From time to time many of the contributors here have written about the concept of mentoring from one viewpoint or another. You may be a mentor, or have been well mentored, or both. Maybe neither. In fact, probably neither. My experience has been somewhat anomalous in that I was blessed, early on, with an abundance of first-rate, exceptionally successful mentors, who literally didn’t give a damn about my feelings. Tough? One of ’em was a Marine, a survivor of the Battle of Guadalcanal. When he talked, you listened, then said, “Yes sir, thank you sir, may I please have another?” The guy was funny, but brutal. And boy, was he ‘colorful’. Many years later, after Jim had passed away, Dad told me that Jim bet him he could make me cry.
This year has been an eyeopener for me as it relates to mentoring. You’d think agents, especially the younger ones, would be eager to learn which way’s north on the map from someone who’s been there, done that, been knocked down, yet survived to thrive. As each year as gone by, fewer and fewer agents last longer than a week or so under a bona fide mentor. Most say they want to learn, but when push comes to shove, talk must be converted to walk, and they trip on their own BS. In the last month or so I’ve asked several experienced agents who, as policy, give of their time to mentor, if they’ve seen the same trend. Yes — it was unanimous.
Every single one of my mentors, and there were many, extracted a sacred promise from me to pay it forward. I’ll not live to be old enough to get free and clear of that obligation, though I try.
In the last decade or so, I’ve had several agents ask me to mentor them, as in, “Will you please mentor me?” Three of ’em walked their talk to the end. All three currently thrive. Just a guess, but in the last three years or so, there’ve been at least 15-20 come to me, initiating contact, wanting to be mentored. Read more
