Business Mentor Quotes

If you're not reaching back to help anyone then you're not building a legacy.

Leadership is an art expressed by the demonstration of characters worthy of immitation, emulation and inspiration. It is neither a title nor a postion.

Every great athlete, artist and aspiring being has a great team to help them flourish and succeed - personally and professionally. Even the so-called 'solo star' has a strong supporting cast helping them shine, thrive and take flight.

Every company should have a good internal mentoring system in place.

I never heard that it had been anybody’s business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him. He had been adapted to the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection. I did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much.

Sir Gerald Moore: I was at dinner last evening, and halfway through the pudding, this four-year-old child came alone, dragging a little toy cart. And on the cart was a fresh turd. Her own, I suppose. The parents just shook their heads and smiled. I've made a big investment in you, Peter. Time and money, and it's not working. Now, I could just shake my head and smile. But in my house, when a turd appears, we throw it out. We dispose of it. We flush it away. We don't put it on the table and call it caviar.

Success will teach you who your real friends are.

Successful business professionals seek out mentors.

It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and acceptable to me. She realized that a child's mind is like a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily over the stony course of its education and reflects here a flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud; and she attempted to guide my mind on its way, knowing that like a brook it should be fed by mountain streams and hidden springs, until it broadened out into a deep river, capable of reflecting in its placid surface, billowy hills, the luminous shadows of trees and the blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a little flower. Any teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of textbooks. My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How much of my delight in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to her influence, I can never tell. I feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her--there is not a talent, or an aspiration or a joy in me that has not been awakened by her loving touch.

Most busy people want to mentor someone great

Passion + Vision +Skill + Mentoring = Success.

You begins with 'Y'-so ask, observe, and listen.

I am only uncomfortable when I find myself comfortable. I literally hate comfort. It is where all dreams go to die.

Suppose you’re called on to navigate some particularly difficult life dilemma, your own, or that of a close confidant. You yearn to talk matters over with your mentor, spouse, or best friend. Yet, for whatever reason, you can’t get a hold of these valued others—perhaps they’re traveling, busy, or even deceased. Research shows that simply imagining having a conversation with them is as good as actually talking with them. So consult them in your mind. Ask them what advice they’d offer. In this way, a cherished parent or mentor, even if deceased, leaves you with an inner voice that guides you through challenging times. Your past moments of love and connection make you lastingly wiser.

The best negotiating tactic is to build a genuine, trusting relationship. If you’re an unknown entrepreneur and the person you’re dealing with isn’t invested in you, why would he or she even do business with you? But on the other hand, if the person is your mentor or friend, you might not even need to negotiate.

Some women think being arrogant, selfish, bitter and looking down on others are qualities of being an Independent, strong, powerful and successful business women. No matter how high you are in life. Never look down on others and never forget humanity.

Conflict is just another chance for agreement.

You don’t want to be in a situation where you can’t justify your compensation.

Sometimes we get so busy with our daily lives we do not take the steps and time necessary to be introspective.

A smart business owner learns from the mistakes of others.

If upper management wants an issue to go away, they’ll allow us the opportunity to fix it. If we have a reputation for rectifying difficulties, they’ll want us to continue these efforts.

Modern business is set up to squeeze out women who “want it all”—which is mostly just code for demanding equal pay for equal work. But the more empowered women in the workforce, the better. The more that women mentor women, the stronger our answer is to the old-boys’ network that we’ve been left out of. We can’t afford to leave any woman behind. We need every woman on the front lines lifting each other up . . . for the good of all of us and the women who come behind us. It’s tough to get past my own fears, so I have to remind myself that this is an experiment, to boldly go where no grown-ass woman has gone before. When we refuse to be exiled to the shadows as we mature, we get to be leaders who choose how we treat other women. If I don’t support and mentor someone like Ryan, that’s working from a place of fear. And if I put my foot on a rising star, that’s perpetuating a cycle that will keep us all weak. The actresses in the generation

If I could teach aspiring managers only one concept, without question I would pick accumulating personal credibility. Credibility is something we earn. How? It’s amassed by successfully accomplishing tasks we’re assigned or which we volunteer to perform.

Learn the value of introducing proposals over time using masterful technique.... Deliver the message when the listener isn’t rushed or in an emotionally charged state.... Don’t unnerve your boss by dropping a crisis in their lap last-minute when you’ve had some warning yourself.

When faced with difficult decisions, painstakingly analyze the situation. Do your homework and be careful not to understate or overstate the impact of pertinent conditions. This includes researching possible consequences and deciding if the department, division, and company can live with them.

For a business to strengthen its position on the market, its managers should become skillful at helping their subordinates to set and achieve specific and measurable goals with realistic deadlines and clear expectations. Managers should also mentor employees through challenges, helping them grow and develop new skills.

Early in my career I had learned the wisdom of not gripping over the hand I was dealt. I had a mentor who taught me lessons about business and life that served me for years. He looked at business the way a grand master might look at a chessboard. There’s nothing you can do about where the pieces are. It’s only your next move that matters.

There is only one path to making good decisions—first making bad ones.

In every person there is a seed of greatness. Understanding your uniqueness, your values, your natural strengths, and your authenticity is vital to finding your success.

How can you get mentors/inventors ? Be the person that you would want to be a mentor. Be a person you would invest in

When you are placed in a position of leadership. The position is about you, but is about empowering and helping others.Is not only about making money, but is about making a difference.

Busy is a decision.” Here’s why: Of the many, many excuses people use to rationalize why they can’t do something, the excuse “I am too busy” is not only the most inauthentic, it is also the laziest. I don’t believe in “too busy.” Like I said, busy is a decision. We do the things we want to do, period. If we say we are too busy, it is shorthand for “not important enough.

If we want to be irreplaceable, we have to do our very best to make sure our contribution exceeds our pay by as much as possible. Seeking to understand what explicit impact our boss values about us can be part of the equation.... we should carry out the intent of our position which encompasses performing the job we’ve been hired to do and not just the portion of it we enjoy doing

If we don’t have all of the facts at hand, we still need to let the interested parties know that we’re on top of the research but that it will take time. When that information is gathered, inform them in an expedient manner. If employing the solution falls within our authority, implement it as soon as possible. If approval is required, document a request swiftly so any lag time won’t be attributed to our inattention.

...don’t confuse managing your interactions with your superior (i.e., planting seeds) with manipulating them.... if you gain approval to proceed with an initiative and things don’t go as planned, deliver bad news in person. This permits you to respond to questions, assess how the message is perceived, provide clarification, obtain any direction, and most importantly to provide your well-conceived plan to correct the situation

But one day, as a much older man, Garry wrote in his diary a formula that might help him overcome that pain and not only heal his own inner child but pass on the lesson to the many surrogate children he had as a mentor and elder in show business.* The formula was simple and is key to breaking the cycle and stilling the deep anguish we carry around with us: Give more. Give what you didn’t get. Love more. Drop the old story. Try it, if you can.

When your manager is conducting a meeting or conference call and presents an idea or goal, they’re looking for commitment to tackle the task. If you start listing all of the reasons why it won’t work or argue unimportant details, your boss will see your effort as adversarial. You become a roadblock preventing everyone in the group from moving forward.... If you have a small concern or issue you want heard, save it for a personal moment later.

You always planned to do something. Write a screenplay. Travel. Start a business. Approach a possible mentor. Launch a movement. Well, now something has happened—some disruptive event like a failure or an accident or a tragedy. Use it.

Make sure you have the right team members to strengthen your culture instead of people who suck the energy out of it. You can do everything right as a leader and coach, but if you don't have positive mentors and team members in the locker room your culture and team will fall apart.

Create a worldwide personal network of quality business players (i.e., a mastermind group, a board of advisors, or a private group of mentors—call it whatever you want to) who will help you solve any problem your business encounters—and fast, because they’ve already faced and overcome such problems themselves. Let

your conversation consists mostly of descriptions of how busy you are. Suddenly you’re a chilly mortal, going into hyper-people-pleasing mode anytime you’re around your boss. You spend much of your time mentor shopping, trying to find some successful older person who will answer all your questions and solve all your problems.

Your giving does not have to reflect mine. Be your own kind of ripple. If you have some extra time, give it to a shelter. If you have a special trade, mentor or give advice. If you have a business, give free samples. If you have arms, give hugs. Just give in your own capacity, where you are and watch what a difference that one gesture can make. 

Maybe you are in the Abyss of Emotional Bankruptcy looking for a way out, looking for the next rung in the ladder on your climb to the Peak of Happiness, or you may even be at the Peak of Happiness already, looking for a way to stay there. Wherever you are in life, this book is designed to give you the tools necessary to help you achieve your goals.

My billboard would say this: “Busy is a decision.” Here’s why: Of the many, many excuses people use to rationalize why they can’t do something, the excuse “I am too busy” is not only the most inauthentic, it is also the laziest. I don’t believe in “too busy.” Like I said, busy is a decision. We do the things we want to do, period. If we say we are too busy, it is shorthand for “not important enough.

MENTORING Finally, since I am defining coaching, I should perhaps mention mentoring, another word that has crept into business parlance. The word originates from Greek mythology, in which it is reported that Odysseus, when setting out for Troy, entrusted his house and the education of his son Telemachus to his friend, Mentor. “Tell him all you know,” Odysseus said, and thus unwittingly set some limits to mentoring.

The most significant transformational moment in my career was an act of elimination. It wasn’t my idea. I was in my late thirties and doing well flying around the country giving the same talk about organizational behavior to companies. I was on a lucrative treadmill of preserving, but I needed my mentor Paul Hersey to point out the downside. “You’re too good at what you’re doing,” Hersey told me. “You’re making too much money selling your day rate to companies.” When someone tells me I’m “too good” my brain shifts into neutral—and I bask in the praise. But Hersey wasn’t done with me. “You’re not investing in your future,” he said. “You’re not researching and writing and coming up with new things to say. You can continue doing what you’re doing for a long time. But you’ll never become the person you want to be.” For some reason, that last sentence triggered a profound emotion in me. I respected Paul tremendously. And I knew he was right. In Peter Drucker’s words, I was “sacrificing the future on the altar of today.” I could see my future and it had some dark empty holes in it. I was too busy maintaining a comfortable life. At some point, I’d grow bored or disaffected, but it might happen too late in the game for me to do something about it. Unless I eliminated some of the busywork, I would never create something new for myself. Despite the immediate cut in pay, that’s the moment I stopped chasing my tail for a day rate and decided to follow a different path. I have always been thankful for Paul’s advice.

Helicopter parenting is a big problem today. We never want our children to fail, and we’ll do almost anything to prevent it from happening. In doing so, we are allowing them to take that elevator to top, only to have them find out later that, in the real world, there is no elevator to success. We don’t allow our children to take the stairs, neglecting the fact that we won’t be around forever to pick them up when they fall, or to keep them from falling altogether. When they have to climb the stairs themselves, their legs don’t have the strength.

A senior partner asks if you’ll mentor an incoming summer associate, and the answer is easy: Of course you will. You have yet to understand the altering force of a simple yes. You don’t know that when a memo arrives to confirm the assignment, some deep and unseen fault line in your life has begun to tremble, that some hold is already starting to slip. Next to your name is another name, that of some hotshot law student who’s busy climbing his own ladder. Like you, he’s black and from Harvard. Other than that, you know nothing—just the name, and it’s an odd one.

I walk out of the cafe on a high. I met a stranger, had coffee and a great conversation. My first friend-date. A roaring success. But I don’t know how to proceed at this point. Do I contact Abigail again? Wait for her? This is when my friendship mentor, Rachel B, steps in. ‘My biggest piece of advice is make the first move and also make the second move.’ I take out my phone and text Abigail: ‘I hereby promise to never send you a dick pic.’ Abigail texts me back to promise me the same thing. She says she’d love to meet up again, but for the next few weeks she’s very busy with book edits. We agree to get in touch in a month or so.

I walk out of the cafe on a high. I met a stranger, had coffee and a great conversation. My first friend-date. A roaring success. But I don’t know how to proceed at this point. Do I contact Abigail again? Wait for her? This is when my friendship mentor, Rachel B, steps in. ‘My biggest piece of advice is make the first move and also make the second move.’ I take out my phone and text Abigail: ‘I hereby promise to never send you a dick pic.’ Abigail texts me back to promise me the same thing. She says she’d love to meet up again, but for the next few weeks this she’s very busy with book edits. We agree to get in touch in a month or so.

Most firms are looking for people who will stay up until three A.M. seven nights a week making slides for a partner who goes home to Wellesley for dinner every night at five P.M.—and who will do so thinking that they’re ‘winning.’ Look at it this way: most firms assume that you’ll leave for law school or business school within three years, and they invest in your training accordingly. Quality mentoring when you’re young is worth whatever you pay for it. Sometimes that means less money, sometimes that means less of a life beyond work. But quality mentoring is not going to be delivered by someone who is twenty-six, and just one tidal cycle ahead of you.

She peeked inside the box,then slapped the top back down and glared at me. For a second I wondered if I'd broken some rule of business or cultural propriety. "Homemade?" she demanded. "My grandmother." She peeked again,and groaned softly. "I don't know whether I love you or hate you right at this moment." She closed the box firmly. "Of course I'll supervise your article." "The cannoli weren't meant to be a bribe.I just...thought you might like them." "I'm sure I will," she sid crisply, "a great deal.Just as much as I will not like the extra twelve hours on the treadmill." Then her face softened. "Thank you.What a treat. What I started to say about mentoring is that I don't normally do it. Apparently I scare students. But I would be happy to help you however I can." It was my turn to thank her. I added, "You don't scare me." "Really?" She stared at me over the sharp frame of her glasses. "Well,maybe a little," I admitted. "Sometimes." "Excellent. Now skedaddle.

even. By the time things were done, I was exhausted and depressed and just really, really unhappy. We all were. But it didn’t have to be that way. That experience taught me to take agency in my own professional narratives, and that endings don’t have to be failures, especially when you choose to end a project or shut down a business. Shortly after the restaurant closed, I started a food market as a small side project, and it ended up being wildly successful. I had more press and customers than I could handle. I had investors clamoring to get in on the action. But all I wanted to do was write. I didn’t want to run a food market, and since my name was all over it, I didn’t want to hand it off to anyone else, either. So I chose to close the market on my own terms, and I made sure that everyone knew it. It was such a positive contrast to the harsh experience of closing the restaurant. I’ve learned to envision the ideal end to any project before I begin it now—even the best gigs don’t last forever. Nor should they.

At a young age, Evan would listen in on his father’s long legal calls, which he credits for giving him early business exposure that helped develop his critical thinking and business accumen. He can often become obsessed with ideas, hungrily learning everything he can about them at a rapid pace. Evan is constantly curious and is learning and getting better at being a CEO very quickly. But his two superpowers are (1) his ability to get inside his users’ heads and think like a teenage girl and (2) his knack for attracting brilliant, powerful mentors. Evan loves picking other people’s brains over a walk or a meal. Over the years he has attracted an A-list roster of mentors, including SoftBank’s Nikesh Arora, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Google’s Eric Schmidt. He doesn’t just limit these brain dumps to tech luminaries, though, as he often walks and chats with fashion designers, politicians, documentary filmmakers, and other intriguing peers. Often, these impressive people will come speak to Team Snapchat at their Venice headquarters.

The page begins with the person’s picture. A photo if we can find it. If not, a sketch or painting by Peeta. Then, in my most careful handwriting, come all the details it would be a crime to forget. Lady licking Prim’s cheek. My father’s laugh. Peeta’s father with the cookies. The color of Finnick’s eyes. What Cinna could do with a length of silk. Boggs reprogramming the Holo. Rue poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight. On and on. We seal the pages with salt water and promises to live well to make their deaths count. Haymitch finally joins us, contributing twenty-three years of tributes he was forced to mentor. Additions become smaller. An old memory that surfaces. A late primrose preserved between the pages. Strange bits of happiness, like the photo of Finnick and Annie’s newborn son. We learn to keep busy again. Peeta bakes. I hunt. Haymitch drinks until the liquor runs out, and then raises geese until the next train arrives. Fortunately, the geese can take pretty good care of themselves. We’re not alone. A few hundred others return because, whatever has happened, this is our home. With the mines closed, they plow the ashes into the earth and plant food. Machines from the Capitol break ground for a new factory where we will make medicines. Although no one seeds it, the Meadow turns green again. Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.

Zemurray lived near the docks. No one could tell me the exact address. Some building in the French Quarter, perhaps a wreck with cracks in the walls and a sloped ceiling, and the heat goes out and the fog comes in. When his business grew, he moved uptown, following the wealth of the city, which had been fleeing the French Quarter for decades. At twenty-nine, he was rich, a well-known figure in a steamy paradise, tall with deep black eyes and a hawkish profile. A devotee of fads, a nut about his weight, he experimented with diets, now swearing off meat, now swearing off everything but meat, now eating only bananas, now eating everything but bananas. He spent fifteen minutes after each meal standing on his head, which he read was good for digestion. His friends were associates, his mentors and enemies the same. He was a bachelor and alone but not lonely. He was on a mission, after all, in quest of the American dream, and was circumspect and deliberate as a result. He never sent letters or took notes, preferring to speak in person or by phone. He was described as shy, but I think his actions are more accurately characterized as careful—he did not want to leave a record or draw attention.

Indeed, equal amounts of research support both assertions: that mentorship works and that it doesn’t. Mentoring programs break down in the workplace so often that scholarly research contradicts itself about the value of mentoring at all, and prompts Harvard Business Review articles with titles such as “Why Mentoring Doesn’t Work.” The mentorship slip is illustrated well by family businesses: 70 percent of them fail when passed to the second generation. A business-owner parent is in a perfect spot to mentor his or her child to run a company. And yet, sometime between mentorship and the business handoff, something critical doesn’t stick. One of the most tantalizing ideas about training with a master is that the master can help her protégé skip several steps up the ladder. Sometimes this ends up producing Aristotle. But sometimes it produces Icarus, to whom his father and master craftsman Daedalus of Greek mythology gave wings; Icarus then flew too high too fast and died. Jimmy Fallon’s mentor, one of the best-connected managers Jimmy could have for his SNL dream, served him up on a platter to SNL auditions in a fraction of the expected time it should take a new comedian to get there. But Jimmy didn’t cut it—yet. There was still one more ingredient, the one that makes the difference between rapid-rising protégés who soar and those who melt their wings and crash. III.

There’s a big difference, in other words, between having a mentor guide our practice and having a mentor guide our journey. OUR TYPICAL PARADIGM FOR mentorship is that of a young, enterprising worker sitting across from an elderly executive at an oak desk, engaging in Q& A about how to succeed at specific challenges. On the other hand, a smartcut-savvy mentee approaches things a bit differently. She develops personal relationships with her mentors, asks their advice on other aspects of life, not just the formal challenge at hand. And she cares about her mentors’ lives too. Business owner Charlie Kim, founder of Next Jump and one of my own mentors, calls this vulnerability. It’s the key, he says, to developing a deep and organic relationship that leads to journey-focused mentorship and not just a focus on practice. Both the teacher and the student must be able to open up about their fears, and that builds trust, which in turn accelerates learning. That trust opens us up to actually heeding the difficult advice we might otherwise ignore. “It drives you to do more,” Kim says. The best mentors help students to realize that the things that really matter are not the big and obvious. The more vulnerability is shown in the relationship, the more critical details become available for a student to pick up on, and assimilate. And, crucially, a mentor with whom we have that kind of relationship will be more likely to tell us “no” when we need it—and we’ll be more likely to listen.

I met with a group of a hundred or so fifth graders from a poor neighborhood at a school in Houston, Texas. Most of them were on a track that would never get them to college. So I decided then and there to make a contract with them. I would pay for their four-year college education if they kept a B average and stayed out of trouble. I made it clear that with focus, anyone could be above average, and I would provide mentoring support to them. I had a couple of key criteria: They had to stay out of jail. They couldn't get pregnant before graduating high school. Most importantly, they needed to contribute 20 hours of service per year to some organization in their community. Why did I add this? College is wonderful, but what was even more important to me was to teach them they had something to give, not just something to get in life. I had no idea how I was going to pay for it in the long run, but I was completely committed, and I signed a legally binding contract requiring me to deliver the funds. It's funny how motivating it can be when you have no choice but to move forward. I always say, if you want to take the island, you have to burn your boats! So I signed those contracts. Twenty-three of those kids worked with me from the fifth grade all the way to college. Several went on to graduate school, including law school! I call them my champions. Today they are social workers, business owners, and parents. Just a few years ago, we had a reunion, and I got to hear the magnificent stories of how early-in-life giving to others had become a lifelong pattern. How it caused them to believe they had real worth in life. How it gave them such joy to give, and how many of them now are teaching this to their own children.

DITCHING SESSIONS AND OTHER DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR 5 out of 10 None. I’m not going to bother documenting all of the reports I’ve gotten about Keefe’s recent behavior (or any of the other prodigies currently acting up.) Nor am I allowing any punishment to be assigned. The plantings for Sophie Foster and Dex Dizznee were only a few days ago and everyone needs more time to process their shock and grief—particularly Keefe, who seemed inconsolable when I saw him in the Wanderling Woods. —Dame Alina LEVEL FIVE VIOLATION SERIOUSNESS SENTENCE PRINCIPAL’S COMMENTS DITCHING THE UNIVERSE According to a report from the gnomes, Keefe was found in the Mentors’ private cafeteria again, covered in butterblast crumbs. 2 out of 10 One detention assigned. First day of sessions and Keefe’s ditching again. I definitely should’ve tried to get him assigned to a different session. But the Council’s been busy since Sophie Foster and Dex Dizznee returned. I still can’t believe anyone would capture children—and I don’t want to think about what Sophie and Dex endured. Our world is changing.… —Dame Alina VIOLATION SERIOUSNESS SENTENCE PRINCIPAL’S COMMENTS DISRUPTING STUDY HALL According to a report from Sir Rosings, Keefe was talking to Sophie Foster during detention—and made a “sassy” reply when Sir Rosings called them out. When Keefe continued to talk, Sir Rosings gave them both detention. (Keefe apparently looked excited by the prospect. Sophie less so.) 1 out of 10 One detention detention assigned. Honestly, this seems a somewhat minor offense, considering the theatrics Keefe usually pulls. But I respect Sir Rosings’s decision. —Dame Alina Update: Keefe’s detention (and Sophie’s as well) was postponed a day after he injured his hand in Elementalism while trying to bottle a tornado. (Sophie apparently had some trouble in her inflicting session as well.)

Daily Affirmation: If I am willing to spend two years of my life like others won’t, I can spend the rest of my life like others can’t.” The Sky Isn’t The Limit Never tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon. The sky is not the limit, if so we never would have gone to the moon. With the proper mindset and mentors, regardless of where you are presently in life, your possibilities are limitless. You are one idea or one person away from resources that could change the legacy of your family and those of others. Will your great-great grandchildren remember your name because they see your footprints (i.e. businesses you left them, stocks you purchased or real estate)?

Building a life of significance, and creating a legacy of real value, means being willing to get your hands dirty. It means being willing to step out in your life and onto the platforms of influence you’ve been given and touch the lives of people in need. Whether it’s in your business, your school, your community, or your family, if you want to make a difference in the lives of the people you lead, you must be willing to walk alongside them, to lift and encourage them, to share moments of understanding with them, and to spend time with them, not just shout down at them from on high. Mentors build mentors. Leaders build leaders. When you look at it closely, it’s really one and the same thing.

The danger,” he now understands, “is when you think you’ve got it all figured out.

Your manager wants to believe that you enjoy your job, or at least you won't spit in her coffee when she looks away. At the office, attitude counts for a lot.

In May, Stanton graduated with five other formerly incarcerated adults from Project ReMADE, a 12-week program created by Stanford law students that aims to turn ex-convicts into entrepreneurs. The program matches former prisoners with Silicon Valley venture capitalists and business executives, and with students from Stanford's law and graduate business schools, who mentor the ex-inmates to become small-business owners. "Stanford brings social capital to people who don't have ... the networks that you and I and everyone else leans on and takes for granted," said Debbie Mukamal, executive director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, who oversees Project ReMADE. "We're here to open doors for them.

Let me address one more significant factor detracting from new business development success today: a severe shortage of sales mentors.

What we are missing are sales mentors, those wise old vets who take young pups and newbies under their tutelage and impart years of wisdom and experience to their protégé.

Sales managers would willingly work with and mentor their people, and consider it part of their responsibility to coach their teams on selling skills.

Nothing was more valuable than “windshield time” with my manager riding shotgun in my car. He would alternate between preaching sales theory to quizzing me about product knowledge or what was happening at each of my key customers. When we would pull up to an account, he always insisted I drive around the building. He would say, “You can learn a lot more about a business by watching what’s going in and out of the back door than the front door.” So, of course, twenty-two years later, I’m still sneaking around the back before sales calls and mentoring salespeople to do the same.

An ideal Mentor is trustworthy (i.e. capable of keeping things confidential), optimistic, dependable and available, a seasoned leader or contributor within the company, influential, a good listener and has excellent interpersonal skills.

According to the Project Management Triangle, in an IT project you can only achieve two out of three objectives: Good, Fast, and Cheap. It is almost impossible to achieve three of them at the same time.

There are no big problems; there are just a lot of little problems.” They should divide problems into smaller parts and resolve them with a bottom-up approach.

Don’t Exaggerate Problems “It is not that I am so smart, it is just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein.

charity work. Any smart, ethical business owner is going to be involved with something that gives back, whether it is at the community level, in the fight against a specific disease, or in a broad campaign to address another social issue. If you are willing to take the time to roll up your sleeves—first, to find out what groups your targeted mentor works with, and second, to start giving your money, time, or resources to that same group—you can find inroads to business mentors very quickly, and all while pursuing a worthy cause.

Being a Helper It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. —GENESIS 2:18     One of the joys of being an older woman is helping teach the younger women how to be helpers for their husbands. Daughters and daughters-in-law need to hear your wisdom when it comes to marriage. Sharing your experience becomes a great reward of your station in life. When I make this suggestion to a group, many women who have adult children will quietly comment that they don’t have anything to teach anyone else. In fact, they are intimidated by the next generation and feel insecure about their experience. This is the perfect reason to begin mentoring another woman. You’ll both discover the depth and breadth of your wisdom as wives and mothers. As a mature adult, you can be the one who encourages your daughters and daughters-in-law in how to be helpers to their mates, one of the great principles of marriage. What a difference it would make if more women would uphold their husbands as they attempt to rise above the pull of the world and toward God’s purposes. You can be the facilitator who will help women to understand and implement Paul’s teaching in Titus 2:3-5: “Teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live…. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.” As a grandparent, the easiest way to teach is by example. Often married children are not eager to ask their parents about marriage, but they cannot deny your living and modeling Scripture. Be available to help when it is requested. We must be sensitive that we don’t barge unannounced into their lives, but be prepared when the time comes. Prayer: Father God, as a mature woman of God, I want to be used to encourage other women how to be makers of their homes. Give me the perfect timing to be available. In the meantime I will demonstrate Your Word by my life. Amen.  

Mentor Me: ...the crossroads and convergence of where science, metaphysics, religion, and utopian society intersect.

User interface design is like football. Everybody in the company feels confident and keen to comment on the designs.

People aren’t learning social, communication, or relationship skills in the education system. Instead they have to trust the school of hard knocks, their street smarts, a mentor/coach, or a book. Today, almost everyone is struggling and overwhelmed by how to put what they learn into action—how to find and develop new friends, business colleagues, and romantic relationships, and create a meaningful life. Many people are just giving up and feel hopeless and lost, and they disengage from the world around them or self-medicate with drugs, alcohol, prescriptions, etc. In this way, they create a cycle of failure in their relationships and enter new toxic relationships…over and over again.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

According to the Project Management Triangle, in an IT project you can only achieve two out of three objectives: Good, Fast, and Cheap.

In requirements gathering meetings giving right answers to wrong questions is worse than giving wrong answers to the right questions. Wrong questions mislead the team, generate conflicts, waste project time, and result in failure. Business analysts should prepare simple, objective, and to-the-point questions before these meetings.

Superbosses aren’t like most bosses; they follow a playbook all their own. They are unusually intense and passionate—eating, sleeping, and breathing their businesses and inspiring others to do the same. They look fearlessly in unusual places for talent and interview candidates in colorful ways. They create impossibly high work standards that push protégés to their limits. They engage in an almost inexplicable form of mentoring and coaching, one that occurs spontaneously with (apparently) no clear rules. They lavish responsibility on inexperienced protégés, taking risks that seem foolish to outsiders. When the time is right, superbosses often encourage star talent to leave, after which these acolytes usually become part of the superboss’s strategic network in the industry.

Grace is amazing #blessed

You have to become aware of who you are—your strengths, weaknesses, likes, beliefs and how you feel and why you feel a certain way. Knowing yourself goes far beyond just thinking about your life. The practice of reflection also includes talking to others, e.g. through finding a mentor who offers guidance, someone to share your views and experiences with, someone to ask questions to.

Within a week of this call, my brother and I embarked on our 1-week book writing journey. We used this method to write our first book. The Result: We cranked out a 200+ page book in 1 week. What I am going to share with you in the next three chapters are the shortcuts that my mentor shared with me and the ones that helped me and my brother write our book in just 7 days. It is simple and super easy … but boy, oh, boy, is it effective. It’s so simple that I’m almost embarrassed so share it. Even though it works like crazy, this method is ignored by 99% of first-time authors. That’s why they never finish their books. I’m about to share it, but I need something from you first: Can you pinky promise you won’t laugh at how simple it is? I’m serious. Did you imaginary pinky promise me yet? I guess I’ll just have to take your word on it. In a nutshell, here’s the 3-step process he taught me: Mind map → Outline → Write

7 TRUTHS ABOUT MONEY, WORTH, HAPPINESS & CHOICE 1. Money does not validate your personal worth. Just because the financial world uses the term "worth" as it applies to business, does not mean it applies to you as a person. People get that mixed up all the time and it's dangerous. You are worthy just for being. Remember that. You are priceless. 2. When you like yourself regardless of the size of your bank account, success will follow because you're already successful. Think about it. Success begets success. Deal with that self-loathing garbage that holds you back, like yourself and get to work. 3. Don't try to validate your personal worth with money. If you do, your self-esteem may go up or down with the size of your bank account or the success or failure of your next venture. That's no way to live. 4. The fallacy is that the more money you have the happier you are. Some of the saddest people in the world are filthy rich. That said, some of the happiest people are filthy rich. Likewise, some of the saddest people and some of the happiest people are dirt poor. Money is not the deciding factor in your happiness. You are the deciding factor in your own happiness. Take 100% responsibility for your life and watch magic happen. 5. Now don't get me wrong. I live in the 21st century too. Money is like air. You don't know how important it is until it runs out. Money to humans is like water to fish. You can't live without it. Money is how we survive and money impacts our happiness, freedom, how and where we live and our ability to make various choices. 6. In the end, a) money will never determine your personal worth because you are worthy just by the fact that you are here, b) money may impact your happiness, but happiness is a choice regardless of the size of your bank account, and c) money is necessary to survive and enhances your circumstance. 7) Bringing it all together: given a choice (which you are if you are reading this mini-essay), why not a) choose to believe you are already worthy regardless of your financial situation, b) make happiness a habit, and c) get a mentor to learn how to earn more income so you never run out of air or water?

One of our measurement mentors, Enrico Fermi, was an early user of what was later called a “Monte Carlo simulation.

Everyone Who Makes It Has a Mentor" was the title of the classic 1978 Harvard Business Review

Everyone you meet should go into a people file (organized by categories) that you keep on your computer or phone. Include a few details about the person. Selected names should be placed on your “big-mouth” e-mail list. It should consist of former bosses, former coworkers whom you want to stay in touch with, anyone who has mentored you, people you’ve met who seem interested in your career. People on your big-mouth list then get sent an e-mail notification when you have important career news—for instance, you’ve switched jobs, been promoted, or started your own business.

In some circumstances manual testing becomes more efficient than automated testing; it takes much more time to generate automated test scripts compared to running test cases manually. Especially in time-sensitive, fast-track projects, this results in a weird situation of coding around bugs instead of finding and fixing them. Project managers and QA managers should consider this issue as a project risk. They should mitigate this risk by determining the right level of test automation. Shelfware

In applying the lean approach for the first time, project managers should remember that “it is not the strength of waves that shapes the rocks, but it is their persistence.” Thus, instead of giving up early, they should continuously motivate their teams to apply lean principles and techniques to their projects by managing any kind of internal resistance. End

elite entrepreneurs respond quickly, put their business first, consult with mentors often, hire the best team, create an environment of stressful urgency, use time wisely, and so on. The

Your business and finance mentor helping you achieve success with business, finance, and real estate solutions. Small business startup, small business funding, real estate investment. Dare to think and act differently from the majority and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish. Join me on my journey to achieve success and let me help begin your journey. By sharing my experience, allow me to motivate you to understand there are other options available and you don't have to do what everyone else is doing. By sharing my tips, let me guide you down the road less traveled where opportunities are abundant. You can follow your dreams and you can make them come true!

A wise man once asked to his mentor, “What advice would you give the average investor?” his reply was, “DON’T BE AVERAGE.

Project manager and business analyst roles have many intersection points. Scope management is one of them. While the project manager is responsible for “project” scope management, the business analysts are responsible for “product” scope management. Project scope is defined as the work that needs to be accomplished to deliver a product with specified features, whereas product scope represents the features of the product to meet the business needs of the project. Therefore, in order to determine the project scope correctly, the project manager should assist business analysts in defining a clear and correct product scope. After business analysts reach an agreement with business units about product scope and prepare the business case or vision and scope document, the project manager should define the project scope on the project charter document.

Requirements gathering is the most important phase in a software development project. While it is possible to cook bad food from good ingredients, it is not possible to cook good food from bad ingredients. Similarly, although it is possible to build bad-quality software with well-defined requirements, it is impossible to deliver high-quality software with poor requirements even with the best developers.

you are far more likely to act yourself into feeling than feel yourself into action.

To gain a fresh perspective on an old industry, it helps to listen and learn from younger people. A great way to formalize this process is to get a reverse mentor—a younger person who has less experience in your industry. (What you might see as a “lack of experience” can be viewed from a different perspective as being unburdened by assumptions, biases, and conventional wisdom.)

Too often we go through the motions of life without stopping to ask, Why are we doing this?

how I can be more of the dad that they want me to be, it became quite obvious to me that I had the reputation of being a workaholic and that they didn’t have my undivided attention.