Get a Mentor, Not a Teacher

Mentoring is supposed to be an intensive, individualized and private experience. If you aren’t getting one-on-one attention, you’ve got a teacher -- not a mentor.

Unfortunately, this presents a challenge for both parties. For mentors, it means turning down capable protégés if you’ve already committed to another. And for students, it could mean going to the trouble of identifying the perfect mentor only to be turned down for scheduling reasons -- which may or may not be explained to you.

Don’t push it. The goal of a mentoring relationship is progress, and that’s only possible if the guidance is individualized. There is a mentor or protégé out there for you, but you’ve got to wait for the timing to be right.

(taken from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/270752)

Saala Khadoos

Just saw the movie today. It’s about an ex-boxer (R.Madhavan) finding a young girl (Ritika Singh) who used to sell fishes to earn a living. He saw boxing talent in her and trained and backed her, eventually resulting in her winning the World Championship in Boxing. Some may think that this sounds next to impossible. However looking at the plot of the movie, I feel that her winning the championship was an inevitable outcome.

Clear & inherent skill set: Ritika was shown as a fish seller who had a short temper and used to often get into fights. In one such fight, she was seen by Madhavan, who immediately realized how skilled she was and had immense potential if trained well.

Combination of passion & hardwork: Once Madhavan was able to convince Ritika about making a career in boxing, Ritika showed immense passion in pursuing the same. She was extremely energetic and could train under her coach for long periods.

Amazing mentor: Madhavan was shown to have the requisite skill (as he had nearly won the championship himself some years back) and the passion to drive Ritika. He held her hand through all her ups and downs and followed his belief that she could become a great boxer.

Distancing emotions from work: When Ritika was shown to fall in love with Madhavan which deviated her from her career, Madhavan kept pushing her towards her boxing. She faced a lot of problems at this time. Eventually when she realized the value of her career, she was able to put in immense hard work which led her to winning the championship.

I really liked the movie, though I felt that a little more about the hard work put in by Ritika and how she won her matches could be shown. It’s an inspiring movie which teaches us the importance of passion, hard work and grit to succeed in life.

The importance of having a Mentor!

A mentor can prove to be a very useful resource for a startup. A mentor can loosely be defined as a person who advises and hand-holds a startup team. Typically mentors are people who have successfully started up themselves in the past or may also be someone having expertise in particular domains like marketing, technology etc. Hence mentors can help startups in a variety of ways such as:

- making and refining the business plan and revenue plan

- assisting in hiring the right guys

- forming a mission, vision and culture

- advising in particular focus areas like technology, marketing etc.


Let's take an example of a new born baby. The parents are the ones who take care of the baby. They look after the baby's comfort, growth and all other aspects. They face challenges as it's new for them. They try to overcome them and also tend to make mistakes along the way. To mitigate these mistakes, you have the grand parents. The role of the grand parents is to share their experience and expertise so as to lower the chances of mistakes. They share the best practices which they have read about and experienced earlier.

The same analogy can be applied to a startup. The role of the mentors is to share best practices and expertise to ensure that the founding team can grow their startup in a more efficient manner. Founding teams bring in the idea, the energy, the time and the persistence. Mentors add the expertise and experience. So for a better more complete startup team, mentors are a must have.