Mentor or Tormentor

Last Friday I had a meeting with my mentor who has just turned into a tormentor. What do I mean by that? This guy is my mentor and instead of saying all the things or doing all the things I needed him to do of late he started doing all the opposite, every time I get an email from him or his office I would cringe inside. I am an entrepreneur – I want to work at my own time and do what I want and when. When I confronted him about his harassing me he told me one of his values is ‘to do all that is necessary not comfortable to help me archive my goals.’ His statement gave me a shock but it was very true not just for me but for all of us.

We all want mentors and we believe it is the mentors who help us go far, but after careful thought I realized that even though we need mentors, for them to deliver they need to be able to push us to action and to get results. On the journey towards our goals, there are a dozen points along the way where we will be lacking in attitude, an awareness, a skill, a habit or a strategy. To fix this requires a hands on, nitty-gritty, in-the-trenches kind of a mentor, who I call a tormentor. That someone who no matter what will push you to get the best out of you, someone who will keep digging until the gold in you comes out.

If we want Mentors who will make us feel good and makes us important, then we will never get to our full potential. I don’t know about you my view for mentorship has now changed since then. Do we need mentors or we need Tormentors?