The Legacy of Mentorship Creating True Freedom
What do you feel is the biggest legacy we can create in network marketing? Is it the amount of money we make weekly or monthly? Maybe it’s the number of distributors we have in our respective groups? What if it was neither of those?
The greatest legacy that we can build and leave behind is that of mentoring and the power of mentorship. To be more specific, the actual process of mentoring is what creates true long-term growing wealth for one’s heirs.
Contrary to popular belief, true wealth is not determined by the size of your bank account. Yes having money is important, but remember we are discussing legacy wealth. To explain this further you can look to Asian cultures and their definition of wealth. Their definition of wealth denotes something that cannot be spent but only expanded.
Thus the role mentoring plays in creating a generational legacy in terms of wealth is fundamental. All great legacies that have been successfully handed down are from great mentors to receptive mentees. Hence, receiving it depends entirely on the mentoring process.
Again if money does not constitute true wealth, what is the meaning of true wealth?
To put it in a different way, wealth is an inheritance you can never spend. If you think of wealth more as knowledge then as a monetary value, it can help to open your mind. It is not about the knowledge you have that makes you wealthy, it is the experience and the process of acquiring the knowledge. Just as you cannot become a champion by reading about the experiences of other champions, you need to go through the entire process yourself.
However, when you have a proper mentor, you have someone who is willing to hold your hand and work with you through your mistakes; someone who will push you to be the best you can be and someone who will set parameters and expects you to challenge them. When looking to select your mentor work only with those who not only expect, but demand of you to be even greater than them.
The Legacy of Mentorship
The best of legacies are institutionalized into great mentorship programs. Steve Job’s legacy may live on through all his i-products, but the legacy that will help an entirely new generation of Apple employees in years to come is the much talked about Apple University, a project Steve personally initiated, where company executives, present and future, will learn how to think and act like their former leader. He envisioned it as “a forum to impart my DNA to future generations.”
Great mentors set up systems and structures with coaching methodologies and disciplines that constantly evolve. In effect, the legacy this creates is the thought process of the mentor, developed and continuously built upon by a series of mentees for successive new generations.
Network marketers who continue to be successful in the industry are those who have developed leaders. Through establishing the systems and structures required, their new leaders then develop further leaders based on the same principles and ideology. They use the systems in place plus they inject their own experiences and persona further evolving the process. The continual addition of new leaders and evolution gives the legacy a life of its own, making it the same yet very different from when it first started. This is where the term living legacy comes from.
As you can see great living legacies are far more than assets and money, they are truly a living, organic entity. They will differ from teacher to teacher and through cultures, but there is always one constant; there has to exist a teacher and a student.
If you are new to network marketing, look for the mentor who is willing to teach you, to push you and help you create your own legacy as you help them build theirs. If you are have been in the industry for some time, have success but cannot grow sustainable success, look to work on yourself and how you develop your leaders.
For both instances of mentorship, there is help available to you through Engineered Lifestyles. We have the systems in place and the ability to work directly with you on a one-on-one basis. Contact us today to start the process and create the living legacy you want for your family.