Difference Between a Mentor and a Coach

“A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”

Time and again we find ourselves in a position where our one step will chart the course of our life. This is the time when the wise people seek help. But it’s important whom you reach out to; a mentor or a coach. Although the terms may sound similar, there is a vast difference between them. Once you understand the difference it will help you reach out to the right person at the right time.

To begin with, a mentor is a person you reach out to in order to build your skill sets. This is the person who is associated with you for months even years for the skills require time to be acquired and honed.

A coach is someone you reach out to in order to achieve a short term goal. He helps you overcome your specific shortcomings that are holding you from reaching the next level. An association with a coach is always short term

The background of a mentor is of a veteran in your field. One who has earned his wisdom through the years that he has put in the field. He can guide you in your job with the help of his experience.

A coach has specific expertise that will help you solve the issue at hand; it can be strategic planning, insights, focus, or interpersonal skills. He will train you to attain an immediate goal.

A mentor will always focus on building a relationship since it’s very essential for the mentee to be okay feeling vulnerable before his mentor. When you are tackling self-confidence, self-perception and skill development a strong relationship is necessary.

A coach will be goal oriented whose sole objective is to help you harness the potential you already have to bring lifelong changes. He will always focus on the task at hand and how he can improve your performance.

Some of the greatest leaders of our times have a handful of coaches and mentors in their life which help them achieve short and long term goals respectively.  We hope this blog helped you understand the difference between a coach and a mentor. If you think that you have the skills and the knowledge but still struggling with your performance it's time you meet up with a coach.

Where to find them, they are closer than you think. Visit Happy Brain Coach today and they will tell you all about it.

John Mattone the executive coach to Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, one of the most influential leaders of our time; known for his passion to create new technology that pushes the human mind to think differently. But he wasn’t as perfect as we all think he was. He struggled with few important traits that affected his work. As a sign of a great leader he realised these traits and decided to work on it. This is the time when he sought the coaching of the world renowned coach John Mattone.

In this article we will be shedding a light on how John Mattone helped Steve Jobs overcome his weaknesses and more finely tune his leadership. When John Mattone shared his experience with Steve Jobs he said that Steve was always keen to know the things that he lacked in and wished to become a better leader. Unlike the popular opinion of being rude and offensive, Steve was genuinely interested to know how he can make people around him comfortable and think freely.

As the special process of executive coaching, John Mattone made Steve take the Mattone Leadership Enneagram Inventory (MLEI) which makes the recipient aware of his character, self-concept, values, thinking patterns and emotional make-up in short his inner core which has a direct impact on his outer core that is the skills and competencies.

The result of this test showed that Steve Jobs had a dominant trait of an artist, which is not a surprise to anyone around the world. However, he did lack in discipline and trust traits which needed immediate help; in the course of the next two coaching sessions, Steve Jobs learned with the help of John Mattone the powerful techniques to master trust and discipline. Steve also admitted that if he had known these things before, he would have been a much better leader.

From this story we understand the importance of coaching and how great coaches in the past has help great leaders taking the right decisions and lead effectively. It is also teaches us to be passionate, for only those people who are passionate enough about their job can face and overcome their weakness.

Steve Jobs has always been a symbol of passion; his technologies were not only knowledge driven but also heart driven.

His passion to create and his believe in his team’s ability led him to success. We at Happy Brain Coach believe in passion that it's high time that the leaderships must change. The world is overloaded with intelligence what it needs is wisdom and passion to thrive in a field which to any intelligent person may seem futile. This is how we can bring radical changes into this world. It's time to do what we should do and not what we can do. All you need is passion and the rest you can leave it to us. Just like Steve Jobs found his John Mattone. We are here to coach you and tune you into finer version of yourself.