Get In The Game is a weekly column by Dan Yarrington, managing partner of Myriad Games in Manchester & Salem, New Hampshire, Treasurer of the Professional Game Store Association, and Editor-in-Chief of GameSalute.com.  This week, Yarrington discusses the benefits of mentoring for both parties.

Welcome back to Get In The Game, a column that explores proactive ways we can improve the games industry.  This week we discuss the benefits of mentorship.

Why Mentor?
It's challenging enough to stay afloat in the specialty games industry, let alone thrive.  Why would you want to take time out of your already overworked schedule to talk with other companies, sharing your hard-earned expertise, providing advice and counsel,and contributing to the betterment of others?  You learned those lessons through trial and error and you have the scars to prove it.  Why not let them do the same thing you did and sink or swim on their own abilities?

Have you ever received a piece of advice that saved you time, money, and energy?  Who have you talked with during your time in business who's really helped improve your prospects?  You owe it to yourself to think about those lessons learned, those mentors that helped you.  And you stand to gain quite a bit for yourself if you choose to be a mentor to others.

What's Good For You Is Good For Me
There are selfish reasons to be a mentor.  You learn while you teach and you reinforce positive behaviors you've developed over the years.  You also challenge suppositions that you took for gospel truth when they run up against the skepticism of fresh converts.  You have to explain yourself and justify your ideas and policies.  This makes you more likely to recognize and correct errors in your previous thinking... if you proceed with an open mind.  Others will come up with creative solutions to challenges that you would never have conceived by yourself.  Discussion leads us places we never thought we'd go, and it can turn out to be a more wondrous place than you ever expected.  What's good for the mentee is good for the mentor.

Lead By Example
When you have good ideas, you want to share them. You want to brag about your successes?  Learn to brag about your failures too.  Wear the scars of your mistakes as proud badges of your former idiocy and warnings to your fellow store owners of what not to do.  When you do something well, share that success.  This is the key to being a good mentor.  It's not enough to talk a good game--you need to know how to play too.  You need to demonstrate success, recognize mistakes, overcome failure, and move on to even greater heights.  The best way to lead is by example, so become engaged in every aspect of your operations.  Explore, analyze, and innovate.  And do it as part of a community.

I've Got A Bad Feeling About This...
Don't be afraid to tell someone not to do something if it's a bad idea.  Don't be afraid of hurting someone's feelings.  Trust your instincts.  Most of the things we think up just plain suck.  They're half-formed ideas or whimsical fancies that have no place in the real world.  The ability to recognize when something has potential and when you need to abandon an idea is key.  One of the best things you can do for an unprepared potential store owner is convince them not to open their store (translation: throw their money away).  Take heed when you have a feeling that something's not going to work. Y ou may well be right.

Get In Touch With Your Inner Spock
Step back and be impartial, rational, and logical.  All too often we invest way too much of ourselves in our businesses and our perspective becomes skewed.  We think we should implement new concepts because they originated with us, rather than searching out great ideas and executing them, regardless of the origin.  Look at any challenge you have in your own business, and look at the problem from a remove, as if it were a question posed by someone you mentor.  Be rational, be logical, be cold and distant and unforgiving.  Be honest and then look for real solutions unrelated to emotion.  Once you've figured out the method, you can again imbue the concept with the passion that led you to investigate it to begin with.

Don't Set A Good Example...
Together, we can accomplish more than we ever could separately.  And never underestimate the benefits of sharing your expertise, of serving as a mentor, listening as a mentee, and learning in both roles.  So whether you're informally talking with your fellow shopkeeps through your favorite industry forum, or you're engaging in formal mentorship through an industry support organization like the Professional Game Store Association or the GAMA Retail Division, you should relish the opportunity to share your thoughts, ideas, and expertise.  Don't just set a good example.  Set a great example.

Talk Back!
What's the most valuable piece of advice you've ever received?  What are the top three things you would share with a fledgling store you were mentoring?  Talk Back today!

What are you waiting for?  Get In The Game!

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.