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A mentor knows –– or should know –– one or two things more than you, the mentoree. That’s why they are called mentors. They are masters in the field where they have expertise. They didn’t just become masters. They paid their dues. They invested quality time learning what they became experts on.

And this is why anyone seeking to achieve their level of success ought to listen to them. But guess what? Most people don’t do what their mentors tell them. Not even when they pay hefty fees for the advice.

Does that include you?

Consider the following: You’re smart enough to know you should have a mentor. And you have the good sense to locate the mentor that is right for you.

The mentor, whose expertise in the field you’re trying to excel in is legendary, tells you what you should do to achieve success. You nod your head, giving the impression that you’ve got the answer you were looking for, and that you were going to do exactly what you were told.

Your mentor’s instruction was simple and clear. When you get to the end of a particular road, turn to the left, he directs. But on getting to the end of that road, you notice that your final destination the place you asked your guide to lead you to, is a short distance away if you turned to the right.

Lured by your desire to get there faster, you abandon the instruction of your mentor, without bothering to ask yourself why your mentor wanted you to avoid the short cut. Neither do you consider it wise to go back and tell him about your new discovery, and what he thinks about it.

Instead, you just head off in the opposite direction. And, as it most often than not happens, midway into what appeared to be a short cut to your destination, you get bogged down, stranded. And, if you’re like most people who acted against the informed advice of their mentors, you do everything you can to avoid him like a plague.

Some would even go as far as blaming the mentor for their woes. Such people with lopsided reasoning faculty would argue that he should’ve told them that there was a shorter road to where they were going and warn them not to take it.

If this represents your approach to your search for enduring success, then pause and have a rethink.

Your best bet is to follow the script your mentor gives you, especially if you have been careful in choosing the right one. You should follow his leadership and do as you’re told. After you’ve successfully under-studied him and mastered how to do what you were taught, then you could afford the luxury of doing your own experiments and making your own discoveries.

That way, you’ll be practising the knowledge that you acquired and preparing yourself to be a good mentor to others.

This is definitely a shorter cut to success, the way to get ahead in life. By going this route, you’ll avoid the costly mistake that most success seekers make, wasting their time and money and unnecessarily crashing what should’ve otherwise been a colourful destiny in the process.