Volunteering to mentor someone outside of your immediate circles of influence and industry can offer many benefits like:

Staying Connected

We all know entrepreneurship can be lonely. Often there are few people that share your perspective.
Having a strong community of peers (other entrepreneurs and mentors) outside your industry can offer a range of benefits. You can share common challenges and strategies, celebrate success and grow new skills together. It gives you a whole new lens on leadership and beyond.

New connections that can lead you to:

• Potential employees and contractors,
• Resources like grants, funding, and professional services
• Technical resources like new apps and organizational systems
• Opportunities for leadership growth
• New business practices and a fresh approach to solving challenges

Staying Current

It broadens your horizons!

Mentoring offers what I call—Reverse Mentoring. In the traditional mentor-mentee relationship, mentors usually have many years of experience, while young entrepreneurs come with a fresh new perspective and a different set of skills. This can be invaluable and can start a life long relationship when the pairing of mentor and mentee share similar life and work values. (I have personally experienced this on numerous occasions, thank you mentees!)

Staying Forward Focused

When you leverage your skills and talents by utilizing them in a completely new environment you have the opportunity for personal and professional growth. It’s a chance to fine-tune your current skills and kickstart new ones. It’s a chance to step into a deeper leadership role and work on your learning edges.

Mentoring broadens your reach in many ways. You connect to a whole new world of entrepreneurs, other coaches, and mentors, which I can tell you firsthand, can lead to exciting new opportunities.

In addition, I always recommend working with your own mentor and /or a coach/consultant that can offer a fresh new perspective, unbias feedback, and support.