Why the People Ahead of You May Be Your Best Teachers
You don’t have to like someone to learn from them.
Yes, what you just read is correct.
Believing that you have to like your mentor is a common mistake. We tend to think a mentor has to be someone we admire personally, someone we have a great relationship with, or someone we would enjoy sitting down with over lunch. That’s one kind of mentor, but it doesn’t have to be the only kind.
A mentor is simply a person from whom you can gain insight, knowledge, and wisdom. Sometimes that person may not even know they’re mentoring you. You may never have an official conversation where you ask, Will you be my mentor? There may never be a formal mentoring relationship at all.
Sometimes mentorship is simply recognizing that somebody knows something you need to know—and being humble enough to learn it from them.
And yes, sometimes you may not even like them.
Redefine What a Mentor Looks Like
We can make mentorship too complicated.
We look for somebody to take us under their wing, meet with us every month, answer our questions, encourage us, and personally guide our development. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s a great mentoring relationship when you can find it.
But don’t overlook the mentors already around you because they don’t fit that picture.
Mentoring can be as simple as looking at the person who makes the most sales in your call center and asking, How are they doing that?
They may not be your favorite person. You may not like their personality. You may not agree with everything they do. But if they’re consistently producing a result you want to produce, there’s probably something you can learn from them.
That’s where your growth has to become more important than your feelings.
You don’t have to become like that person. You don’t have to adopt everything about them. You don’t even have to make them your friend.
You just need to figure out what they know that you don’t know yet.
Stop Making Enemies Out of the People Ahead of You
I once had the opportunity to coach a young lady who worked as a cold-call sales representative. She wanted to become one of the best in her department, but others were already ahead of her and producing better results.
I told her something I’ve never forgotten:
Stop making enemies out of the people ahead of you.
Sometimes the person ahead of us becomes the person we dislike simply because they’re ahead of us. We start competing with them in our minds. We notice everything they do wrong. We find reasons to minimize what they’ve accomplished.
But none of that moves us forward.
I told this young lady that if she desired to become the best in the department, she needed to get to know the people who were already doing what she wanted to do for one reason and one reason only:
Find out how they did what they did and learn from them.
How do they open the call? What do they say when someone tells them no? How do they build rapport? How many calls are they making? How do they follow up? What are they doing differently? What habits have they developed that are producing those results?
Those people are giving you a free education every day if you’re willing to pay attention.
You don’t have to like everything about them to learn what they do well.
Don’t Let Competition Cost You an Education
One of the easiest mistakes to make when someone is ahead of you is to turn them into your competition instead of your classroom.
We compare ourselves to them. We criticize them. We find reasons their success doesn’t count. We convince ourselves they had an advantage we didn’t have. Sometimes we spend so much energy explaining why we don’t like somebody that we completely miss the opportunity to learn from them.
That’s expensive.
Because while you’re criticizing them, they may be carrying the answer to a question you’ve been trying to solve.
Next-level people learn to separate the person from the principle
You may not like their personality, but what can you learn from their discipline?
You may not agree with every decision they’ve made, but what can you learn from the way they communicate?
You may not want their life, but what can you learn from the way they sell, lead, organize, build relationships, manage their time, or develop their craft?
You don’t have to endorse everything about a person to acknowledge that they know something you don’t.
Instead of asking, Why are they ahead of me?, start asking:
What are they doing that I can learn from?
That question changes everything.
Your Mentors Are Probably Closer Than You Think
Some people spend years searching for the perfect mentor while walking past people every day who could teach them something.
Look around your workplace.
Look around your industry.
Look around your organization.
Who consistently gets results?
Who handles something particularly well?
Who has already accomplished something you’re trying to accomplish?
Who possesses a skill you need to develop?
That person doesn’t necessarily have to agree to become your mentor before you can learn from them.
Pay attention. Ask good questions when you have the opportunity. Observe how they work. Listen to how they communicate. Study their habits. Look for patterns.
Mentorship doesn’t always begin with a meeting. Sometimes it begins with observation.
That means you can build a much larger group of mentors than you probably realize.
One person may mentor you in leadership. Someone else may mentor you in finances. Another person may teach you communication. Somebody else may teach you what not to do.
You don’t need one person to have everything you need.
You need to become a student.
Take the Principle, Then Add Yourself
Here’s your takeaway:
Find out how someone else did—or does—what you want to do. Then add your strengths to it.
That’s important because mentorship isn’t imitation.
If you want to become a better leader, study a great leader.
If you want to become better at sales, study someone who consistently sells.
If you want to build a successful business, learn from people who have built one.
If you want to communicate better, pay attention to great communicators.
Learn their process. Understand their principles. Discover what helped them succeed. But don’t become a copy of them.
Take what works and bring you to it.
Bring your personality. Bring your experience. Bring your gifts. Bring your strengths.
The goal isn’t to become the person you’re learning from. The goal is to become a better version of yourself because you were willing to learn from them.
Your Next Level
There are people around you right now who know something you need to know.
Some of them you may admire. Some you may barely know. Some may never know they’ve taught you anything.
And yes, some of them you may not particularly like.
Don’t let that cost you an education.
Your growth is too important to require that every person who teaches you also has to be somebody you like.
So stop making enemies out of the people ahead of you. Study what they do well. Ask how they got there. Get what you need from what they know. Add your strengths to it, and keep moving.
The person ahead of you doesn’t always have to become your competition. Sometimes they need to become your classroom.
Want more personal development insights like this?
Subscribe to Next-Level-U: Insider—a free, practical email packed with personal development and life lessons you won’t get anywhere else.
