The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Invisible Mentor’

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!

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Best Self, Pt. 3: Leave the Comfort Zone

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Best Self, Pt. 4: Persistence

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Best Self, Pt. 5: Passion

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Best Self, Pt. 6: Find Yourself

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Book links are affiliate links.

Related articles

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

How to Self-Mentor

Last week in the post Self-Mentoring – an Idea for the Twenty-First Century, we delved into the idea of mentoring yourself. We mentioned briefly how to become a self-mentor and how to use The Invisible Mentor blog to mentor yourself. But how do you really mentor yourself, and how can you use resources other than those found on this blog?

We mentioned that you have to know yourself, and you have to identify your mentoring needs. Knowing what your needs are allows you to fill those needs. So whenever you meet someone, view it as mentoring in a moment, we can learn from everyone, if we pay attention. Whenever you read, never do it in a vacuum, always think how you can use the information and how it relates to what you already know – interact with the information to bring it to life.

If you come across a new idea that sounds interesting that you do not understand, take 30 minutes or so to explore it a little more deeply. When we learn, we want to have a reason for learning, but we also want to balance that with building our general knowledge which is critical to creative problem solving.

Immerse yourself in different situations. Do something that you’ve always wanted to do, but didn’t have the courage to do before now. To self-mentor is not only about people, it’s also about situations, resources, ideas and concept. It’s about exploration, and being your true self. Spend some time on YouTube, SlideShare.net and Scribd.com researching topics and ideas that you are interested in. Pop over to Questia.com, AskNature.org and HowStuffWorks.com and explore some more.

It may not appear like you are mentoring yourself but you are. A mentor is someone who guides and advises you. What guidance and advice do you need? While you are exploring the resources mentioned in this post, you’ll learn new things and you’ll learn about potential mentors, who you could call and have a 15-minute conversation with.

Taking control of your professional development puts you in a position of power. You take control of your life, and journey on a path that’s right for you. Self-mentoring is not easy, neither are the best things in life. Take the time to understand your needs, and fill those needs. Build a solid formation on which you can build on. That’s self-mentoring in action.

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.

Related articles

• Self-Mentoring – an Idea for the Twenty-First Century (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Create Your Board of Mentors – January is National Mentoring Month (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Mentoring in Moments at Socialize Toronto (theinvisiblementor.com)

Self-Mentoring – an Idea for the Twenty-First Century

Numerous survey results tout the benefits of having a mentor. However, many of us will never be a part of a traditional mentoring relationship. So what do you do? Simple, you mentor yourself.

Self-mentoring is not a new concept, and according to Dr. Marsha L. Carr from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, “Self-mentoring occurs when the achiever (mentee) is willing to take the initiative while accepting responsibility for his/her own development by devoting time to navigate within the culture of his/her environment in order to make the most of opportunity to strengthen competencies needed to enhance job performance and career progression.”

That means that you are responsible for your own professional development.

Mary Kay Ash (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Becoming a Self-Mentor

To mentor yourself, you have to know yourself, it’s a journey in self-awareness. You have to know your strengths, weaknesses, needs, values, limitations, passions, how you respond in various situations, and what’s really important to you. A good place to start is to conduct a Personal SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis, and do the mentoring needs assessment from the DIY Mentoring Program, Episode One.

After you have identified your needs, you have to go out there and identify ways to fill those needs. That’s not easy to do, and that’s why it requires commitment on your part. Self-mentoring is an important concept, and the Invisible Mentor is designed to help you mentor yourself, but it requires action on your part. You have to take the information and use it for your professional development.

Self-Mentoring on The Invisible Mentor Blog

To get the most from The Invisible Mentor Interviews, while you are reading them, answer the following questions:

1. Are their similarities between the interviewee and yourself?
2. In what ways can you use the information?
3. In what ways would you respond differently from the interviewee?
4. What are your five takeaways from the interview?
5. After reading the interview, what is one concrete action you can take?
6. What are five things you have learned that you can use in your job?

To get the most from The Invisible Mentor Profiles, while you are reading them, answer the following questions:

1. Are their similarities between the person profiled and yourself?
2. What are your five takeaways from the profile?
3. When you think of the person profiled, what thoughts immediately come to mind?
4. In what ways can you use the information in your work and life?
5. Look at the process you use to get your job done, think of ways to improve the process and make it more efficient. Is there a way to eliminate a step or combine steps? Also, is there a way to do your work in a more cost-efficient manner?
6. After reading the profile, what is one concrete action you can take?

To get the most from this SummaReview, after you have read it, answer the following questions:

1. Is this a book you’d like to read for yourself? Why? Why not?
2. What has made an impression on you?
3. Were there any kernels of wisdom?
4. Is there a framework that you can use in your life and work?
5. What are five takeaways from the SummaReview?
6. What is one action that you can take as a result of reading this SummaReview?

Self-Mentoring in Action

The most successful people have systems in place which helped them to become successful. Both Madam C J Walker and Mary Kay Ash – who we have profiled on The Invisible Mentor Profile in Wisdom Series – had systems in place in their businesses. What systems can you introduce to aid your success at work? In addition, the Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, who are credited with inventing the airplane, outlined their path to success in The Early History of the Airplane. In that book is a methodology for approaching projects. Laurel Touby in her interview shared with us how she started her membership site mediabistro, which she sold for over $20 million.

In addition to the content on The Invisible Mentor, there are many available resources available to aid you on your self-mentoring journey, but before you begin, you have to understand what your needs are so that you can meet them.

Saundra McGuire on Self-Mentoring

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Cannot view video? Click here. Uploaded by DowChemicalCompany on Mar 10, 2011

Further Reading

Madam C J Walker, Operated the Largest Black-Owned Business in the Early Twentieth Century

Mentor Yourself: Profile of Mary Kay Ash, Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics

Wright Brothers, Inventors of the Airplane

The Early History of the Airplane by Orville and Wilbur Wright

mediabistro Founder Laurel Touby Shares Her Experience Building One of the Hottest Online Communities

Laurel Touby Shares Her Experience Building One of the Hottest Online Communities Part Two

The Invisible Teacher: A Self-Mentoring Sustainability Model, Dr. Marsha L. Carr 

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.

We are coming to the end of the first quarter of 2012, are you on track in accomplishing your goals?

1. What adjustments do you have to make to your goals?
2. Are all your goals still relevant?
3. What obstacles are standing in your way and how can you remove them?

To be honest, I’m behind in every area of my life, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m learning to be gentler with myself. There are times when the accomplishment of our goals involves other people, and that impacts us, and we often have no control. That has been the case for me, for several goals, and things seldom happen as fast as we’d like. In previous years, I would have been upset, but not anymore. In her interview, Invisible Mentor Shirley Adrain advised us that what is for us cannot go by us, and that’s great advice.

For some of my goals, I also realize that I have to make refinements before I can seriously work on them. On the other hand, I have accomplished worthwhile goals that weren’t on my list, I simply seized opportunities, and that’s okay as well.

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.

This week we feature Luba Rusyn, Owner, Red Squirrel Productions Ltd. To get the most from The Invisible Mentor Interview, while you are reading it, answer the following questions:

1. Are their similarities between the interviewee and yourself?
2. In what ways can you use the information?
3. In what ways would you respond differently from the interviewee?
4. What are your five takeaways from the interview?
5. After reading the interview, what is one concrete action you can take?

Invisible Mentor: Luba Rusyn, Owner

Company Name: Red Squirrel Productions Ltd 

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Luba Rusyn:  I’m an expert collector. For the past 30 year, I’ve been collecting resources – educational, financial and spiritual. What I provide my clients with is a needs assessment for them in the business community. Entrepreneurs with zero to $10 million in revenues have been my general clients, and after I do my needs assessment I stick my hand into my collection, and support them in any area that they need, to help them increase their productivity in their business. I’ve been an entrepreneur for 30 years.

Avil Beckford: How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

Luba Rusyn: I’ve been traveling a lot, so what I do, as this interview while I’m driving to our event and I keep in contact with my friends and family by email, Skype and phone. I have a daytimer and I schedule, I guess the integration part is that I schedule every personal or business appointment and I dovetail them in there. 

Avil Beckford: When you have some down time, how do you spend it? 

Luba Rusyn: I enjoy quiet time and I make sure that I have some quiet time to myself to reflect as well go into nature, whether that is my backyard or to the ocean. I reflect and always read.

Avil Beckford: What process do you use to generate great ideas?

Luba Rusyn: Go inside and reflect and record the ideas. After I’ve had that time for reflection, I mind map. I record whatever pops into my mind, and then I do brainstorming through a Master Mind group.

Avil Beckford: What’s your favourite quotation and why?

Luba Rusyn: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow, and learn as if you were to live forever,” Mahatma Gandhi.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success? And in your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Luba Rusyn: I define success as accomplishments. Simply, whatever it is one chooses to do, doing it to the best of your ability. The formula for success is perseverance, correct, and continue. State your goals, persevere and as things come up, correct and continue as required.

Avil Beckford: What are the steps you took to succeed in your field?

Luba Rusyn: I defined an actual goal, created the action steps required to accomplish it, broke it down into detail, and then I persevered through each of those steps. And when I found out that the original results I thought it would be were different, I would course correct and continue because sometimes variables change.

Avil Beckford: What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?

Luba Rusyn: Make sure that you’re educating yourself on the area you want to go into whether it’s reading or watching the mentors in the industry that you want to go into. Learn from other people’s mistakes and get ideas from different people in the same industry because everyone has different perspectives. Look at that and see how it fits in with what you want to do.

Avil Beckford: If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?

Luba Rusyn:

1. Mother Teresa
2. Mahatma Gandhi
3. Princess Diana
4. Robert Herjavec
5. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

I would say to them, “Thank you for your bravery and sharing your wisdom.”

Avil Beckford: Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply?

Luba Rusyn: First off it would be the Bible and that’s because I would never be alone. And the other one is Jonathan Livingston Seagull (See The Invisible Mentor Review), and the lesson there is dancing to the beat of my own drummer.

Avil Beckford: You are one of the 10 finalists on the reality show, So, How Would You Spend Your Time? Each finalist is placed on separate deserted islands for two years. You have a basic hut on the island and all the tools for survival; you just have to be imaginative and inventive when using them. You are allowed to take five books, one movie and one music CD, and whatever else you take has to fit in one suitcase and a travel on case. What would you take with you and how would you spend the two years? T he prize is worth your while and at this stage in the game there really aren’t any losers among the 10 finalists, since each are guaranteed at least $2 million?

Luba Rusyn:

Two Years

I’m going to use the time to explore the environment and I’m going to record all the findings and interactions in the environment – Myself to the environment and the environment to itself. I would be an observer in that space.

Note from Avil: The interview got cut short because her cell phone dropped the call and we didn’t get opportunity to complete it.

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.