The Invisible Mentor

Archive for May, 2009

On a scale of one to 10, how do you rate yourself when it comes to problem solving? People who excel at problem solving have the distinct ability to:

•  Observe
• Listen and hear
• Get along with others
• Secure reliable information
• Look at what’s been done before
• Pay attention to detail
• Take a break
• Reflect on options
• Trust their instincts
• Adapt
• Take decisive actions

How many of the above traits do you have? Even if you consider yourself to be a great problem solver, there is always room for improvement. So let’s practice our problem solving skills! Describe a challenge or problem that you’re having. Writing down the problem makes it more concrete for you. Make sure that your problem statement is not too broadly or narrowly defined.

Look closely at the photographs above, how does each of the photographs connect to your problem? What elements do they have in common? For example, in what way does the problem expand beyond prescribed boundaries? What elements of the problem is blurred, or simply an illusion? How will a solution to the problem free you like a swan and ducks in a pond at High Park?

Now that you are seeing your challenge or problem in a new light, how can you creatively solve it? What tools do you need? Do you have access to those tools, and if not, where can you find them? Do you have tools in your tool kit that would help us expand the collective intelligence?

For other creative problem solving techniques How Stuff Works delivers!

Related Resources

Inspirer, Reflector, Innovator or Influencer, Which One Are You?

What Type of Problem Solver Are You?

The Importance of Problem-Solving by Ken Watanabe

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Photo Credits: Avil Beckford

Jim Rohn describes The Seasons of Life as a condensation of ideas and observations he gained over 40 years to help to place life, events, purpose, opportunities and challenges into perspective. His purpose for writing this book is to awaken and unearth the answers that lie dormant deep within our hearts and minds.

The Seasons of Life is a book filled with a lot of common sense information, but it’s a good reminder for us. For example, we are in a situation where we know that we have to change and try something new because what we have been doing no longer works, but we have so much invested in old ideas, old friends, old ways of doing things or even an old belief system that no longer serves us, that we simply refuse to make the necessary changes. As Rohn explains, “We tend to accumulate and cling to ideas that limit our progress. We cherish friendships even though the friendships impede our personal growth… We wander through life allowing people and their attitudes and ideas to mold our characters – people whose attitudes and ideas have brought themselves little in the way of progress, productivity, or happiness… If our attitudes, results, or happiness is to ever improve, we must exercise the painful discipline required for “weeding-out” the garden of our life.”

The seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter are used as an analogy for the different stages and occurrences in our lives. The book explains how we all go through the different seasons of life from the harsh winter where things don’t go our way to the fantastic summer where life is beautiful. Rohn shares how we can get through the tough times and enjoy the good ones even more.

Winter – Learn how to survive: “The arrival of winter finds us in one of two categories: Either we are prepared or we are unprepared… To those who are prepared, who have planted abundantly in the spring, guarded their crops carefully during the summer, and harvested massively during the fall, winter can be yet another season of opportunity.” Winter always comes after the harvest of fall. Do the personal inner work to stay strong and positive and don’t give up. Know that spring is always around the corner.

Spring – Window of opportunity: “Springtime is the fresh air of new opportunity, amid the dissipating clouds of winter… [It] is the time for entering the bleak, empty fields given to us as a new chance… Each day is given us as a new season of spring.” This is your window when you must take action and plant your seeds of opportunity. It’s the season when your soil is most fertile so you have to exercise the discipline to plant even though there may be many obstacles in front of us. Rid your soil of weeds and rocks, which may appear as the opinions of those around us in the form of worry, doubt, or pessimism. The springtime of our lives manifests itself infrequently so we have to seize the moment and plant massively and intelligently.

Summer – Nourish and Protect: “The summer of life is a time to protect; it is a time for constant daily effort to guard against the busy bugs and noxious weeds. The spring is a time for the creation of things of value, and those things require the season of summer for growing and gaining strength that they might yield their result in the coming fall” Fertilize your new habits so they continue to develop. Pull out your weeds of bad habits. Be patient, the results may not always show immediately.

Fall – Harvest: “For those who planted abundantly in the spring, and who fought against the bugs, weeds, and weather of summer, fall can bring rewards which give cause for rejoicing… The fall tells us if we have really done that which is required… Massive action in the spring of life still is the requirement for massive success in the fall.” In all aspects of your life, the harvest will come in due time. Take a journey in your mind to where you see the harvest of your changes, having the life you want.

 Five Great Ideas

1. The formula for success for one will lead to the self-destruction of another
2. What happened even as recently as yesterday is no longer of any consequence, unless we choose to allow it to be. What is of great importance is who and what it is that leaves its mark today and each day hereafter
3. There is little difference between one who has given up his life and one who has given up his hope
4. Be grateful for adversity, for it forces the human spirit to grow – for surely, the human character is formed not in the absence of difficulty but in response to difficulty
5. The teacher is always the greatest recipient of the lessons he seeks to teach others

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A Book Review of The Five Pieces to the Life Puzzle: A Guide to Personal Success by Jim Rohn

Excerpt from August 2006 Ambeck Edge

An important aspect of professional success involves participating in mentoring programs. And now more than ever, employees need mentors to guide and advise them as they navigate flattened corporate structures.  In the absence of, and as a complement to traditional mentors, professionals can mentor themselves, utilizing Invisible Mentors, in the form of books by and about successful people as well as interviews with successful people. An invisible mentor is a unique leader (role model) you can learn things from by observing them from a distance.

Shift Your Mindset Then The Impossible Becomes Possible

To get invisible mentoring from a book, it has to have many of the elements below:

• Provokes thought
• Provides a deeper level of understanding and heightened awareness
• Ignites passion
• Awakens deep-seated emotions
• Provides practical wisdom
• Chronicles events for strategic guidance
• Provides formulas and intellectual frameworks to use
• Be about a change maker
• Solves everyday problems
• Shifts the reader’s mindset

  Invisible Mentor interviews work best when interviewees are:

• Willing to share wisdom, knowledge and experiences
• Old enough to have learned important life lessons
• Accomplished
• Enlightened and understand that the world is bigger than them
• Inspiring
• Willing to help others succeed
• Engaging
• Well-read
• Articulate
• Problem solvers
• Change makers
• Passionate
• Easy to understand

The easiest way to choose Invisible Mentors or a Personal Board of Invisible Mentors is to ask colleagues, family and friends for suggestions and recommendations for books to read and interviews to listen to. Ensure that the list is diverse, containing books that are off the beaten track and interviewees who are unusual suspects. Seek divergent views to stand apart from the crowd. You can find suggestions on The Mentors‘ and Library pages.

Make a list of 10 Invisible Mentors

Photo Credits: Avil Beckford

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• Create Your Board of Mentors – January is National Mentoring Month (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Interview With Invisible Mentor Jeanne-Marie Robillard, Senior Account Executive, National Speakers Bureau, Part Two (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Interview With Invisible Mentor Jeanne-Marie Robillard, Senior Account Executive, National Speakers Bureau (theinvisiblementor.com)

The Five Pieces to the Life Puzzle by Jim Rohn is about how to live a more successful, fulfilling and happier life. This book contains some unique ways of looking at life and it’s an easy read. So, What are the five major pieces of the puzzle?

• Philosophy – what we know
• Attitude – what we feel
• Activity – what we do
• Results – what we achieve
• Lifestyle – how we choose to live and design our lives

According to the author, our personal philosophy establishes our attitude, which determines the quantity and quality of our activity, which produces a final and proportionate result, which provides the lifestyle that we live. Rohn suggests that to become successful, we have to practice a few simple disciplines every day.

To look more closely at personal philosophy, “A major factor in determining how our lives turn out is the way we choose to think. Everything that goes on inside the human mind in the form of thoughts, ideas and information forms our personal philosophy.” The beliefs that form our personal philosophy also determine our value system. We are encouraged to learn from other people’s experience with success and failure, surround ourselves with positive influence, become good listeners and observers, read all the books and keep a journal. For example, to become a good observer and excel, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is going on in my industry?
• What challenges are currently facing our community?
• What are the new breakthroughs, the new opportunities, the new tools and techniques that have recently come to light?
• What are the new personalities that are influencing the world and local opinions?

Rohn explains that all the books that we will ever need to make us as rich, as healthy, as sophisticated and so on, have already been written. He further adds, “The habit of reading is a major stepping stone in the development of a sound philosophical foundation.”

It’s also very important for us to study our results so that we can make adjustments along the way. “If we are not satisfied with what we have achieved at this point in our lives, then now is the time to fix the future… If we are not making measurable progress in a reasonable amount of time, then something is clearly wrong with either our objectives or the execution of our plans… Ten years from now we will all be somewhere, the question is where? Now is the time to fix the next ten years.”

Five Great Ideas

1. To have more, we must first become more
2. In the end, our lives will be judged not by the things that we began, but by the things that our effort and resolve brought to a successful conclusion
3. Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event – it is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated everyday
4. For things to change, we must change
5. The only thing that is necessary for triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. It is our lack of intense, disciplined activity that has allowed evil to flourish and good men to flounder

I recommend The Five Pieces to the Life Puzzle. It’s very easy to read and has information that causes you to pause and reflect.

Excerpt from April 2006 Ambeck Edge

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Spotting the Opportunities Among the Clouds

Do you commiserate with your friends and peers about missed opportunities? Or, do you constantly find yourself saying, “Why didn’t I think of that?” If you answered yes, it doesn’t have to be that way.

If you modified your approach slightly you will start to believe that you are one of the luckiest people around. The Graham Wallas Creativity Model is a great tool to problem solve and generate great ideas. I have used this tool in ways that I am sure that Mr. Wallas never intended when he wrote the Art of Thought in 1926.

 Outlined in the book is a 4-Step Process: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination and Verification/Implementation. You are probably thinking what does a creativity model have to do with spotting opportunities, and that is a reasonable question.

 Recently, I applied for and won a Digital Media scholarship. I was excited and grateful because I had identified gaps in the skills I needed to create and run a successful blog over the long-term. The scholarship would fill many of those gaps. I prepared for the course by developing The Invisible Mentor Concept Paper, going through the agenda and identifying the workshops most relevant to me, yet still being open and expecting the unexpected.

 When I felt like I had prepared enough for my course, I let the information sit or incubate and I worked on projects. Because I was prepared, and no longer focusing on my needs, while I was at the course, over a period of 6-days, I had many aha moments – illumination – and was able to spot many opportunities which I am now working on (implementation/verification). Had I not gone through the process, I would have missed many of those opportunities because I would not have thought that they applied to my situation.

 The Graham Wallas Creativity Model will work equally well for you if you make it a habit and experiment with it. Perhaps you will find another use for it that you can tell us about.

 What are your thoughts?

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Photo Credit: Avil Beckford