What 500 mentoring sessions taught me about success

When I talk about success, I'm not talking only about money. I mean success in every area: in your career, in your spiritual life, in your family, in everything you put your hand to.

Over 500 mentoring sessions, I learned eight lessons about this journey. You may not practice some of them yet, and my hope is that they will awaken that pursuit in you.

1. Find a mentor

You will never succeed on your own. Call them a mentor, a leader or anything else: what matters is having someone who inspires you and has already been where you want to go.

A mentor is the one who gives you direction. Sometimes a single word from them changes the whole course of your life, because they have already gone through the process you are going through.

I used to think I knew every path I should take. Until I realized I needed someone before whom I would bow my head, open my ears and listen.

• Living without being mentored is the best way to waste years of your life.
• Having a mentor is the best way to accelerate your success.

Without a mentor, you keep experimenting and, in the end, you still look for someone to approve your path. With a mentor, if you listen and obey, your growth accelerates.

2. Use a compass

You need to assess where your life is and how it is going: business, family, spirituality. A compass can be a conversation, a book, a talk.

I read the story of Helen Keller, who could neither see nor hear and still went to college. That shook me: I hadn't suffered ten percent of what she suffered, and I was complaining.

If you don't know where you are, you can't know where you want to go. Saying your company's problem is a lack of money to invest is often just an excuse that sabotages growth.

3. Get a map

You know that uncle who won't use GPS because he "knows the way" and drives around the whole city to get somewhere two kilometers away? We struggle to submit to the simplest instructions.

People without a map take shortcuts, and the shortcut that looked like a game changer leads to debt and problems.

The route for many things has already been traced. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, there is nothing new under the sun. You can change the look and bring a different perspective, but someone has already done the essence of what you want to build. So a map already exists.

4. Build your network

A network doesn't fall from the sky: it is built with effort, brick by brick. Start with a "good morning, how are you?", without pretensions, but with intention.

With relationships and alliances, a challenge that would cost a lot can be solved with a single message. At first you invest, but over time your cost goes down and your influence goes up.

The proud neither help nor let themselves be helped. Sometimes we are the ones blocking the help.

5. Listen to other points of view

A mentor has the authority to give you direction. But you also need companions for the journey: people at the same level, facing the same challenges and seeing things from a different angle.

5.1 Everyone has a blind spot

No one can see their own back. I asked a few friends to answer this: when you look at me, what word comes to mind? That helped me align the image I wanted to convey.

Often the other person is going through the same problem, and you can share how each of you wins your battles. No one fails at the complex stuff: we all fail at the basics.

5.2 Shield your weak spots

When one friend has already seen your weak spot, others don't need to. There is a place to show weakness, and a place where it isn't the time for that.

6. Be part of a community

You leave an event fired up, share your ideas at home and hear: "That's nonsense." Don't let anyone kill your enthusiasm. You need people who pursue the same things and encourage you to keep going.

Proverbs 13:20 teaches that whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm. It's not so much what people say; it's their behavior that shapes you.

This is not about looking down on anyone. Be polite to everyone, but have levels of relationship: relationship, fellowship and covenant. Have that friend who will pick you up at two in the morning in the rain, and be that person for someone. Walking with people who share the same principles strengthens your vision.

7. Have a guide

If everything ends up on your plate to solve, maybe you are too centralizing, or you don't have a guide: someone who may not solve the problem, but tells you how to solve it.

Once I asked my accountant and an artificial intelligence the same question. His answer was different and correct, because he knew the reality of my company.

Don't get stuck on technical processes. Solving everyday questions with someone who knows saves the time you should be using to think strategically.

8. Measure your results

Organization is the first step to success. I didn't keep a calendar and was even prejudiced against people who did.

Growth brings disorganization, like a gangly teenager. That's fine: grow and organize, grow and organize.

• It's impossible to make strategic decisions without metrics.
• Summarize and unify your numbers: all the important business data on a single screen.

Numbers don't lie. The problem is having to hunt for them when it's time to decide.

Conclusion

These 500 mentoring sessions taught me that people's blocks are not in their pockets; they are in their minds. No one achieves success without wanting success: with principles and values, but with desire and a sparkle in their eyes, to grow and to inspire others to grow too.

And if I had to sum it all up in one piece of advice, it would be this: open your ears. None of these points will work if you don't have the humility to bow your head and listen to someone else.

So I ask you: how much are you really willing to invest, not in money, but in humility and desire, to achieve your success?