Strategic mentors are incredibly valuable in growing your career and developing your personal prospects in multiple areas of life. If you are fortunate, you will have multiple strategic mentors at various points in your career who are best suited to your current career stage.
That shouldn't mean, however, that you ever lose touch with someone who has been a high-impact strategic mentor for you.
Even if someone doesn't play the primary strategic mentor role in your career now, it's incredibly valuable to remain in close touch over time. Though your relationship may be different, be sure to:
- Stay connected with a previous strategic mentor because chances are you haven't tapped all your mentor's wisdom.
- Relive the old days because your mentor may remember details, challenges, and successes you've forgotten but would do best to remember.
- Share how you are applying things you learned from your mentor because that's returning value in exchange for the value you received.
- Pick up the tab for a meal you share because it's a small token of appreciation.
- Go out of your way to respond quickly and perform a favor requested by your mentor because they did the same for you at one point in time.
If you've fallen out of a touch with a strategic mentor from earlier in your career, reach out now to get back in touch soon.
A Correction
In a recent post on favorite Brainzooming posts for 2013, I listed guest bloggers who contributed their expertise to the Brainzooming blog. I inadvertently left John Q. Harrington off the list. John is a longtime friend who contributed a number of well-received guest posts last year that I'd invite you to check out!
Sorry for the omission, Q! - Mike Brown
