How to Choose the Right Mentor for Business and Life

AVAlexander Volchek

Many businesses don't need strong development, scaling, or growth. They need to remain in a certain closed-off state. When you recommend psychotherapy, when you're sure this person really needs it. Only I can connect with my own self. People often look for a mentor based on credentials. All of that may be a complete illusion. Someone earning a billion dollars absolutely doesn't mean they'll lead you to a billion dollars. Today we'll discuss choosing a mentor. Mentorship is a very broad concept. We'll examine it in detail: a life mentor, a business mentor, an advisor. We'll go through every parameter in detail. My name is Alexander Volchek. You're on my channel. Since it's New Year's now, choosing a mentor is fundamentally important, because a mentor primarily helps you grow personally, in absolutely every area. Let's establish some terminology so we're on the same page. I often use the word advisor and act as one myself, for example. An advisor is interested in the business itself reaching its stated goal. The business specifically. A mentor is interested in you reaching a particular goal or following a particular path.

A mentor devotes time not only to your professional work, business activity, health, or inner state—

personal growth, not only to spiritual development, hobbies, new endeavors, or relationships with other people: loved ones at home, men and women, friends, and colleagues. A mentor fundamentally works with your life across a broad range. That's precisely why you can have many mentors. When someone sincerely and truly wants to develop, expand themselves, and develop toward truth rather than deterioration, it's great to move along many directions and paths at once. Work on yourself independently, read books and use them for growth, interact with friends and acquaintances and learn about development from them. Learn from colleagues, business partners, clients, and family, and have additional people who help you grow. When you move across such a broad range, working on several areas rather than one, you can have several mentors. You might spend a whole year, two years, or three years working with just one mentor, one person.

That person provides a kind of foundation. They may focus only on professional activity, only on working with your body, or be a psychotherapist working on your psychological and physical state. What matters is that this current direc—

what matters is that this current direction, this area, is the most important one for you now. You've chosen it as a major focus of attention. How do you find that person to work with? In today's world, with enormous access to information, you meet different people and everyone recommends someone to everyone else, without really understanding you yourself. They recommend someone simply because they went and had an experience. It wasn't necessarily positive; it might have been negative. But it's important to them to pass on a recommendation so someone else says, “Great, thank you. I liked it too,” confirming that person for them. If you work with people who also serve as mentors for you, and someone comes to you and you want to recommend one of them or offer advice, first consider whether this person really needs the recommendation. Have you understood how they feel, what they actually need, and what their goals are?

Do they really need to do it? In business, a new trend or system appears, and everyone starts recommending it to each other so everyone installs it. But particular specialized, complex systems don't suit everyone. I often say that introducing more automation into a particular business, developing it very aggressively, implementing extensive financial reporting, or seriously working on marketing and sales can simply destroy that business and cause you to lose it. Many businesses don't need strong development, scaling, or growth.

They don't need scaling or growth. They need to remain in a certain closed-off state, temporarily paused. The owner needs to reach the point of wanting those changes themselves. When you offer someone something, hear whether they actually need it. When you recommend a psychotherapist, a visit to someone who sees dark worlds, a trip to consume a particular substance, bodywork with a particular person, particular physical training, or a business development course—are you sure they really need it? That it won't disrupt their state or cause them to lose a great deal? Most importantly, when you recommend someone, you act as though you know what the other person lacks and can make that comparison. This is especially common in the metaphysical, esoteric, and spiritual world. Someone attends a practice or certain meditations and recommends them to another person, without understanding that the other person may already live a deeply spiritual life and your recommendation may mean nothing to them.

It's like recommending that a highly accomplished businessperson attend a fifth-grade class on choosing a business niche alongside schoolchildren. Our inner psychology works in such a way that we need to affirm ourselves in this state. If I went to some practice, I want to elevate myself above another person and recommend they do it because I've done it. Now you supposedly have to do it because you're a little lower, a little worse. You haven't attended such an event. That's a huge illusion. And when—

that's a huge illusion. When you return to yourself and ask where to find a mentor, first be very careful with any recommendations from others. There are two sides here. On one hand, be careful and selective, listen clearly, distinguish, and say, “This definitely isn't for me right now.” You can know that by two criteria: either you're much stronger in this area than the other person, or your whole inner state and intuition tell you something is wrong and you need to wait. We'll examine that now. On the other hand, you may block the possibility of something new by saying, “No, I don't want to do this,” when you actually need to go there. How do you find and see that? If you feel inner aversion or disagreement with the recommendation, or complete, total agreement, I recommend observing it. Bring it under strong, conscious observation. What does observing it mean? Allow yourself to consider that it's good, and also allow yourself to consider that it's bad.

Approach it neutrally. If you really want to go, reduce its importance a little. If you absolutely don't want to go, increase its importance a little: write it down, record it, observe it, and ask yourself, “Why do I really not want to take this opportunity for such strong mentorship?” Mentors today, in the twenty-first century—and this began in the twentieth—aren't people who are your only teachers—

in life. A thousand or two thousand years ago, a person could have one teacher or mentor for their entire life. Now the time has come when we first need to find harmony and a connection with ourselves within ourselves, without an outside person. I always say that if someone wants inner connection and harmony with themselves, only they can achieve it, because only they can truly, naturally, and sincerely feel and hear themselves. That doesn't mean they feel or hear themselves right now. But only they can hear themselves and connect with their own self. Only I can connect with my own self. At the same time, it's good to have different people you can turn to for specific matters, recommendations, or sometimes deeper questions. Don't miss those people. They come because you're ready, because life has brought you into contact at this moment. You may notice it or not. That doesn't mean trusting every recommendation. It means taking another look for yourself at where this person actually stands.

People today often seek mentors based on credentials or achievements. “I only want a business mentor who's made a billion dollars. I only want a spiritual practitioner who's spent ten thousand hours in meditation. For my body and health, I need someone whose own body and health are in some incredible state—and in nonbeing.” All of this may be a complete illusion. A person—

It may be a complete illusion. Someone earning a billion dollars absolutely doesn't mean they'll lead you to a billion dollars. Someone who's spent ten thousand hours in spiritual development may lead you into complete spiritual deterioration, because spiritual development isn't measured in hours. Even if money is a measurable business indicator, it's only one indicator. When you need to scale and achieve incredible growth, first and foremost you're the person making that growth happen. Someone else can lead you to that high point not only because they know how to earn a billion dollars—or, more precisely, because they've had experience earning billions. First, they need to see you as a person, with your huge range of circumstances, parameters, and the system you live in, and develop a personal path specifically for you. That path certainly isn't based on money alone. It's personal precisely because it's based on your personality. Our mentors in life don't necessarily appear through books or credentials. At some point, a tree can be your mentor. At some point, the sky can be your mentor.

At some point, a child can be your mentor. Your wife or husband can be your mentor. A parent can be your mentor. You yourself can be your mentor. There are always people. It's important not to miss—

it's important not to miss this person, to see and find them. In this deeply transitional time—Christmas, New Year's, shifting paradigms of thought, states, insights, strategies, new goals, plans, dreams, illusions, disappointments, stress, fear, uncertainty, or joy, happiness, and new opportunities—ask yourself what you can do now to open your eyes and find someone who can become your mentor in the near future. That's a gift I recommend everyone give themselves right now. My name is Alexander Volchek. Subscribe to my channel. Here I talk about scaling, growth, connecting with yourself, and finding your own next step. How to move forward quickly and strongly, with strong values, ambition, good emotions and mood, joy, happiness, and ease. Most importantly, with love for yourself, the world, and the people around you. Happy New Year!