Lately, I’ve been speaking at a lot of colleges regarding the challenges new graduates can expect to face in the workplace, and how they can conduct themselves professionally and diplomatically in order to ensure their success.  A lot of my tips are things that I wish someone had told me when I was still in school, before I got my first job and made many unconscious mistakes that held me back in my career.

At one Chicago school I visited recently, one of the attendees said to me afterwards:  “You know, most speakers we have just talk all about how they’ve been so successful, and how great their lives are.  They make their advice sound like it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.  And we walk out of the presentation feeling bad about ourselves for not being as together as they are.  Your talk was valuable because you actually talked about the problems you had at work and the lessons you had to learn the hard way.  It made me feel like you were a real person.”

In order to be a good mentor to someone, you have to share the good, the bad, and the ugly.  If you are in a position of power, your mentee is already somewhat intimidated by you.  He may be scared, insecure, and certain he’s never going to be able to reach your level of achievement.  Your advice and guidance will resonate with him more if you illustrate that it wasn’t so long ago that you were in his shoes.  Tell him about your biggest faux pas and what you took away from them, and the setbacks and hardships you experienced in order to get where you are today.  It’s this type of information, not the tales of good fortune and glory, which will inspire you mentee to think he can get there someday too.