The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Public library’

You may be thinking what an odd question, “Do you know you,” but please humor me. On  Saturday while waiting for my student at the  Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library, I bumped into a librarian whom I hadn’t seen in months. She wanted to know what I’d been doing because she hadn’t seen me. For those who may not know, I love libraries and bookstores. I told her that I’d been very busy with work and that I had also been taking stock of my life to see where I was at, and where I wanted to go. I was shocked when she told me that she had never evaluated her life that way. This is something that I do regularly, have check-ins with myself. What about you?

This made me wonder if most people go through life without taking the time to see if they are on track. But if they have no life plan then any destination would do. So, I have a few questions for you:

1. Are you living your passion?
2. Are you doing work that feeds your soul? If not why not?
3. Are you making a difference in anybody’s world, especially yours?

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, 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 side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Today I’m going to expand on Napoleon Hill‘s Invisible Counselors and my Invisible Mentors technique, but before I do that, I’d like to say that a few weeks ago I attended a networking event where Anna Rossetti, CEO, CPI Card Group was the guest speaker. She told the audience that today, having one mentor is not enough, we need a team of mentors (Personal Board of Directors) to help us get to where we need to go. I smiled when she said that because I have been building my Board of Mentors, and I plan to Build a Board of Invisible Mentors as well.

Image via Wikipedia

We’ve talked in detail about how to choose Invisible Mentors, so today I’d like to deal with the next logical step. Please also read “What Did Napoleon Hill Omit? Invisible Counselors vs. Invisible Mentors” to understand how Napoleon Hill used his Council of Invisible Counselors. This process involves a lot of research so let the Public Library, Google and Yahoo be your friends. Just a reminder, an invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing and studying them from a distance.

For each of your five invisible mentors find all the information that you can on them:

• Identify and secure biographies and autobiographies on your invisible mentors
• Conduct a video search to identify videos by or about them
• Conduct research to identify speeches and presentations given by and about your invisible mentors
• Read all the information that you have collected
• Identify themes that emerge
• Who were their mentors
• Who gave them their big break
• What are their philosophies
• In what way are they similar and dissimilar to you
• What did you discover that was very surprising to you
• What did you discover that wasn’t surprising to you
• How do they solve challenges
• How do they generate ideas
• For each invisible mentor, identify 10 great ideas from the information that you read about them
• Combine the ideas you extracted, among invisible mentors and identify new ideas
• How can you apply the new information to your work and life
• When you feel as if you know your invisible mentors, refer to “What Did Napoleon Hill Omit? Invisible Counselors vs. Invisible Mentors” and try to follow the Invisible Counselor Technique that Napoleon Hill perfected
• Now that you have read the information, processed and played with it, map out a strategy to get to where you need to go
• Implement the strategy and fine tune as necessary

After you have amassed and read all this new information on your five invisible mentors, you will discover that your body of knowledge has expanded tremendously. With your Board of Invisible Mentors in place, or what Napoleon Hill called his Council of Invisible Counselors, whenever you find yourself in difficult situations, you have more information to draw on to solve them. Because you know these people who you have studied, you are able to think like them and anticipate how they would respond in a variety of situations. You can also find invisible mentors on The Mentors page.

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 left side) by email or RSS Feed.

For an electronic copy of Think and Grow Rich, please click here.

Resources to Have in Your Library

Books of Famous Speeches
Books about people who have changed the world
Books about the great inventors of our time

Resources to Refer to

Famous People Their Lives
Biography.com
Biography Online
Famous Speeches

Related Articles

What Did Napoleon Hill Omit? Invisible Counselors vs. Invisible Mentors

Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program (theinvisiblementor.com)

Book links are affiliate links.

How creative are your ideas? How many creative ideas do you get? And what process do you use to generate creative ideas. The ability to think creatively, or generate creative ideas might just be the skill that gives you a competitive edge. Below is a model which is a combination of Graham Wallas’ and James Webb Young’s creativity models (Based on my life experiences, I have added information to the models). What can you add to the model to make it better? If your project is just for fun you do not have to follow all the steps, especially the ones in data collection (for example interviewing subject matter experts and conducting focus group interviews). Some of these steps are more appropriate for a work project.

Step 1: Preparation (Gathering Information)

1. Describe your topic of  interest
2. Develop a set of decision criteria to judge the quality of the ideas

There are two types of information to gather:

Specific

1. Gather as much information as possible on the topic of interest
   1. Look for  case studies in your industry and unrelated industries
   2. Conduct research on the internet
   3. Conduct research using commercial databases, you can access many through your public library portal
   4. Interview subject matter experts
   5. Brainstorm with colleagues
   6. Conduct focus group interviews
2. Read all the information gathered and synthesize them
3. Write down the information on 3×5 index cards, one item per card
4. Classify the information by sections of the topic of interest

Read the post How to Analyze Information to evaluate the quality of the data you gathered.

General

1. This is an ongoing process throughout your life
2. Record any interesting information you come across in a scrapbook or other filing method that makes sense for you
3. Use your cell phone if you have one, or a camera to capture any interesting scenes that you see, both photos and videos and create a file on your computer in which to save them
4. Attend speeches, workshops, seminars and so on that are unrelated to your work just because they interest you and take notes
5. Visit the websites How Stuff Works and Ted.com often and read for a while
6. Every so often, pull up the information and review them

Step 2: Working Over the Information in Your Mind

1. Look at the information you gathered from many different angles
2. Synthesize the information
3. Merge two facts and see how they fit together
4. Connect the information with what you already know, nothing exists in a vacuum
5. As tentative or partial ideas come to you, no matter how crazy or incomplete, document them on the index card, one idea per card
6. Do not stop until you have at least one partial or incomplete idea
7. When everything is a jumble or it is pointless for you to do additional work, it is time for the next step

Step 3: Incubation

1. Turn over the problem to your subconscious mind
2. Take a break or work on an unrelated task or do something which stimulates the imagination and emotions

Step 4: Illumination – Eureka! I have It

1. When you least expect it, the idea comes to you (You have an aha moment)

Step 5: Verification/Implementation/Shaping & Developing the Idea

1. The idea will unlikely be ready to be implemented as is
2. Subject it to criticism – test it, then refine it
   1. Use the criteria you developed in Stage I to judge the quality of the solution
   2. Refine the idea if you have to
   3. Implement the idea
   4. Evaluate the idea
   5. If you find that the solution doesn’t work, go through the process again

Along Yonge Street in front of the Eaton Centre in Toronto, Canada there are always people who are very creative in earning money, what are your thoughts? What have been some of your most creative ideas to generate some extra cash? Did any of these translate into a viable business?

Man Playing Drums in Front of The Eaton Centre, Toronto from Avil Beckford on Vimeo.

Man and Boy Playing Drums from Avil Beckford on Vimeo.

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.

Photo Credit: Avil Beckford