Life responds to deserve, not need

The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.

We must learn to help those who deserve it, not just those who need it. Life responds to deserve, not need.

My mentor said, “Let’s go do it,” not “You go do it”. How powerful when someone says, “Let’s!”

Good people are found, not changed. Recently I read a headline that said, “We don’t teach people to be nice. We simply hire nice people.” Wow! What a clever shortcut.

Managers help people see themselves as they are; leaders help people see themselves better than they are.

Learn to help people with more than just their jobs; help them with their lives.

by Jim Rohn

Giving is better than receiving

Giving/Sharing/Generosity

It’s best to start the discipline of generosity when the amounts are small. It’s easy to give ten cents out of a dollar; it’s a little harder to give a hundred thousand out of a million.

Giving is better than receiving because giving starts the receiving process.

Here’s what is exciting about sharing ideas with others: If you share a new idea with ten people, they get to hear it once and you get to hear it ten times.

Sharing makes you bigger than you are. The more you pour out, the more life will be able to pour in.

Somebody says, “Well, I can’t be concerned about other people. About the best I can do is to take care of myself.” Well, then you will always be poor.

What you give becomes an investment that will return to you multiplied at some point in the future.

Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have.

«Vitamins for the Mind» is a weekly sampling of original quotes on a specific topic taken from The Treasury of Quotes by Jim Rohn.

Mentoring and being mentored: A win-win situation

 (Part 4 of the Series)

 
In Part 1 of this series last week we looked at what a mentor is and does. In Part 2 we looked at ways to find a mentor and in Part 3 we looked at how to be a mentor. In this article, we will talk about wether you are an mentee or a mentor it´s a win-win situation never the less.

 

 

Making a difference in the lives of others is one of the keys to fulfillment. Susan Krauss found this out in her study of happiness in midlife adults. No matter what their job, the most fulfilled were the people who were reaching out to the young and helping them through life hurdles.

 

By helping young colleagues, students, friends, and family members, midlife and older adults provide valuable insights based on their own life experiences, insights that can’t be easily transmitted through "book learning."

There is all kinds of advice that the experienced can give to the novice ranging from proper behavior in new situations to hands-on skills to succeed in a given profession. In fact, you don’t even have to be that old or experienced to pass along the knowledge you’ve acquired. I’ve seen many junior and senior undergrads help "mentor" their first-year and sophomore classmates. You don’t have to reach that far down the age hierarchy to pass the torch.

 

Passing along knowledge from one generation (defined loosely) to the next is a central feature of what psychologist Erik Erikson called "generativity." He believed that the feeling of connection you derive from mentoring helps your ego develop the value of caring. If you don’t develop this quality, you run the risk of what he called "stagnation."

 

My advice is: Don’t give up on the young. Don’t label them any more than you would like to be labeled. And when a young person appears disrespectful, don’t take it as a sign to write off an entire generation. The person you will be writing off is– yourself.

 


Mentoring entrepreneurs

I just come a mentoring session today with 4 entrepreneurs within education. They are 4 girls and one guy (the last girl couldn´t make it today). I´m going to be their mentor, but in a formal mentoring program.

The business idea is to make training for small kids and sell it to schools and kindergardens. It is a lot fun to meet them because they are so enthusiastic and willing to do almost everything you suggest. So today we had a two hours session about their businessplan and a presentation they are going to have on the 22. of september.

I am really looking forward to meet them again and work more with this brilliant idea.

Go Phi, Wenche, Hanne and Erlend.

I’m ‘growing through other’

I’m so sick of leadership catchphrases. Irritable enough, is also right in the majority!

This morning I met with my mentee. And I was struck by the cliché is actually true: it is developing to be a mentor.

By mentoring, I have to think through how I do things and why. It is a bit embarrassing having to admit it, because I have developed allergies to all the clichés surrounding leadership and leadership development. But «I want to grow the second« it is so true.

A commentary by Catharina Nordlund from Sweden giving in the swedish leadership magazine www.chef.se

The Value Of Mentoring

Helping business start-ups is a rewarding activity for many retired entrepreneurs and (since selling his own company) it has even become the principal activity for Derek Barr, a business angel with a keen interest in early-stage ventures. Having grown his own specialist engineering concern into an international business, with turnover of £25 million, he sold out to international engineering group GEA in 1996.

Barr has vast experience in training and developing successful executives and his involvement with the London Business School Entrepreneurship Summer School goes right back to the beginning. He has seen the Summer School change in form and scope to what it is today. For him, however, one key part of the programme has not changed – namely the role of mentors.

Why You Need To Train People For Mentoring

The purpose of training is to enable mentors and mentorees to establish effective relationships. Some programs simply introduce people and leave them to «get on with it». Occasionally, this works. But people need to know what is expected of them, how to go about it and why it is important and you need to be confident they have the skills for mentoring.Why Train?

  • Building a relationship of rapport and trust can be tricky when there are many individual differences;
  • Managing people is different from mentoring people; and
  • Motivation will be critical to success.

Mentoring is different from other workplace relationships. It is professional and personal, it deals with rational and emotional motivation and it non-directive but offers guidance and advice! The paradoxical nature of mentoring needs to be understood and the key skills developed.
In addition, participants usually need ongoing personal support and reassurance. Establishing an interactive network of participants will add value. This is most likely to happen when participants meet and work together in training sessions.

Training Mentors and Mentorees

The role of the mentor, communication styles, strategies and practical techniques for applying the mentoring process can be explored in workshops. It is usually beneficial to provide mentors with an initial session separately from the mentorees so that they are able to discuss any issues candidly.

Mentorees need to be primed to make the most of the mentoring experience. Their responsibilities, communication and goal setting are topics you want to cover in their training.

Bringing mentors and mentorees together for a workshop is highly desirable. This way you can enable them to identify expectations of each other in a non-threatening group process. You can also ensure that they have a common understanding of mentoring etiquette, procedures and reporting. Being part of a group reduces the feeling of isolation and you can set up a mechanism for ongoing group contact. Within this workshop mentoring pairs can have a structured first meeting to break the ice. Debriefing the meeting as a group, you can draw out do’s and don’ts for effective future meetings.

 

The author of this article is Ann Rolfe, and was first published 04. februar 2010 on www.mentoring-works.com.

Reverse Mentoring

Based on old paradigm mentoring where a more senior person (in terms of age, position or experience) mentors a junior, reverse mentoring places the more junior person as the mentor.

Usually used when executives need to understand operations or technology that can be shared by shop floor, front-line or tech-savvy employees.

The key to success in reverse mentoring is the ability to create and maintain an attitude of openness to the experience and dissolve the barriers of status, power and position.

The Mentoring Mindset

Traditional mentoring grew from the concept of the older and wiser guiding the young and aspiring. Masters and apprentices, patrons and protégés and mastermind (expert/novice) mentoring continue this paradigm.

Contemporary mentoring has many forms and frequently people regard each other as partners, colleagues or peers, ignoring age, status or power. This more egalitarian approach suits today’s generation and has much to offer.

JCI Gothenburg

Going to Gothenburg in the end of march for training. It’s a training in leadership, personal leadership. What kind of tools do I got and how to use them.

I will post program soon and some pictures to from the two days training.

— Post From My iPhone