RISING leadership
Find a Good Mentor and Work Your Heart Out for Them
By Teo Nicolais
A
parable is told of Arkad of Babylon . When his son reached adulthood and prepared to journey out into the world , Arkad gave the young man a bag of gold and a clay tablet containing the lessons Arkad had gained in his many years on earth . The son went forth and after ten years of toil , disasters , and , at long last , success he returned to his father ’ s house with this report :
" ' Thou didst give to me a bag of gold , Babylon gold . Behold in its place , I do return to thee a bag of Nineveh gold of equal weight . An equal exchange , as all will agree .
' Thou didst give to me a clay tablet inscribed with wisdom . Behold , in its stead , I do return two bags of gold ….. This I do to prove to thee , my father , of how much greater value I consider thy wisdom than thy gold . Yet , who can measure in bags of gold , the value of wisdom ? Without wisdom , gold is quickly lost by those who have it , but with wisdom , gold can be secured by those who have it not .”
( Excerpt : The Richest Man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason )
My advice to anyone entering a new field or starting a new position is this : Seek out exceptional people who are engaged in the work you aspire to and , when you find them , go and work your heart out for them . Find a mentor and take on whatever task needs doing - and do it to your utmost ability . If you focus your energy on gaining wisdom from a master of your craft , you ’ ll find the experience eye-opening , inspiring , and , I promise you , life changing .
Brian Cunat is a master of the real estate craft . He founded his real estate company in northern Illinois back in 1976 and , with years of tireless effort , grew it from an initial $ 2,000 investment to over half a billion dollars in assets .
Moreover , Brian attracted a team of the most dedicated , talented , and caring people you will ever find .
Some of my friends baulked when , after graduating from Harvard College , I headed not to glamorous New York , booming San Francisco , or even beautiful Denver , but instead to McHenry , Illinois ( population 26,000 ). In what I consider the luckiest turn in my professional life , I had found an incredible mentor - someone willing to share with me wisdom only years of experience can develop . Fresh out of school , my real education began through my mentor .
I worked my heart out for Brian Cunat and his team – doing whatever it was they needed and soaking up every bit of knowledge they offered . I learned by observation about business , what matters most to a company ’ s success , how an effective team works , and much more . Perhaps the most surprising lesson - and most relevant for young people who have made the decision to seek wisdom from a mentor - was about the nature of learning from a mentor :
Few of the most important ideas you ’ ll learn from your mentor arrive in the form of pre-planned , bullet-point lessons . True wisdom arrives when you least expect it – typically , as you ’ re immersed in your work alongside your mentor . It might arrive at a routine meeting or on the way to a site visit or as you listen in on a negotiation .
Months may go by without a breakthrough and then , perhaps as you ’ re growing impatient , inspiration will strike : in your mentor ’ s off-handed response to your casual question , you ’ ll glimpse an elemental truth you had not understood before .
If you ’ re lucky enough to find a good mentor , be prepared to commit to working your heart out for them over an extended period of time . It takes time for them to get to know you , to understand your passion and strengths , and to place you in situations where you ’ ll flourish . It takes time for the mentor-mentee bond to form . And it takes time for you to become immersed in the work which will offer you the greatest insights . It takes time , but it ’ s time incredibly well spent .
I eventually left McHenry , returned to Denver , and founded my own small real estate company on the principles my mentor taught me . Reflecting years later on the formative time I spent working my heart out for Brian Cunat and his team , I can only echo the words of Arkad ’ s son : “ Who can measure in bags of gold , the value of wisdom ?”
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