The Invisible Mentor

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Having mentors is an excellent way to accelerate your career, but in their absence, invisible mentors are great substitutes. However, you have to know exactly what you are trying to get from mentors, you have to know what you are trying to achieve in life, and then you have to practice reflective self-mentoring to get to where you need to be. Here is a short video I found on YouTube that talks about reflective self-mentoring.

Saundra McGuire on Self-Mentoring

Cannot view this video, click here. Uploaded by DowChemicalCompany on Mar 10, 2011

 I have mentioned several of the following resources before, but this time, think about how they can help you to achieve what you would like to in life. Approach them as self-mentoring resources.

Open Culture: If you have to take a course to get up to speed on a topic, start here to see if you can find what you need. Over 400 courses from top universities are offered for free. If you find a course that’s right for you, pace yourself while learning, whether it is once a week you allocate time to learn, three times a week, or whatever. Learn at a realistic pace that allows you to complete the entire course.

The Great Courses: You can find a variety of courses on DVD to buy that are led by professors who are knowledgeable about the subject matter. The courses often go on sale, so if you find a course that is just what you are looking for, if it’s not on sale wait, and keep on checking the website because it will likely go on sale.

How Stuff Work: Here is another great place to start when you have to master any topic of interest.

Project Gutenberg: If you are looking for an education in the literary classics, download a copy of the book here, which you can use with Open Culture or The Great Courses.

Research Tools: YouTube, Scribd, SlideShare, TED, and Questia are research tools that you might not have considered.

Mentor Yourself With Blogs

There are many great blogs out there where the bloggers take great pains when writing their blog posts. If you want to learn about How to Write Headlines That Work or SEO Copywriting, Copyblogger is the resource for you. If you’re looking for tips about blogging then Problogger is your destination. If you are looking to find the top blogs, Alltop and Technorati are great places to start. To learn about content marketing Web Ink Now is a good source.

With the internet, the world is truly your oyster so use it effectively to self-mentor. In addition, remember to use The Invisible Mentor as another great resource. If you are intentional about reaping the benefits of mentors, even in the absence of having traditional mentors, you can succeed by practicing reflective self-mentoring. Below are six videos that will help to direct your self-mentoring journey.

How to be the Star of Your Life Videos

Best Self, Pt. 1: Take the Lead

Cannot view this video, click here. Published on Apr 7, 2012 by beautyvlogcast

Best Self, Pt. 2: Own it!

Cannot view this video, click here.

Best Self, Pt. 3: Leave the Comfort Zone

Cannot view this video, click here.

Best Self, Pt. 4: Persistence

Cannot view this video, click here.

Best Self, Pt. 5: Passion

Cannot view this video, click here.

Best Self, Pt. 6: Find Yourself

Cannot view this video, click here.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

Related articles

• Self-Mentoring – an Idea for the Twenty-First Century (theinvisiblementor.com)
• How to Self-Mentor (theinvisiblementor.com)

Reading broadly introduces diversity into your life.

Have you ever read an intriguing article and wondered how the writer came up with the idea? Have you ever read a book that connects two very different subject matters in a unique way? Have you ever transported one idea from one industry to another to resolve a pesky challenge? Have you ever read something that was so incredulous or even whimsical that it gave you the courage to try to do something that once seemed impossible?

Reading broadly introduces diverse types of information into your life. It helps you to become bolder in your work and life.

A few months ago, I read the article, Cosmetics: High-tech Meets Emotion, and although it makes perfect sense that technology would play a role today in making cosmetics, it’s not something that I had ever given much thought to. The article is insightful and made me immediately think about making it a habit to read a variety of book genres. It reminded me to read articles on subjects that I usually do not pay attention to.

When I learned about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Representative Men: Seven Lectures, I immediately thought that Emerson must have read broadly to be able to choose six men who he thought were great – he gave two lectures on Plato. His representative men include Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon and Goethe. Why did Emerson choose those six men? What was it about the six men that left such an impression on him that he considered them to be great? The six men were very different, how did Emerson first learn about them?

Several months later, I came across Superwomen by Albert Payson Terhune, which includes short profiles of 12 women:  Lola Montez, Ninon De L’Enclos, Peg Woffington, Helen of Troy, Madame Jumel, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Cleopatra, George Sand (Amandine Lucile Aurore Dupin Dudevant), Madame du Barry, Lady Blessington, Madame Recamier, and Lady Hamilton. Why these 12 women? Once again, like Emerson, Terhune must have read broadly to be able to choose these 12 women.

Author Albert Payson Tehune (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And the people that Emerson and Terhune chose are very different, which suggests diversity in what they read. I plan to read both Representative Men: Seven Lectures and Superwomen. I also plan to continue to expand my reading menu, with the hope that some day, I too will be able to create a body of work that is diverse and innovative, which is a symbol of the depth and breadth of the books and materials that I read.

How about you? Are you willing to expand the type of books and materials you read? If you are in business, what would happen if each week you read a science article from Magatopia.com or Magportal.com?

Do you agree or disagree that reading introduces more diversity into your life? Why? Why not? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

Related articles

• Why You Must Read Broadly – Tip 2(theinvisiblementor.com)

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• Why You Must Read Broadly – Tip 3(theinvisiblementor.com)

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• Why You Must Read Broadly – Tip 1 (theinvisiblementor.com)

This is a guest post by Carlo Pandian

The Brave New World of Business-moms, Business-grannies and Teenaged Entrepreneurs.

The internet is awash with “work from home” opportunities illustrating how easy it is for a stay-at-home mom to earn a million while doing her nails and reading her favourite magazines.  These adverts are there to trick people out of as much money as possible.  However, those stay-at-home moms are part of increasing number of people choosing self-employment over employment.  For women with kids to raise working for themselves can seem like the perfect way to balance work and domestic life.  Another sector of the population that is finding the temptations of self-employment increasingly alluring is the “senior-preneur” group; those in their fifties and older who have given up on traditional employment and gone solo.  Finally, young people in their teens and early twenties are also looking to run their own business rather than take traditional part time roles behind (other people’s) counters and as cinema attendants.  These trends are global, but are strong in Canada, where self-employment is reaching rates of fifteen per cent as opposed to a static eight per cent only twenty years ago.  So what are the attractions, and are there difficulties specific to each group?

Home But Not Alone 

For young mothers in their late twenties and early thirties the real attraction seems to be the flexibility that self-employment offers.  Job satisfaction is also a crucial feature – many find that on returning to work after maternity leave the roles available to them are not as interesting or challenging as those when they were young, free and single.  This may be because they are forced by circumstances to seek part time work, which rarely offers the challenge or responsibility of a fulltime version.  For those considering self-employment for these reasons it’s important to understand that flexibility is a two sided thing – fitting work around family sometimes equals a payoff where family get to fit themselves around work, whether they want to or not.  It can work very well indeed but the myth that you call the shots when you work for yourself should be ignored; the clients call the shots.

Empty Nests

The “senior-preneur” group of the newly self-employed come into the sector for a huge variety of reasons – including the freedom factor above.  This group faces particular challenges during the recession, in that finding work can be a difficult – whatever equality legislation might say.  Employers are faced with an onslaught of applicants for most roles and, whether discrimination is at play or not, the older you are the harder it seems to get noticed.  However, those in their fifties have some very specific advantages over many other age groups when it comes to running their own businesses.  In this age group the young mouths to feed have often flown the nest already.  With less pressing domestic responsibilities, this age group often have more time to devote to work.  Financially this group is often also more secure – with lower mortgage commitments and greater savings than younger entrepreneurs.  Both of these factors put them in a strong position and combined with the experience and ability to know their own strengths and weaknesses, starting out in business at this age can have all the right ingredients for success.

Weekend Work

The youngest of entrepreneurs have usually decided to go it alone in business simply because finding employment without experience leaves them in a Catch-22 situation.  You can’t get one without the other.  In addition, technology offers far more opportunities to this age group than previous teen generations.  Today’s teenagers are the internet generation – they have grown up alongside the internet and have been technological experts, in many cases since they could walk.  From free accounting software to social networking the internet offers simple solutions that have not been available to previous generations and this particular generation knows how to use them.  By building their own businesses they are able to gain the all-important experience which can lead to success or even employment further down the line, should they choose that route.  Lack of experience is a shortfall for this age group – and finding solutions, advice and listening to the latter both on or offline, is essential.

Traditional methods of doing business and the traditional image of the “businessman” have long been challenged.  It seems that with the rise of technology, and in spite of recession, a whole new breed of ‘businesspeople’ is rapidly emerging.

Author bio:
Carlo Pandian is a freelance writer and blogs about business, entrepreneurs and technology covering everything from QuickBooks Online to social media management tools. He loves reading great entrepreneurs biographies and speaking at conferences about how the internet can help small businesses.

Image Credit: Common licensed image from Flickr

Reading broadly is a great conversation starter

Famous aviator Amelia Earhart is thought to have crash landed on Nikumaroro Island when she disappeared in 1937. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Have you ever been at a cocktail party and didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation? If you read broadly, and not only just books, you will always have something to talk about and contribute to the conversation.

Many of you who read this blog regularly know that I’m an introvert, and I’m also shy. I do better in one-to-one conversations than in groups. A few months ago, I was at a cocktail party that a friend hosted. A gentleman came up to me and started talking, so I asked him what he does for a living, and he replied that he builds aircrafts. I was able to engage and have a meaningful conversation because I had researched and written about the Wright Brothers who are credited with inventing the airplane.

I have also written about Amelia Earhart whose aircraft was lost and have never been found. I wrote about Charles Lindbergh who made the first non-stop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris. One of the ways you can learn a little about a lot of people is to read the profiles of wisdom that are featured each Wednesday on The Invisible Mentor blog.

Reading books are also important because you can discuss the big ideas, new ways of doing things, you can honestly recommend books for others to read and the list goes on and on. For instance, one of the books that will likely be popular this summer is Divergent by Veronica Roth. If you enjoyed The Hunger Games, you’ll be blown away by Divergent, which is Part One of the trilogy. Stay tuned for my review. Part Two, Insurgent (Divergent) will be out in May 2012.

Do you agree or disagree that reading broadly is a great conversation starter? Why? Why not? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

The Dangers of Believing Your Reputation

Self-confidence is an excellent leadership trait. Overconfidence is a dangerous quality to have, which could result in serious repercussions. It’s important to build and protect your reputation. And it’s great to be known for something, but don’t ever let it get to your head and affect your performance. Read Review – Success Lessons from Gin Blanco in Jennifer Estep’s Spider’s Revenge to get the background for this post.

Over the weekend I read the latest instalment of the Elemental Assassin Books, By a Thread (Elemental Assassin) by Jennifer Estep. And yes, I know that being an assassin is an unworthy profession, but as they say, there is honour among thieves, or should I say assassins. Let’s put that aside for a moment, By a Thread by Jennifer Estep is fiction, a work of art, and of course we can learn from the protagonist Gin Blanco also known as Spider – her assassin moniker. On the Harvard Business Review Blog, Anne Kreamer writes an excellent blog post titled The Business Case for Reading Novels (The link is included at the end of this post).

The Spider is the best at what she does, which is killing people. In the previous instalment in the series (Review – Success Lessons from Gin Blanco in Jennifer Estep’s Spider’s Revenge), the Spider kills Mab Monroe who was Queen of the Underworld, and one of the most evil and vicious person you could ever find. Mab was also one of the most powerful fire elementals you could find. She used her fire elemental magical powers to fry people, and she was the one who killed the Spider’s family years ago because she was scared of their elemental powers.

The Spider is unusual because she has two strong elemental powers, ice and stone, when others only have one. Since Mab has died, many are trying to take her place in the underworld, and they have also been trying to kill the Spider who has built a reputation for herself. If you read Review – Success Lessons from Gin Blanco in Jennifer Estep’s Spider’s Revenge, you will learn some key things about the Spider.

Gin and her only surviving sister Bria are taking a weekend vacation. Bria wants to return to Blue Marsh, an island on the Georgia-South Carolina line where she grew up. When they arrive, they learn that Bria’s best friend Callie Reyes is being terrorized by the powerful vampire Randall Dekes because he wants her land to build a resort. Dekes kills all the landowners who refuse to sell to him and Callie is now the only person holding out. And of course, the Spider goes to the rescue. Her foster brother gathers intelligence for Gin on the vampire. However, Gin doesn’t take the time to carefully plan the way she usually does. She thinks, how difficult could it be to eliminate Randall Dekes, after all, she is the powerful assassin, Spider.

When they arrive at the location, Gin’s instinct is warning her that she is in danger, and she needs to leave, but she doesn’t listen. The vampire immobilizes her with a dart, sinks his fangs into her, and starts feeding on her blood, depleting Gin’s ice and stone magical power. Dekes becomes stronger and Gin gets weaker. He feeds off her and she comes to an inch of losing her life. Gin Blanco, aka the Spider, quickly learns the lesson, Don’t Believe Your Reputation.

This is a work of fiction, and what happened to Gin, will never happen to you, but learn the lesson because life imitates art, so never believe your reputation.

Further Reading

The Business Case for Reading Novels

Review – Success Lessons from Gin Blanco in Jennifer Estep’s Spider’s Revenge 

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.