Who’s Mentoring You?

I found this Youtube clip  searching the web. The clip is a good «AHA» moment saying that Tiger Woods using help to get his goals so why shouldn`t you.

A very good question, why shouldn`t you? We have to stop thinking that mentoring is only for the sportsmen, to get good you need a mentor. You can`t say it enough, don`t think you can do everything for your self.

Who needs a mentor? (Idea + Mentor = Start Business, Part 2)

You could read about Cloe Holding, the founder of www.habinki.com, earlier in my blog and at www.thenextwomen.com. In part two she was talking about some details in the adept/mentor relationship that I found important to put out here. Many are a bit scared to get a mentor because of all the spotlight and commitment, better to try to do it alone when no one watching, they think. But this can be said over and over again, do it! Get a mentor and you will work smarter, faster and maybe even get better results.

Read about Cloe Holding and what she says, and especially the last sentence. Thank you Cloe!
 
How did you find the response for the request for a mentor?
“I found the mentoring trial interesting, but also incredibly time consuming and I have found it hard juggling a lot of priorities at the moment.”
 
What did you get from the mentorship till now?
“I think that one gaines a lot of experience and information from every conversation that one has. Certainly just hearing about people out there who have done something similar and lived to tell the tale is incredibly valuable. I certainly enjoyed hearing about other entrepreneurs and the businesses they have managed to establish.”
 
Are you in contact? How, by phone, text or in person?
“I do think that to build a lasting relationship you need to meet people and connect with them on a personal level. So I don’t know if I will keep in touch regularly with any of the mentors that I emailed, although I would definitely keep in touch now and again when I wanted to seek some advice or if I encountered a problem in the field of expertise that they were specializing in.”
 
Can you recommend it?
“Anyway, I did enjoy the process and really appreciate being able to be involved – it has taught me a lot!”
 

 

Updates and changes

Edit: Updates are done, and I have installed an Archive of the blog! It may not look very impressive now, but over time, the archive will make it easier to find information posted in the early days of the blog!

I am currently doing security updates and some minor functionality changes on this blog. There may be some minor problems occuring during this weekend.

Thank you for your understanding!

Success history 4

The adept I told you about in success story 3 told me the other day that he got his classmate in shipping an job interview at his mentor working place.

He was convinced that the classmate would get along and fit in at his old mentors work. He applied, got an interview and he was offered the job.

So something which at first glance was not the best mentor (because of the branch), become a success. Just by using your network…

Ryan Blair an entrepreneur and mentor

At Oslo Innovation Week in Oslo, Norway I went to a seminar yesterday with Ryan Blair (www.ryanblair.com).
Ryan having launched his career as an entrepreneur in 1998 – at the age of twenty – he has since earned a reputation as a technology pioneer and expert marketer, creating six successful companies and investing in several others the last decade.

Ryan is a passionate writer and speaker. His first published work was released in June of 2006, featured as a contributing author in the Power of Mentorship Vol. II. Ryan is presently working on a book about his life story entitled Faith of the Dots.

So he is a eager spokesman for mentoring, saying that a mentor more or less saved my life. Getting my to write down my goals in early years and learned me to go after it.

Hearing him talking about how important his first mentor was for him is huge. Setting goals he had to be able to visualize and then have the belief in yourself to manage your goals.

Something he talked a lot about was «give more than you receive». Meaning that you can`t only ask your potential mentor for his time and good advice. And not giving anything back, everything from washing mentors car to give shares in your business.

Usher and Quincy Jones

Since 1990, MENTOR/National Mentoring (http://www.mentoring.org) Partnership has been working to expand the world of quality mentoring. They especially work with mentoring for children mostly because MENTOR believes that, with the help and guidance of an adult mentor, each child can discover how to unlock and achieve his or her potential.

MENTOR is widely acknowledged as the America’s premier advocate and resource for the expansion of mentoring initiatives nationwide. As such, MENTOR works with a strong network of state and local Mentoring Partnerships to leverage resources and provide the support and tools that mentoring organizations need to effectively serve young people in their communities.

MENTOR recognizes that, although nearly 17.6 million young Americans need or want mentoring, only 3 million are in formal, high-quality mentoring relationships.

That means more than 14.6 million young people still need mentors. That unmet need constitutes what we call the «mentoring gap.» MENTOR works to close that gap.

And here you can see a video where the world famous Usher and Quincy Jones telling the importance of mentoring. Usher even say that «You are not succesful until you are able to offer and give back. That is strong word, and right word. It is important for mentoring as an business to get good known people to marketing our work.

To use the word of Usher: «Share what you know»

Idea + Mentor = Start Business

Chloe Holding is the founder of the very early stage startup Habinki (www.habinki.com).
At www.thenextwomen.com she talks about her start-up and why she needs a mentor.
(In Part II you can find out what happened after this interview).

As many of you know there a lot of questions coming up when you are starting your own business. This is a intervue of a smart girl, because she got here self a mentor to help her.

1. How did you come up with the idea of your start-up?
It was more a question of ‘What did I want to do with my life?’ than finding a new business idea, and starting up a bikini/travel company was exactly what I wanted to do. I had always wanted to set up a business and I had a passion for travel and retail, and it just took a little bit of inspiration to figure out how to make that into a great business.

2. How far are you with the set up of the start-up?
I have secured funding via a loan with the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme backed by the government, I have incorporated the company, developed the branding, and begun marketing and selling my brand. The bikinis are on their way from Brazil to arrive in June and the website is currently in development.

3. What is your goal with the company
I want to create a brand which young people associate with and are inspired by. I can see many opportunities in the future in terms of developing new product lines and focusing more on the travel industry, in terms of places to go ‘in your bikini’.

4. What was your biggest challenge during the development process?
Without any doubt the biggest challenge so far has been to make the decision and find the strength of mind to do something very different, which your peers, friends and family may not understand or support. It was about realising that I wanted to do this so much that it actually didn’t matter what anyone else thought, or what advice people gave me, and that the faith and passion I had for building businesses was strong enough to set out on a path on my own. I think part of the definition of being an entrepreneur is to do what everyone else says ‘will never work’.

5. Who are your advisers?
My close friends, a core group of girls (and a few boys) who have shown a real interest and passion for what I am doing. They have offered advice, often on a daily basis, on some tricky issues, and I hope that in the not-too-distant future some of these people will come and work for the business.

6. Why do you need a mentor, for which activities and for which period of time?
I would like someone who has been through a similar experience of setting up a business from scratch, and who has been successful. I would be interested in any kind of communication that would be convenient for them. Even an email exchange every couple of weeks or once a month would be great, or even just to have the opportunity to talk on the phone for half an hour as a one-off, so that I could talk through some core-issues. I think about raising capital, and how to expand, or…. recover from a major business crisis. It would also be useful to gain recommendations of advisors, software, consultants to use.

Anyone living in Davenport, USA?

If so, Davenport School invites anyone interested in helping children learn to a free tutor and Mentor.
I fell for it, and had to put it in my blog. Here are Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois looking for more mentors for students in Davenport School.

Talk about getting all citizens to work for a good cause!

They put together a seminar October 8th, 1:30 PM at the Davenport Schools Administration Center, 1606 Brady Street Davenport, IA.

And the attendees will learn strategies and techniques for tutoring and mentoring plus what to expect when volunteering in a school setting.

Fantastic! If you live in Davenport and are an elder, don`t you dear not to volunteer!

Read more about this at http://qconline.com/archives/qco/display.php?id=406443

How important is mentoring to young women?

Mentoring is discussing in all sorts of ways, and I am positive to that. I mean that mentoring is the right way for an boost in personal life and in job life. I come across this Lily7 (www.lily7.com) which exists to encourage and equip young women to develop Godly character and to find their self-worth in Christ alone. I am not going to discuss Christ pro contra, but point out the value of mentoring as a good tool.

And I think they answer very correct in a question they got from one reader. She thinks that mentoring could be a scary word to people. When people at lily7 responded that it could sound really formal and intimidating. But further more they say that mentoring can be as casual as you going to someone you trust and respect for advice. It can also be specific to a particular part of your life, too. For example says Sally, from lily7, I’ve got professors and lawyers who I seek out for how to write a legal argument, and I’ve got totally different people who I seek out for their thoughts on things in my everyday life. These people all see different aspects of my life, but the one thing that they have in common, which makes me call them mentors rather than regular friends, is that my relationship with them involves a lot of me learning from them and them giving their thoughts on whatever it is I’m doing. By contrast, I learn with or alongside friends. And in the end she asks “Does that make sense as a definition of mentoring?”

I say that it is a good definition because it is important for me to make everybody understand what it is, how to use it and that it isn`t intimidated.
To read the whole answer and more from lily7, follow this link:
http://www.lily7.com/consider-lily/

Success history 3

An adept from my latest mentor program called me some days ago to tell me about his new job. He got the job through his mentors’ network, his dream job.
His mentor was in a different branch than this adept wanted to job in, but the mentor has a friend who needed a new employee. He applied, got to the interview and got the job.

This was a job he never thought he could get at his stage in life, and he told me that this has never happened without the mentor program.

This feedback is a joy to get, and it shows that mentoring works.
He got more wise, stayed with his mentor the whole period and manage to use his mentors network to get a job.
Excellent work Jimmy!