As you navigate through life, you need people who can play the role of guide. They have experience and insight that you can learn from. They offer perspective as someone who has traveled the path before. You may have one key person who plays this role for your whole life. But most likely, you will have a team of people who each play different roles in different seasons.

Some of these relationships will be more casual and form through the connections you have, while others will be more formal as you seek them out and may even compensate them for their guidance.

Let’s look at three kinds of guides: advisors, coaches, and mentors.

Advisors

An advisor offers guidance based on their expertise. It tends to be focused on one area, such as family, career, finances, health, or relationships. Most of these won’t be regular, ongoing relationships but will help you in a specific area for a particular season. While you can google anything, you can’t become experts in everything. That is why you want to develop a network of people who can advise you in their area of expertise. That’s why I would even put real estate agents, doctors, and lawyers in this category.

Examples of advisors you want to build proximity to:

1. Financial advisor
2. Career counselor
3. Lawyer
4. Doctor
5. Real estate agent
6. Nutritionist
7. Marriage and family counselor

I find it helpful to go to an advisor when I’m starting something new, making a big decision, or correcting a problem.

Most advisors will cost money, which can feel like a barrier leading you back to just googling for answers. Consider the return on investment. I can spend a few nights reading blogs and articles about investing and then trying my hand at the stock market. But I’m probably better off paying $100 for an hour of guidance to someone who has thousands of hours of experience. I find it helpful to go to an advisor when I’m starting something new, making a big decision, or correcting a problem.

Have you ever watched a video on YouTube and decided you could fix the leaky toilet? Only to later be sitting in the bathroom with water spraying everywhere, thinking, “This is not how it looked in the video!” Advisors have experienced when things go off the rails, and they can offer great advice for you to get back on track.

Often, the advisor helps you establish a healthy baseline and take the next step in a given area. When I think of a financial advisor, I’m not trying to become the next Warren Buffet, but I would like to establish our finances so that our family can make memories through annual vacations. Similarly, I might seek someone to advise me on fitness or nutrition to maintain a healthy weight and strength. If I wanted to win a marathon, I might need something more, which brings us to the next role, the coach.

Coaches

Like advisors, coaches have deep expertise in a specific area, and your proximity to them helps you grow. Coaches tend to be more hands-on, and your engagement with them is more ongoing than with an advisor.

One way to think of coaches is as personalized consultants.

If I’m looking to make a career change, I may go to an advisor and get help identifying good career options and updating my resume. And that may be all I need. But what if I want to practice and feedback to improve my interviewing skills? Or if I want help adapting my resume to specific jobs? That sounds more like a coaching role. One way to think of coaches is as personalized consultants. Which does mean you’re likely paying for them. And there can be some sticker shock here, but again consider the return on investment. If that career coach helps you land the right job, they more than pay for themself through your increased salary, not to mention your improved job satisfaction!

Common types of coaches:

1. Personal trainer
2. Executive coach
3. Leadership coach
4. Life coach
5. Career coach

The line between advisors and coaches has blurred a bit over the past ten years. Many of those who have traditionally been advisors have upped their game and taken more of a coaching approach. But I still believe there is a distinct role of a coach, positioned between an advisor and a mentor. If you're thinking you want to try out having a coach, I'm currently offering a handful of coaching opportunities each month.

Mentors

While a coach or an advisor can look similar, a mentor is different. It is usually a longer-term relationship, but the interaction isn’t as dense. It’s spread out over time. Your mentorship may be focused on a particular aspect of your life (family, career, spiritual, economic), or it may be more broad, flowing through all these areas. Also, you usually aren’t paying for a mentor!

One change that catches people off guard is that the mentee actually does more to guide the process than they do when working with a coach or advisor. While the relationship is mutual, the mentee is likely to drive the process to establish a regular cadence when connecting, as well as what content they’ll connect on. It’s essential to have good communication early on to set expectations for both the mentor and mentee.

While the relationship is mutual, the mentee is likely to drive the process to establish a regular cadence when connecting, as well as what content they’ll connect on

As you’re establishing expectations, you’ll want to identify what will be the right cadence to connect with your mentor. It could be weekly, monthly, or quarterly. It can also change in certain seasons of life where more guidance is needed.

What if you don’t know anyone who would be a good mentor? Where do you find one? Finding a mentor can feel like a daunting task. Here are three steps.

1. Adjust your expectations. You’re not looking for Yoda, who will make you the best Jedi to save the whole galaxy. You’re looking for someone who has walked before some of the roads you are now walking on.
2. Look for formal programs. Your employer may have a mentoring program already set up. Look up professional associations or even churches in your area. They often have mentoring programs established. As a PMI member in Austin, I quickly took advantage of their mentorship program to connect with someone who had been in project management longer and in different contexts than myself.
3. Start searching. Depending on the kind of mentorship, start looking around and ask someone to be your mentor. Even if you don’t know them well, you can still ask. People will feel honored. If you (or they) aren’t sure if you’ll be a good match, try it out for a while. Ask if they would be willing to meet once a month for a year and then evaluate. Think through ahead of time what your expectations are and communicate them when you ask. Someone who might make a great mentor may say “no” because they aren’t clear about what you’re asking of them.

We’re all on a journey in our leadership. As you consider who you’re following, take time to reflect on who you’re guiding and who you’re journeying with. Want to try having a coach? Check out an opportunity to have a free coaching appointment.