--- title: Why You Can (and Should) Become a Mentor description: It's one of the most powerful things you can do as a professional canonical: https://time.com/3813551/why-become-mentor/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-10T15:00:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:44:28.158Z og:title: Why You Can (and Should) Become a Mentor og:description: It's one of the most powerful things you can do as a professional og:url: https://time.com/3813551/why-become-mentor/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442fd8627751d4ff/6987ea1035ba6f181cc0ac15/corbis-42-47300679-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 640 og:image:height: 360 og:image:alt: Two businesswomen sitting on grass in park og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why You Can (and Should) Become a Mentor twitter:description: It's one of the most powerful things you can do as a professional twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt442fd8627751d4ff/6987ea1035ba6f181cc0ac15/corbis-42-47300679-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why You Can (and Should) Become a Mentor > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Each week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published weekly. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=f0167f6c-aec6-46a3-a532-d34df10135a2&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Tony Robbins: How to be a better person [Watch (HLS stream): Tony Robbins: How to be a better person](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/pwTCW5Bo.m3u8) (1:30)  _Published 2015-03-11. Tony Robbins talks about his 37-year long career as a life coach._ by [Live in the Grey](https://time.com/author/live-in-the-grey/) ## Live in the Grey Apr 10, 2015 3:00 PM UTC  London, England, UK --- Two businesswomen sitting on grass in park --- Image by © Liam Norris/cultura/Corbis London, England, UK --- Two businesswomen sitting on grass in park --- Image by © Liam Norris/cultura/Corbis Corbis Images by [Live in the Grey](https://time.com/author/live-in-the-grey/) ## Live in the Grey Apr 10, 2015 3:00 PM UTC  A few years ago, I made a major career leap. The jump made me a little nervous, so when I saw a “speed mentoring” event in celebration of International Women’s Day, I signed to be mentored. Imagine my shock when two friends, independently of each other, emailed the event organizer and suggested _me_ as a mentor. I switched sides of the table and met with more than a dozen women over the course of an hour and a half. At the end of the night, everyone listed who they wanted to be matched with for a mentoring relationship and I was the most requested mentor of the night! **What is Mentoring?** Mentoring sounds like such a serious endeavor, but really all it means is giving advice to someone– using your own experiences to provide some perspective or providing specific skill guidance. **Who Is a Good Mentor?** You. You’ve lived. You’ve worked. You’ve loved. You’ve [failed](http://www.liveinthegrey.com/the-skill-of-failing-intelligently/). You’ve been scared. You’ve [succeeded](http://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest/2015/02/20-signs-youre-doing-better-than-you-think-you-are/). There is always someone coming up behind you who could use a hand. You’re never too young to mentor. You’re never too old to be mentored. **MORE** [Why You Should Say Yes to Napping at Work](http://www.liveinthegrey.com/why-you-should-say-yes-to-napping-at-work/) **How Do You Find Someone Who Wants a Mentor?** The best mentoring relationships happen organically. _Listen_– find out who needs help you could provide. Ask a colleague to meet for coffee. Contact your alma mater’s career development office or your alumni network. Check your professional development association for opportunities. I’ve even connected with people through Twitter. Finding someone _to_ mentor is as simple as deciding that you want to _be_ a mentor. **How Do You Mentor?** Tell your story honestly. The more vulnerable you can be, the more helpful you’ll be. This is not the place to brag or gloss over the blood, sweat, and tears. Talk about the times you’ve [failed](http://www.liveinthegrey.com/have-you-made-a-huge-career-mistake/). Talk about the risks you’ve taken. What people really want to hear is that it’s all going to be okay through proof & specific guidance, not platitudes. **MORE** [Tips for Making Friends at Your New Workplace](http://www.liveinthegrey.com/tips-make-friends-at-your-new-job/) **How Much Time Does It Take to Mentor?** It’s up to you. It can be just one phone call or [regular coffee meetings](http://www.liveinthegrey.com/practice-self-care-career/) or even just an open invitation for continued contact by email. You’ll know what feels right. **What Do I Get Out Of This?** A former boss asked me to talk to a young woman who had contacted him. She was considering a job and location change and wanted to know more about my career path. I remembered so clearly what I had been like at her age– the assumptions I’d held about marriage and family getting blown apart, the wild freedom that took hold in that wake. So here I was, more than a decade later, still unmarried, still childless, with a wild, hairpin turn career story behind me and an uncertain journey before me. For this young woman to tell me that listening to me gave her hope was strangely comforting. Our actual lives provide the alternative narratives to popular mythologies that make life much harder than it needs to be. Even beyond that, in telling her my story, I learned more about myself and my journey no longer felt so crazy. **MORE** [Escaping the Career Waiting Trap](http://www.liveinthegrey.com/escaping-career-waiting-trap/) **The Ultimate Secret Superpower** As I got more serious about building my own business, I once again sought a mentor, this time through the New York state [Business Mentor program](http://businessmentor.ny.gov/). I sent her everything I had about my business– financials, proposals, plans. The first thing she said to me when we spoke? “I don’t understand why you think you need a mentor.” And that’s the secret truth here- we know more than we think we do. It’s still important to find and be cheerleaders for each other, but you know more than you think you do. Mentoring is one of the most powerful things you can do as a professional. We all need a “kitchen cabinet” of advisors, people we can call on when we need perspective or guidance. In offering to be that for someone else, you’re likely to find that you’ll add to your bench of cheerleaders, as well. It’s the ultimate virtuous circle. _You can learn more about Susanna on her_ [_website_](http://www.bridgedstrategies.com/)[_,_](http://www.thepreppypostgrad.com/) _and follow her on Twitter_ [_@SusannaDW_](https://twitter.com/SusannaDW)_._ _This_ [_article_](http://www.liveinthegrey.com/can-become-a-mentor/) _originally appeared on_ [_Live in the Grey_](http://www.liveinthegrey.com/)_._ _Read next:_ [_How to Get the Most Out of Having a Mentor_](http://time.com/3774623/get-most-out-having-mentor/?iid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ## Transcript Started out really just for the passion of human beings. I grew up in a really tough environment. I experienced suffering, so I hate to see other people suffer. I'm here because I believe emotion is the force of life. I really got addicted to seeing people light up, and frankly, the love that I got from helping people. And that led to 37, almost a 38 year obsession now, with finding answers for people. [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] Everybody has desires and goals that are different, but we have the same needs. We have a need for certainty, we have a need for uncertainty, surprise, variety, to feel alive. We have a need to feel significant, we have a need to contribute beyond ourself. Some people, their problem meets their needs. And so they're not about, it doesn't matter what you do for them or with them. It's not gonna change. So you have to figure out, what's the leverage? Everybody has something that'll push them over the edge, that'll make change a must, and not a should. Cuz when you should change, you try, and it doesn't work, and you give up. We've all had time when you, for years, you said you're gonna do something, well, one day, finally something happens. You say, not another day, not another moment, this is changing now, and you did it, and you followed through, and you never went back. I'm hungry to always know the road ahead and I really think that is a huge advantage in life. If you know the road ahead, you're not reacting so much. I always told people success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. You know, achieving what you thought was the ultimate dream and then saying, is this all there is? This happens too often to people. It's cuz they know what they want but they don't know what they need. 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