Mentoring is not just about the transfer of knowledge. What happens when we enter into a relationship with a teacher, mentor, or even a group that has members more expanded in a certain area is that our energetic vibration expands and elevates to match that of the leader or the group.
We may learn specific skills and knowledge as well, but what happens energetically is much more profound. Our underlying sense of what is possible shifts and expands.
It’s important to expose yourself to people who think bigger than you do on a regular basis if you want to grow and expand and transform your business. It’s not something you can replicate by reading books (believe me, I’ve tried). Books will give you ideas, but it’s not the same as actually being in the energy field of someone who thinks on a different level than you do. The books will tell you what to do differently–the energy shift will enable you to actually do it.
I don’t have a formal mentor, but in my MasterMind group, we have a mentoring relationship with each other, and we fill in the gaps in each others mastery. I get to sit next to someone who has decades of experience within major corporations. That’s a different level of thinking than I’ve ever thought at. I’ve never had a “real job” even once. Nope, I have never worn pantyhose to work, thank God. But I’ve also never had the responsibility or worked at the scale of magnitude that these people have. So my energy and sense of what is possible expands by being in the group.
On the other hand–I’ve never had a real job! I like to think I bring a kind of fresh non-beaten-down energy to the group. I say things that would be completely out of place in a board room setting. I talk about the emotions and the spirituality and energy behind business. I have a freedom around certain things and a commitment to other things (like non-violence and consensus). I get to learn that showing up in that is a contribution to others, another neat aspect to the group.
I can feel the energy shifting and reconfiguring in my body when it expands to take in a new idea. When I think back over all the “stuck” times in my business, and how I shifted, I can pinpoint most of the shifts as coming as an easy letting go after I had met and talked to someone whose vision was much larger than that block. Whatever issue I had wasn’t an issue for them, and it’s like my body absorbed that energy signature and then it knew what to do, and shifted on its own. It’s really the most effortless way to learn because your body does it for you, once it senses how.
Having an energetic model, you can shift easily a wall that you might have banged your head against for years because your body just didn’t know how to shift past it until it felt someone on the other side. Then it can make that leap, or let go of that block. I believe this is the mechanism of healing.
I believe that our body needs to feel the energy of what it is like to be in a new place in order for us to move there. We need to feel what a healthy relationship feels like before we can create it. This is what therapy does (assuming your therapist is healthy). It is the first healthy relationship many people experience, and having that model is the only way they will learn it. I believe we all have the innate capacity to heal–to shift toward and embody a healthy expression of life–but we need healthy models to know what to shift to! And in business, we need more expanded models in order to grow.
So, get out of the house. Go to business meetings and organizations, or look up business owners who are just beyond where you can see yourself easily being. Have lunch with them, or propose a MasterMind group. Go to workshops led by people who have something you don’t. Work with a business coach who is successful in their business and is where you’d like to be. Find mentors in whatever capacity works for you. Support yourself by surrounding yourself with the energy that you want in your life and let your learning happen naturally, like a plant turns toward the sun.
Thanks heavens for the NYT and the internet!
I bumped into your blog from there and have been wowwing since!
I like this idea of being around others that are past you. I was recently at a montly meeting of the Florida Venture Capitalist Group and it was so much fun to be with others that looking for funding, yet it was even more fun and enriching to be around those there that have already raised significant amounts of capital.
Another people surrounding idea that I like is – trying to surround yourself with people that want and share in your success. For awhile I had a number of people in my circle (mainly family) that didn’t believe in my business they didn’t see that success was coming my way – I will say during those years I did distance myself from them a bit. It is much easier to get through the yucks in business having a team around you that shares in your vision and truly believes that you will succeed.
Hope to have the time to chime in again. Thanks for all the good encouragement. I am glad I bumped into you!
Maureen Quinlan
qrubini.com
Emma,
In my business life and while in my youth a was fortunate to have been taught what you have so passionately discussed in this post (Article). There have been times in my life were things are brought to my attention, almost on at a random occurence or on unexpected occasions, times that I can’t help but to recall on my experiences in which the current topics of “the day or time” (as now), bring’s back the memories of those experiences.
I feel that what I have just read, has been something I have been desirious to re-learn, to re-think, and re-Thank, my upbringing.
There are times where people are so deep in there daily lives and activities that they rarely take the time to read an article or listen to counsel and ideas as what you have available here on your website.
Thank you for helping me to remember my upbringing and for helping me to show other’s that appreciation and gratitude towards all, small (in appearance) and great (bigger in knowledge and experience etc.) is what brings success to those who are willing to just open there “minds”, “hearts”, “ears” and “eyes” and manage for a small and short space of time to “hold there tongue” and take heed for there mouths. Doing so with patience and persistance, eventually (when time does permit itself; “for one will feel when they are ready in strength”) to take action towards all that which they were taught in goodness.
I pray that God be with you and your family and to all those reading. Thank you all and thank you Emma. Like Maureen, I too am glad I discovered this website and bumped into your article(s).
Kind Regards,
Dayer LeBaron
Have a Good one.
Thank you both for commenting, and I’m happy to hear you are enjoying the articles. I had to rush and go look up the article on the NYT website as I’ve never had a link from “big media” before. Pretty exciting for me! Very apropos to the topic of “thinking bigger”. =)
The “energetic vibration” you mention is the synergy as described by Napoleon Hill in “Think and Grow Rich” which is the essence of the Master Mind.