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The classic concept of a “mentor” is someone who’s older and more experienced and has the know-how to advise you on your professional path. That idea of a wise, generous senior advisor is wonderful and soothing, and makes us all want mentors to support our careers. But the image is so limited, and so dated.

If you want to know what makes mentoring really hum, a key is to understand that long lasting relationships are always reciprocal. At first glance it may seem the mentee benefits the most, getting advice and sometimes even the support of an informed advocate at critical moments. But when the relationship works, the mentor gains just as much.

Initially the joy of mentoring includes ego strokes. It’s nice to have someone listen to you, and it can feel good when they follow your advice. Then, as the relationship grows, the mentee’s questions and feedback can give the mentor a chance to pause and gain a new perspective. Eventually, the conversation becomes truly two-way, with both partners seeking advice, sharing insights and exploring delicate career questions in an environment of trust.

But there’s no need to wait for mentoring relationships to mature over the years into bilateral dialogues. Why not seek relationships, or create programs, which from the very beginning are dedicated to reciprocal mentoring?

Initiating a mentoring partnership that works both ways is easiest when both people have strengths and expertise, but in different areas. These days, when generations have such diverse skills sets, reciprocal mentoring across age groups has immense appeal. A Boomer with leadership experience but meager social media skills might be partnered with a Millennial who understands IT and new ways to stay connected but doesn’t know how to manage people.

Whether you want to recruit reciprocal mentors to support your own growth, or are interested in introducing the concept to your organization, here are points to consider:

• The match is key. Not every partnership is likely to click. Both parties should feel like there’s something to gain, and mentoring works best when both people enjoy the other’s company. If you’re on the hunt for possible mentors for yourself, whether reciprocal or otherwise, you’re more likely to spot possibilities if you have broad social and professional circles. So pump up your networking and find groups and activities that allow you to meet new people. If you want to structure some kind of program, consider using social tools like LinkedIn.com as part of the matching process.
• Require commitments. Sometimes protégés chill their mentoring relationships by taking offense at the very advice they sought. Partners who ask for guidance or feedback should agree to listen carefully and put aside defensive reactions. It’s a good idea to set some ground rules at the start of a partnership. Touch upon issues like confidentiality, agree to maintain a positive tone and promise to avoid time wastes, like whining.
• Identify specific requests. It’s not enough for partners to begin with a vague sense they’d like some career help. Each partner should enter the process with clear ideas about issues to explore and forms of assistance that would be welcome. Later, when the relationship is successfully launched, it might grow in surprising directions.
• Consider logistics. It’s great if you find a mentor in your neighborhood and can meet over coffee or lunch. But what if you go through your professional or alumni group and find an ideal partner who lives across the country? Explore options like phone calls, Skype or social media chats, and set a schedule that’s comfortable and convenient for both of you.

Number 192

Lorna Jones, my mother, was a stay-at-home mom, then enjoyed working in the communications office of a community college. But she didn’t hit her professional stride until she turned 60 and launched her career as a painter.

She started painting watercolors and gradually shifted to oils. She began taking classes about 1980 and is still at it. She has always sold her paintings easily. But she has kept her prices low and limited the hours she paints because she didn’t want to ruin the fun.

Today, at age 92, Lorna is still selling her paintings as quickly as she can produce them. And she’s finding new strength as an artist. She says that in many ways she has actually had more fun during the last 20 years than at any other period of her life.

Today millions of Americans in their 40s and beyond are thinking about their next careers. Instead of looking ahead to retirement, they want to follow their current jobs with a different kind of professional phase. They hope to create a job/leisure balance that will provide meaning, bring in some money, and allow plenty of flexibility.

One way we learn what kind of life we want is from the example of people who have struck an appealing balance. Whatever your age, I hope you find some good ideas among the lessons I’ve learned from my mother:

• Keep learning. Lorna has been a student throughout her years as an artist. By taking lessons and classes, as well as studying on her own, she has continued to grow as a painter. She also has tried new styles ranging from nudes drawn in pencil or charcoal, to chalk pastel drawings, calligraphy and on-line designs. Work can be exciting for just as long as you challenge yourself to explore new ideas and avenues.
• Enjoy the arts. In addition to her work-related study, Lorna likes to know what other creative people are doing. She reads widely, methodically explores classical music, enjoys writing frequent movie reviews for Netflix, and finds new Apps for her iPad.
• Have younger friends. A great way to keep learning is to continue to make new friends of all ages. Many of Lorna’s friends today are younger than her own children. She says you have to make the effort to create social events and be willing to get out and do things with people younger than you.
• Exercise. Lorna is an avid lifelong gardener and in good weather she works outside for several hours a day. In the winter, she picks up her pace of painting, which may also involve physical activity, particularly when she works with large canvasses. And she walks regularly. She says there’s no getting around it: you have to keep using your body if you want it to serve you for the long haul.
• Don’t let your ailments become hobbies. Like any woman of a certain age, Lorna has her aches and pains. Sometimes they slow her down, but she deals with them, then refocuses on her art, or her garden, or a party. Lorna doesn’t want to obsess about her own health issues, and tries not to hang out with people who just talk about their medical problems.
• Be positive. Lorna chooses to have an upbeat, tolerant attitude, but I think it comes easier to her than to most of us. She says, “I am fairly good natured. Also, I often think that life has many funny moments. Perhaps that helps a bit. And I am not very class conscious because I feel that society has to be made up of all kinds of people. It’s kind of silly to fume about stuff we can’t change.”

Number 191

I grew up believing that the proper way to respond to a compliment was with modesty. If somebody said, “What a pretty dress,” my response was something like, “Oh, this cheap old thing.”

When I was a young lawyer, if I worked long hours on a tough memo and a partner said, “Thanks, you did a nice job,” I was inclined to answer in the same way. I’d belittle my efforts by saying something like, “No big deal” or, “It was really a team effort.”

My typical response was wrong in so many ways. For one thing, it reframed the partner’s assessment of the quality of my work. Instead of reading my mind and understanding that I’d struggled hard to produce a first class draft, the partner would tend to take me at my word and recall the project as not a big deal. Beyond that, when I deflected a compliment I drained the energy from what should have been a positive moment. When the partner offered kind words, I made him feel a little bit bad, instead of a little better. And I denied myself the benefits which a compliment can bring.

It wasn’t until I became a manager myself that I understood how the compliment exchange should go. To your brain, receiving a compliment is a reward, like a little cash, and research suggests that you perform even better after receiving a reward. So your first step after hearing a compliment is to pause for an instant, and get the full value of the moment.

When you do respond, you have two goals: to reinforce the positive evaluation that led to the compliment, and at the same time to make the giver feel good. Here are suggestions for accepting compliments on your work:

• Say “thanks.” Begin your response by saying “thank you.” And sound like you mean it. Even if a little voice in your head says, “I don’t deserve it,” ignore your doubt and express appreciation for the compliment.
• Express pleasure at a job well done. It’s not immodest to acknowledge satisfaction with good work. After saying “thanks,” add a phrase like, “I’m proud of this one,” or “I’m so pleased that I could help.”
• Share the credit. Although you don’t want to deny your contribution, you don’t want to hog the limelight, either. If it truly was a team effort, share the praise. Add a simple comment like, “I couldn’t have done it without Tom – he was terrific.”
• Return the compliment. You can prolong the nice moment by offering a compliment in return. Say something like, “Your good advice made such a difference.” But this only works if your words are sincere. Fake praise can be just another way of declining a compliment.
• Keep it short. When the compliment exchange goes on too long it can become uncomfortable. If the flow of praise feels unending, it’s OK to turn it off with a light comment like, “Aw shucks. That’s enough now. You’re making me blush.”
• Manage your “impostor syndrome.” Sometimes high achievers find it extremely difficult to hear praise, believing they don’t really deserve it. If you feel like an imposter, ignore your discomfort and accept the compliment gracefully. Then try these easy techniques for learning to be comfortable when your work gets rave reviews.

Number 190

A highly qualified professional went after his dream job. Although not yet 30, “Paul” has a solid record of extraordinary career success and he was confident about being the winning candidate. Then he felt devastated when he didn’t get the job. Paul wrote me about the intensity of his reaction.

“I hate how this news makes me feel,” Paul said. “Not only did I miss out on a job that I really wanted, but the company hired someone against whom I stacked up very well.”

“Aside from frustration and sadness, I also have second-order emotions regarding this decision,” Paul said. “Namely, I'm angry at myself for feeling sad and frustrated. These aren't becoming emotions of a gentleman, and certainly I know rationally that they aren't the 'right way' to deal with rejection.”

That was a couple of months ago and Paul is feeling much better. He suggested that his struggles and our dialogue about career rejection might be useful to others trying to get over a career disappointment. These tips helped Paul, and we hope they might help you in handling career rejection:

• Know that pain is normal. As someone who has read a lot of history, Paul realized that all great leaders faced setbacks on their paths to glory. But that knowledge didn’t help him feel better. He was embarrassed about experiencing such pain from something that happens to everyone. “I understand your frustration and the other emotions swirling around,” I said to Paul. “This is a normal passage for all high achievers. Everybody gets rejected eventually and the pain is tougher when you are not used to it.” Knowing it’s OK to feel bad was helpful to Paul, and he chose to let go of those secondary emotions, like guilt for feeling grief.
• Write about your pain. A useful way of dealing with pain is to examine it. When you carefully notice details about your pain, you start to feel some distance from it. I suggested that Paul take notes about his pain. I asked him, “What does it feel like to be sad and frustrated? Describe your feelings precisely? Where do you feel stress in your body? What are your repetitive thoughts? Are you making it worse by projecting what this blow means for the future?”
• Share with your inner circle. A key to Paul’s rapid recovery is the support he received from his partner and a few close friends. “I found it really helpful just to share my anxieties with them because good friends who know you well can help you maintain perspective,” he said.
• Understand what you lost. When you face professional rejection, some of your sadness is a sense of loss because you don’t have the opportunity you sought. But sometimes people feel awful about not getting a job they didn’t even care about. They like winning and feel rejected whether or not they wanted the prize. It may help you refocus on the future if you can be specifically identity what really hurt. Are you mostly concerned about the opportunity, the prestige or the money? The more clearly you understand the cause of your disappointment, the better you will be at articulating and looking toward your next goals.
• Keep a gratitude journal. One of the best antidotes for negative emotion is gratitude. Research has demonstrated that when you feel grateful the part of your brain associated with anxiety quiets down. You can pull yourself out of a bad place by focusing on the things in your life and career that are going well. A useful exercise is to take a few minutes at the end of every day to write about five aspects of your work life for which you’re grateful.
• Be gracious in defeat. While Paul was honest about how he felt with a trusted few, for most of the world he put on his game face and avoided any show of disappointment. That worked out well for him, and one of the executives involved in the negative decision helped make a connection that led to a job that’s an even better fit.

Number 189

After attending a California conference of high achieving women, journalist Pamela Ryckman started to notice that women of all ages are creating semi-formal professional networks. She began to discover a wide mix of women’s dining clubs and other groups, particularly in New York and California. She followed the trail to more cities and the result is her new book, Stiletto Network: Inside the Women's Power Circles That Are Changing the Face of Business.

“I started to discover dinner groups and salons and coworking and networking circles in major cities across the United States. In almost every case, the women thought they were alone in assembling clusters of dear, smart girlfriends who met regularly to learn and share,” Ryckman says. But in fact there are so many groups it’s starting to look like a movement.

I don’t think the phenomenon of women’s support circles is as new as Ryckman suggests, but I enjoyed her description of how the tide of female power groups is rising. “They talk nonstop about business. And while their companies pan the industries – from finance to real estate to fashion to art – they’re almost all Web-based.” But “it’s not like they’re all work and no play...Never has the Women’s Movement felt less like a jaundiced faction and more like a party.”

Tens of thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands, of professional women are meeting regularly, reaching across generational and institutional lines, and sharing information, advice and contacts. And the energy and excitement they share seems to be contagious. Ryckman describes woman after woman whose career takes off, with one synchronistic opportunity after another, as a result of her Stiletto Network.

It’s worth noting that these groups are not anti-man. “Networks are meant to extend one’s scope, not restrict it,” Ryckman says. “Savvy gals may unite on occasion, but they don’t cut themselves off from the dudes.” Women want to help each other build rich networks, including with powerful men.

The circles exist to provide peer-to-peer support, and don’t welcome just anybody. Some mentioned by Ryckman have membership policies sounding perhaps too much like the restrictive clubs that served the Old Boy Network. “For Stiletto Networks to be relevant and desirable, they must be rooted in shared experience and true sympathy – which means they must have some form of exclusivity.”

What makes the new groups particularly interesting is the absence of hierarchy and emphasis on collaboration across industries and skill sets. “The horizontal networks women have built over time just happen to be the same networks society now wants and needs.” Ryckman says they are about being “collegial, collaborative, checking your ego at the door, and trying to work on solutions.”

The circles are so varied that your experience may not align with Ryckman’s account of how the women’s network works. But if you’re a woman, I bet her book will make you want to start a group, or tweak the one you already love so it can foster even more career synchronicity.

Ryckman’s tips for starting a Stiletto Network include:

• Think diversity. Don’t just round up your best buddies. Draw women with diverse skills, in different fields.
• Believe in magic. Don’t worry much about the goals or agendas. “If you get dynamic ladies talking or walking or drinking, exciting things will happen.”
• Use technology to facilitate. After the event, share information and continue the conversation through email and social media.
• Systemize “asks and offers.” Women may have trouble asking for help. A process for making requests or offering assistance makes groups more effective.

Number 188

What are the characteristics of celebrities, business leaders and other people who rise to the very top of their chosen fields? Authors Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield explored this question in their intriguing book, "The Art of Doing – How Superachievers Do What They Do and How They Do It So Well."

Last week in Wisconsin, the authors shared key lessons from their research at Conversation Among Masters, a conference of senior executive coaches. Their initial goal was to uncover what makes top achievers unique. But after months of interviews with a broad mix of highly successful people, what they found most interesting is that these extraordinary folks share many core principles and practices.

Sweeney, a journalist, and Gosfield, an artist were not steeped in the science of success when they began their project. They started without preconceptions and created an anecdotal portrait of what it takes to reach a professional pinnacle. The CAM audience was enthralled by what the pair found, because their conclusions echo basic principles shaping the rapidly growing coaching profession. Here are two of the 10 most important strategies the authors noticed among people who vault above others in their fields:

Super achievers are active listeners. “Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?” That’s a classic line from poor listeners, say the authors. But the people they interviewed, although highly focused and hardworking, tend to be terrific listeners. “Every one of them credits listening as an important aspect of their work. Some use it to validate others, but they all listen to learn.” Among the interviewees who understand listening are:

• Erin Gruwell was an idealistic white student teacher who hoped to make a difference with her mixed-race high school class of remedial students in Long Beach, California. At first she was shocked by the students’ hostile response to her efforts, but her anger shifted to empathy as she listened to their harrowing stories of growing up amidst violence. She found new ways to teach through active listening, and went on to create the Freedom Writers Teacher Institute to teach educators to “become a student of your students.”
• CEO Tony Hsieh asked employees: what values should be embraced by on-line apparel retailer Zappos? He listened to their responses and the ensuing dialogue eventually shaped the company’s culture. And listening is key to Zappos’ approach to customer service. “We make an emotional connection person to person, one interaction at a time,” Hsieh said.
• Randall Grahm makes great wine by hearing in ways that don’t involve actual sound. This visionary vintner “listens to the land” when deciding which varieties of grapes to grow at his Bonny Doon vineyard. He says by reaching the right level of relaxation and attention it’s possible to “participate in the intelligence of nature itself.”