Mentoring for clarity | Fola Daniel Adelesi

There are certain things that seem so clear, but when you get on those projects or when you get on that vision, or when you try to start achieving that goal, you will realize that you don't have as much clarity as you thought you should have. Clarity is pivotal to every project or any other thing and mentors can provide the much-needed clarity to help you achieve the things you need to achieve.

One of the main reasons you should have a mentor is for the purpose of clarity. You know, you can come up with an idea, and you think that the idea is good. You may be convinced that the idea is brilliant, and you think you have everything figured out. Then your mentor tells you, present this idea to me or pitch this idea to me, and you start talking. Then you begin to stutter. You can't see it clearly anymore. Then some critical elements are suddenly missing.

Sometimes your mentor doesn't even have to say anything. Just by trying to present the idea, pitch the business idea or whatever project you're working on, or you just try to explain it, you notice that you are struggling to explain the same concept that you thought you had clarity with. The moment you start struggling to explain something, you should know that you don't have clarity. In some other cases, you know, you're confused. You don't need anybody to tell you.

This is one of the reasons you can go to another person who serves as a mentor is to gain clarity. It could be clarity regarding marital issues. It could be clarity regarding a business decision, a financial decision, a decision about your children, a decision about your project, or a decision about finances. Your mentor is expected to have a level of versatility and some years of experience in life that qualifies the person to be your mentor. It does not mean that your mentor knows it all. There are times they don’t even have an answer for you but when you share your issues, they’re still able to tell you one or two things from experiences. That will then guide you towards the actions you need to take.

There are so many things that require clarity in this life and you need someone who’s more experienced to help with that clarity. It's important that you have a mentor who can help you gain clarity. And if you don't have these kinds of mentors, you should try as much as possible to figure things out. Look, the reality is that there are certain things you can't figure out on your own. There are certain things you cannot figure out amongst your peers. There are certain things you cannot figure out at Howard Business School. Even if you go to Yale, and go to all the best schools in the world, you will never be able to figure them out on your own.

You will not even find some of them on the pages of books or on the Internet. They’re not there. Some of the things you need clarity with are sitting in the bellies of some wise people around you. They haven’t been able to sit to write a book about it and they themselves may not sit to think about writing a book for it until someone begins to ask questions. So you need someone who has experienced some of these situations to give you clarity on them. It's important to have a mentor for the purpose of clarity.

Sometimes some mentors can share certain things with you, and what they have shared with you gives you clear direction for the rest of your life. Sometimes you will meet some people and just five minutes of their time is all you need. You don't need to meet them again for the rest of your life or for the rest of their lives, but what they will say to you in five minutes, if you stick to it, and you remember it, it will give you a lifetime of rest.

A short meeting with them can be a principle that is just applicable to almost anything in life. So, you need clarity, and you need a mentor for the purpose of clarity. There are certain things I've tried to do, and I'm wondering what is happening because I couldn’t move forward. With the aid of a mentor, I've been able to gain clarity in that regard. If you're a young person in school, you need clarity. If you're an adult in your career, you need clarity. Sometimes you want to make a move, and the move looks like the best move ever. But a mentor who has been in the industry understands that your move looks like a good move, but it will backfire very soon with some grave consequences. There are some things that you may find difficult. You just may not get the clarity that you need. And trust me, there are quite a few issues that look clear, but they are just not as clear as they should be. It's until you get into them that you realize that they are not as clear as you thought they were.

One of the biggest advantages of having a mentor is the clarity they're able to bring into whatever it is that you're doing. You may be trying to carry too many things, delving into too many or just not sure how to proceed with the one thing you've decided to do. A real mentor who knows you and knows what you're trying to do can effortlessly help you declutter and make everything crystal clear to you.

I have been in several situations where I thought I had things figured out until I spoke with a mentor. Questions were asked and I seem to know the answers to those questions. I answered intelligently but upon doing an analysis of the answer, I sincerely saw that I really didn’t think through what I thought was already clear to me.

You need to understand that mentors simply have a role to make sure the best comes out of you. They have nothing to gain from you and will not be more interested in your personal resources, in cases where you seem to have more and can offer more. They will be people who just want the very best for you and from their experiences, they can tell you where your actions are going to lead you.

In Africa, there’s a proverb about an elder being able to tell where the tree is going to fall when a young man is cutting a tree. There’s also another proverb about an elder being able to sit and still see the things that a young person cannot see while climbing the tallest trees. They’re not talking about trees here. The proverbs are simply talking about insights gained from years of experience which is an advantage that most young people do not have. When you’re getting started in life, you must understand that the results of those ahead of you are a combination of skills, relationships, and experiences.

The moment you decide to take on a mentor, you will be leveraging their experiences to gain clarity for what you want to do. As a result, you can avoid or limit unintended consequences of your actions. Without the benefit of experiences, you may have several unintended consequences that will stop or even destroy what you’re trying to do.

I can tell you about times when I just wanted to run with a dream. I thought I was ready. I would speak passionately about the dreams and the things that needed to be done until I met someone who asked all the right questions. Then I suddenly calmed down and realized that I didn’t have several things figured out. I didn’t think about them and if I had gone ahead with the plans I had, I could have hit a brick wall or run into serious trouble.

The fact that a plan looks good on paper does not mean it’s good. The fact that your intentions are sincere does not mean you aren’t going to fail or get into trouble. One of the areas where a mentor will be able to provide clarity could be the strategy you want to engage or the people you want to bring on board. You may think you need a few people, and an experienced mentor will show you why you need more people. You may also have added too many people and the mentor will show you how you need fewer people and the exact number of people that you need. You may have an elaborate strategy and your mentor shows you how that elaborate strategy can work but something less elaborate will get you the same result repeatedly.

Wisdom can’t be replaced with skills. Your skills will always be needed but you need the wisdom of someone who has gone ahead of you to gain clarity into what you think you have sorted out. Leverage a mentor’s wisdom for clarity today.

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Fola Daniel Adelesi

FDA Speaks professionally, Trains Effectively, Delivers great keynotes & Comperes humorously | 13 books & counting.

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