Did/Do You Have a Mentor?

I'm not really sure what the appropriate category for this question is, so I thought I would put it here.

I'm just wondering how many of you had or have a mentor who helped you get started in your business.

I had a mentor at the television station where I worked for 5 1/2 years. He was the GM and he took me under his wing and really helped me grow and learn. If I'm any sort of good manager today it is because of what he taught me.

Did anyone else encounter someone like that in their working life? Have you in turn mentored others because of the experience you had?

I've had several mentors over the course of my life - in fact, I imagine it is pretty difficult get along in business without having had a few mentors, even if one chooses to not acknowledge them.

I looked at my life and realized it is quite impossible to achieve any degree of success and achievement without a mentor. Which is why I decided to do that professionally, once I had acquired a good level of business experience.

I have probably only had one or two people that could even really be classed as a mentor in my career to date, however i do hope to have more.

The biggest problem is i have been greatly underwhelmed by them both, The first was a guy who gave me a job and wanted to get me trained up to manage a portion of the business for him, unfortunately he was good at talking about doing this, but was to focused on doing work and me doing work and never followed through on any of the promises. I left this job for a better position after about 6 months when i realized it was all wishful thinking for me.

The other one was a manager in another job, while she did do one of the key points that mentor's are suppose to which is show some criticism towards your work to help you improve. This it came down to was the only thing she did, all i ever got was criticism, and not any this is how you could solve that or sitting down and trying to help solve things, it was purely you have done this wrong, figure it out sort of thing.

While i do not really hold a grudge against either of these people for this, i have tended to take a more DIY attitude to expanding myself, i tend to look more for how i can improve myself based on any feedback i get from anywhere, and try to re-evaluate things myself rather then looking for someone to help with this.

i have unfortunately never had a mentor or any type of help.....but I am now a mentor myself and help out a few people.

I think the biggest advantage of having a mentor is avoiding certain mistakes and hitting goals faster.

I've had two. Both were my direct boss's in my sales career. Extremely good and knowledgeable sales people.