The Invisible Mentor

Archive for April, 2010

My mind wandered back to several years ago when I was feeling down, and as if all my efforts were in vain. During that period, one day I was in a Hallmark store and was led to the poem Don’t Quit. It was the first time that I had seen that poem. The poem gave me the answer I needed, and I felt comforted. I felt like the universe was telling me that I needed to continue what I was doing, and to keep the faith. Have you ever felt that way? If yes, what do you do to keep going? What do you do when things are taking much longer that expected? What do you do when nothing seems to be going right?

I am not sure why this popped into my mind because I have no intention of quitting, neither do I feel the urge to quit. I know that I am on the right path, yes I have taken detours at times, but it has made for a more colorful life.

The image to the right gives a great perspective with the graying out of the words so that the focus is on DO IT, instead of Don’t Quit. Maybe I am led to write this post because this is a message that you need to hear today. Perhaps you need comforting. So, take a break, read the poem below and listen to the Bob Marley song Three Little Birds (Don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing is going to be alright.) More importantly is that I have learned to trust my instincts, so I am writing this post because it needs writing.

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out–
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

- Author unknown

If you cannot view the You Tube video of Bob Marley please click here.

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, click on the comment link below and leave a note for me. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo Credit: Yahoo via Apture

Video Credit: You Tube

Next week I will have two interviews. I am experimenting with something new, so stay tuned!

To become an excellent writer you have to write, and that’s the same with every craft. And one way to test yourself is to enter competitions. I love to enter competitions even though I have not won that many. I enter anyway because I get great practice in doing so. And, sometimes the prize money is very lucrative so that’s a great incentive. There are a few websites that I visit, and there are some ezines that I subscribe to that alert me to competitions around the globe. Many of the competitions are for writing, but  writing is such an important skill to have, that it’s important to mention.

Have you entered any competitions? How did you do? If you are interested in entering competitions please read the blog post Sometimes a Little a Little Competition is a Healthy Thing.

You are probably thinking that you are extremely busy already and cannot find additional time to enter competitions. The reality is that if you expect to excel in any area you have to make the time. How to Carve Out The Time to Read in a Busy World is a post that I wrote over a year ago. Though it’s focused on reading, some of the ideas will work for other things.

How to Approach Entering a Competition

Let’s say that you are a graphic designer and while browsing the website Compete Around the World, you notice that they have a “Design The Future Competition,” which has a prize money of $20,000. (This is an actual competition)

• Read the requirements to determine if you are eligible to enter the contest
• If yes, is it doable in the time frame
• When will you have the time to work on your entry
• Break down how much time you will spend each day on your entry
• Spend quite a bit of time thinking about your approach
• Start working
• Step away from your work
• Evaluate what you’ve done
• Make changes if you think it’s necessary
• Match what you have done against the requirements
• Make updates if necessary
• Submit your entry following the guidelines

Entering competitions can be a lot of fun, just don’t take yourself too seriously. Tomorrow I will start writing my version of The Little Mermaid for a competition for Enchanted Conversations.  I love these competitions to rewrite fairy tales, I have so much fun. Browse Compete Around the World and identify a competition that would be fun to enter. What are your thoughts?

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, click on the comment link below and leave a note for me. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo Credit: Bing via Apture

In a previous post Reading & Listening Plan Process, I outlined the steps to get you on a professional development plan. This is the follow-up to that post, which involves you projecting into the future to where you’d like to be three years from now. This information is taken from The Invisible Mentor Toolkit.

Where You Want to be Three Years from Now

1. How many books do you plan to read in 3 years? How do you plan to achieve this goal? Please explain in detail.
2. How many interviews, presentations and speeches do you plan to listen to? How do you plan to achieve this goal? Please explain in detail.
3. Of the books that you plan to read, how many are for entertainment, information and understanding?
   1. Entertainment
   2. Information
   3. Understanding
4. Of the interviews, presentations and speeches that you plan to listen to, how many are for entertainment, information and understanding?
   1. Entertainment
   2. Information
   3. Understanding
5. Based on your responses in your Self-Discovery Worksheet, what skills gaps will be filled at the end of 12 months, 24 months, and 36 months?
6. Based on your responses in your Self-Discovery Worksheet, what functions do you want to be able perform that you cannot perform now?
7. Based on your responses in your Self-Discovery Worksheet, what subject areas would you like to have mastered?

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, click on the comment link below and leave a note for me. If  you liked this post, considering getting a copy of The Invisible Mentor Toolkit. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo Credit: Bing via Apture

Have you ever spent the time to discover who you really are? The interviewees for The Invisible Mentor Blog tell me that they appreciate going through the process of answering the questions because it’s a process of self-discovery. One interviewee told me that I took her into places that she wanted to forget, but that she was happy that she went there. In The Invisible Mentor Toolkit I have a Self-Discovery Worksheet for readers to work through. I think that it’s important for you to understand yourself before you choose your invisible mentors because you want those who can take you where you want to go.

Here are the questions that I ask in The Invisible Mentor Toolkit. Set aside about three hours of focused time to answer the questions. It may seem like a lot of time, but going through a process such as this one is extremely important if you expect to live a fulfilled life.

1. What’s your mission in life?
2. What’s your philosophy in life?
3. In the next three years, where would you like to be in your personal and professional life? Please frame your responses in the form of goals for the following five life areas: Economic/Financial, Social, Health/Wellness, Business/Career, Personal.
4. Are you committed to achieving the goals you listed above in the next three years?
5. In the past, what has prevented you from achieving your personal and professional goals? Please describe in detail.
6. What roadblocks are you likely to encounter in achieving your goals? Please describe in detail.
7. What actions can you take to minimize or remove roadblocks to achieving your personal and professional goals? Please list the actions in terms of their importance.
8. Think about your professional goals, what gaps exist between where you are now, to where you would like to be in the next three years?
9. What actions do you have to take to fill those gaps? Please describe in detail and list
10. your actions in order of priority.
11. What knowledge do you have to acquire to fill those gaps? Please describe in detail.
12. Who are the experts that you can learn from, and what are their areas of expertise?
13. Have any of these experts given important speeches and produced information products such as books, ebooks and audio programs that you could use to expand your knowledge base in the area(s) you identified above? Please list the titles of the speeches and the names of the products.
14. Shifting gears now, think back to when you were much younger, do any adults stick out in your mind as being memorable? If yes, make a list of them below.
15. Why were these individuals so memorable? Please explain.
16. What traits or behaviours did they have in common? Please explain.
17. What lessons did you learn from them? Please explain.
18. Coming back to the present, are there any adults who stick out in your mind? If yes, make a list of them below.
19. Why are these individuals so memorable? Please explain.
20. What traits or behaviours do they have in common? Please explain.
21. What lessons are you learning from them? Please explain.
22. Are there any similarities between your answers to 9c and 10c? If yes, please list the similarities?
23. If you could have any five mentors you wanted, who would you choose, and why? Mentors could be living or dead.
24. What is it about them that you are attracted to?
25. What is/was their philosophy?
26. How do their philosophies align with yours?
27. Which books influenced their thinking, and why? Three books per invisible mentor.
28. Are there biographies about them? If yes, list the names of both authorized and nonauthorized biographies?
29. Are there any other books about them that are not biographies?
30. Are there any interviews that they conducted, or interviews about them? Please list
31. titles and where they can be found.
32. How have your invisible mentors made a major difference in the world? Please explain.
33. Who influenced your invisible mentors? Please list their names.
34. Who mentored your invisible mentors? Please list their names.
35. Which books influenced your invisible mentors’ mentors? Please list the titles of the books.
36. What critical lessons did your invisible mentors learn from their mentors that you can apply to your life? Please describe.

What are your thoughts? What can you contribute to the conversation? Please keep the conversation flowing, click on the comment link below and leave a note for me. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo Credit: Yahoo via Apture

I am doing something a little different with this book review. First, it’s two reviews in one, the first two parts of a trilogy by Stieg Larsson: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire. Second, I am focusing on the lessons that we can learn from these books because it’s true that art does imitate life.

I don’t like hype, and any book that too many people are talking about I try to avoid them, but for some reason I relented and read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. At 841 pages this is not a short book. Over the Internet many were saying that this was a book that they could not put down, but I did when I had things to do. There are other books that I have read that I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. because I just had to know how it ended. For me, this wasn’t any of those books. The Girl Who Played With Fire weighed in at 724 pages, not that much shorter.

Now having said that, I enjoyed both The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire. They are filled with events that are commonplace on the news today. Deception, manipulation, murder, incest, greed, infidelity, corporate misbehavior, ethical dilemmas, abuse of power, vigilante behaviour, bullying, you name it, you will find it in the books. The characters are well developed and believable.

I am an active reader, so when I read fiction I become involved in the story, which isn’t always a good thing. I found myself having a love-hate relationship with Lisbeth Salander, one of the key characters. Lisbeth has a photographic memory and is an A-List hacker. She loves to be in control and doesn’t want to be controlled so she hacks into people’s computer to know what they are up to, and she often acts on what she finds out.

What I liked about her is that she lives fall down seven times get up eight, so she teaches us how to persevere. She has a singular focus which is good in some situations and deadly in others. When she needs to learn something new, she sticks with it until she attains mastery. She often likes to go it alone and  has her own moral code, which we all should have, but her moral code is often very different from most other people. She also hasn’t learned the lesson that we all need a support network and does most things by herself. I can understand her going it alone because she has been terribly hurt many times in her young life.

But, at some point we have to learn to forgive, are there people in your life that you need to forgive. In Jamaica where I grew up, I often heard that you should forgive and forget, but is that wise? I do believe that it’s important to forgive, but if you forget, does that mean you risk forgetting the key lessons as well? And if you are likely to forget the lessons, will you keep on making the same mistakes?

I also had a for-against relationship with Mikael Blomkvist another lead character. I like that he is loyal to his friends and will fight for them if they were victimized or wrongfully accused, and is someone that I’d like to have in my support network. He will fight for what he believes in. I dislike his womanizing ways, but that is a reality of life, and also the best characters are those who have vices. Who wants to read a book filled with Mr. and Mrs. Goodie-Two-Shoes. For those who read this blog where English is not your first language, Goodie-Two-Shoes is an expression used when talking about people who are a little bit too perfect or a little bit too good (“Someone who always does what’s right and not what they’re supposed to do” Urban Dictionary).

After I finished reading both books, I was grateful for my life, my family and my friends and appreciated them a lot more. I also tweeted: “Finished “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.” Is it ok to suppress the truth if it will hurt someone who’s been victimized?” Here are some keys lessons that I was reminded of:

1. No one ever achieves spectacular success alone
2. Your chances for success are greater if you have stick-to-itiveness
3. Develop a moral code of conduct so that when situations arise you know how to respond
4. Life is not simply black or white, but shades of gray, yellow, orange, red, you name it
5. Two wrongs do not equate to a right
6. Be there for friends during sunshine and rain
7. Pick your battles and if something is really important to you, stand up for what you believe in
8. No family is perfect

I recommend that you read both The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire, though they are so long because there are many potent lessons embedded in them.

Additional Reading

Blog Security: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Scares Me Into Taking It Seriously

Blogging Lessons from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Links to the books are Amazon Affiliate links.