find a mentor

I will ask him if he will mentor me as soon as I can figure out the best way to approach the subject. He may not understand what I am asking, in terms of the time involved, expectations, etc. So I need a roadmap of what is involved, so that he can see what he would be agreeing to before asking him for a commitment. That’s only fair. I need to work on the roadmap so I can talk to him next week.

My current one is failing to live up to what I need. He says the right things but his actions aren’t in line with his words. Too bad as I really liked him. I had hope that he was genuine but I think he really just wants to be a “nice guy” and not make the tough decisions.

He’s been really busy lately and so we haven’t talked in quite a while. I happened to run into him at lunch and we ended up talking for an hour. It was a good conversation. I asked questions and he gave truthful answers (not all the answers were positive, but that’s part of the deal). I miss having real conversations with him.

I sent him an email later, thanking him for the talk. He replied (something he has stopped doing with a lot of emails sent to him) and told me that there “are different ways to get where we want to go”. True, and I’ll need to remember that. It was a reminder from him that my way isn’t always the best way.

I thought my mentor would help give me advice/guidance/suggestions on my career. I think he does in a very general sense. I guess I need to ask for more specific feedback from him since he indicated that I need to “improve” in a few areas but didn’t tell me what they were.

Actually, I didn’t think to ask him to be a mentor, but a friend of mine did ask – and he agreed. He’s a nice person and has helped by providing advice but I need to have a better idea of what I want out of the relationship to make it more valuable.

I know who I want as a mentor for my personal life. I need to get the courage to ask…

I’d like to find a mentor at work and then one for my personal life. Finding a work mentor might be easier. At least it’s easier to approach people and ask them.