an entire afternoon with him and even ate lunch with him and did not know who he was”. I am getting sidetracked. Before I got sidetracked, I spent a lot of time referring to The Secret; the world was starting to open up to me, and I was attracting the knowledge of Personal Growth.

With this knowledge coming in from all directions, it seems, I feel like trying to share this knowledge to the world and I will figure out my way in doing it, I am still formulating my plan of attack, and I have learned to not be scared of failure along the way.

Other aspects of life are going very well also. A few years ago, while still in Austin, my wife and I decided that we wanted to move to be close to family, but we needed to find the right job to allow us to continue the quality of life that we wanted. It took about 1.5 years to find that job, but we never gave up, and we found the job we were looking for. We also set the goal for when we arrived we would buy a house (our first house), and after about 6-8 weeks of hunting in a crazy market, we finally found one and starting all our inspections and other tasks, and assuming nothing is wrong with the house we will be moving into it at the end of next month.

When life calms down for a weekend, I would like to come out and visit you again when each of us has a free weekend. I will not be a stranger and follow through with getting out there at some time, if you would not mind.

I guess in one last part of this letter, I don’t know what is involved and how to go about it fully, but I know I will be needing to find some sort of proper mentor for life and my goals, and as I look at how you handle your life and provide for your family you are the first that comes to mind for me to learn from. So, I asking on this last part if, as I learn to be a mentee if you would be my mentor. I fully understand if you don’t have time to be a mentor, but if you do, I would be very grateful (even though I would not know where to start).

To wrap this letter up, I would like to thank you again for being such a great friend in my life, and I hope life is going well for you and your family. Hope to hear from you soon.

– Michael

From Scott – Michael and I did meet up, work out, and hang out.  As much as he may have benefited from me, I know that I benefited in my time with him.  A win-win.