Mentoring tips you need to know

In this blog, Tanvir Siddiqui, global head of brand (FTSE 100 company), and CIM member, discusses how having a mentor might help you ask the right questions of yourself and be the catalyst you need to make progress. Read on to see what you can learn from him about careers and the advice he gives to people making their way up in the industry. 

Let me start at the end.
Because that’s what most people skim to anyway.
Here are the key takeaways:

1. You need a plan — a real one. For your life. For your energy. For your soul.
   Even if it’s written on the back of a napkin. Even if it changes five times by lunch.
   But it needs to exist. 
2. You need a connection plan.
   No, not “LinkedIn connections” who DM you with job openings two countries away.
   I mean real, blood-and-soul, challenge-your-thinking, call-you-out kind of people.
   The ones who ask you why you’re doing something, not just what’s next.

Call them mentors. Friends. Sponsors. Co-conspirators. I don’t care.
Just don’t try to move forward alone.
History has never been kind to the solo act — unless you’re Adele. And even she had a producer!