Mentor Monday: Arik Hanson

Arik Hanson

I’m going to start a weekly routine where I share the people that I consider to be my mentors every Monday.  These are people that have helped me when I needed it, whether or not I asked for it, and whether or not they even realize it.  I am extremely thankful for these people, and would not be where I am today, or where I will be tomorrow, without them.  If you know what’s good for you, you’ll connect with these individuals as well.  So onto my first featured mentor…

Arik Hanson

His blog.

His twitter.

I’ll never forget the first time I actually connected with Arik.  I looked up to him as one of those “popular” twitter users and had followed him for a while.  One day I replied to one of his tweets, and it turned out he was following me too.  He told me I was a great example of someone (young) who just dove in.  It felt great to know that someone I considered to be in a circle much higher than mine actually listened and took notice of someone as new to the community as myself.

Looking back, I know now that I shouldn’t have been surprised.  Arik in no way, shape or form thinks himself too good to connect with anyone.  He is as humble as he is kind.  After that day, I continued to connect with Arik on a regular basis through twitter.

To this day, he has been there to help me ANY time I’ve needed him.  He actually sat with me (online) for over an hour one night, after he had a long day of work, to walk me through writing a press release. I had never written one and reached out to Arik to provide me with a few tips.  I did not expect him to sacrifice his personal time to make sure that I felt comfortable with what I was doing…but that’s just the type of guy he is.

I am extremely grateful to be able to consider Arik my mentor.  You da man Arik.  Looking forward to actually meeting in person asap.

If you have mentors that you’d like to show appreciation for, feel free to follow suit with my Mentor Monday system.  Not trying to start the next big hashtag movement or anything, but I will be sharing these posts with the hashtag #mentormonday and you should to. Our mentors deserve the appreciation.