What Every Mentor Should Know

 

BY Poornima Vijayashanker | September 30, 2013

As a mentor you want your time and your experience to make a difference. But mentorships, while rewarding, are not without their frustrations. Luckily, just adjusting your approach can remove a lot of unnecessary hurdles and frustrations.

Pick your niche. Your mentorship will be stronger if you first think about who you can best serve. For example, I don't have the expertise to help entrepreneurs who are interested in areas such as creating physical consumer goods. I decided to merge my specific expertise, building technology products and companies, with a focus on an underserved group: women in technology. Finding the right group of mentees helps me mentor more effectively.

Make time. Mentorships are relationships. They're not transactions or crammed sessions on an already booked schedule. Think carefully about how much time you can contribute and pick a time interval and frequency you can adhere to consistently. When you meet, be present without distractions. To progress, you'll need to meet consistently so you can gauge what your mentees' needs are and help them accordingly. Most of your initial meetings are just "getting to know you" sessions, and it's only after meeting a few times that you really understand someone, their goals and how you can help them.

Don't give advice. Too many first-time mentors offer advice instead of guidance. They offer a solution based on what worked for them, given their experience and the context they were working in, instead of a process that mentees can learn from and apply to their own needs and situation. Your mentees might have a different background or challenge and it's important to take the time to understand their interests, goals, and what's worked and failed for them. For example, I recently had a mentee who was keen on setting up her own software development consulting business. Had I just looked on the surface I would have given her advice and tips on how to set up a consultancy. However, after getting to know her for about a month, I realized her shyness might affect her ability to deal with clients directly. We took a step back and worked on her presentations skills, so she could gain the confidence she needed to attract clients.

Know when you cannot help. There are times it will seem like you and your mentee are spinning your wheels. The truth is, your mentee might need help that is beyond your abilities. If your mentee is dealing with personal issues, for instance, your mentee might be better served by a professional therapist or lifecoach. If you don't have the experience or training that your mentee needs in the moment, explain that you'll need to put the mentorship on hold. Keep in touch and connect later when your mentee is ready.

Just say no. If someone reaches out to you, and you're simply swamped, let that potential mentee know. Maybe you're overstretched at work or overbooked with other mentees. If that's the case, once you do have an opening let them know. If you've had an ongoing mentorship relationship and your schedule changes, let them know that as well – they'll appreciate your honesty. Since you've built a relationship with this individual they'll understand and you'll be able to pick up your sessions when it makes sense for you both.

Poornima Vijayashanker 

Poornima Vijayashanker is the founder of Femgineer, an education services company dedicated to helping tech professionals and entrepreneurs better themselves in product development, communication, and leadership.

The author is an Entrepreneur contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228483#ixzz2gOskjhgD

Why Young Professionals Need Mentors for Success

THINKING BIG!—> Remember there is an opportunity in every obstacle.

Ilya Pozin

Founder, Ciplex

 

Half of recent college graduates are working as waiters or waitresses, bartenders, or baristas. Sure, some of these unemployed or underemployed grads should’ve examined industry outlooks several years ago, pursued degrees in nursing, accounting, or computer science, and reserved their passion for anthropology, art history, or the humanities as a hobby.

However, half of recent grads were successful in starting their careers. How were these recent graduates able to find good work? Extracurricular activities during school? Maybe. A few completed internships? Probably. A professional mentor? Definitely.

Recent graduates keeping their heads above water in a discouraging job market certainly owe their success to determination and hard work, but also to mentors they’ve encountered along their journeys. I know because I owe much of my success today to my mentors.

Here’s how professional mentors can help young professionals combat unemployment:

By Offering Overwhelming Support And Motivation

When I was still in college, a man by the name of Tom Antion took me under his wing and brought me on full-time at his company. In less than a year of working with Antion I was equipped with the knowledge and support to start my own venture. Professional mentors have the same impact on young professionals as to what Boy Scout leaders and little league coaches have on a child. They offer overwhelming support and motivation to help mold young professionals into who they will become, and in a tough job market, they’re prepared to keep them positive and motivated through job searches, interviews, rejections, and successes.

By Helping Decide How Quickly To Grow

As mentioned, I was only with Antion for a year, yet he gave his blessing and encouragement when I opted to move to LA to start Ciplex. Mentors have usually encountered the same experiences young professional will soon face. They have first-hand stories on how they overcame obstacles, or how they failed. Because of these experiences, they can help new professionals determine what steps to take in their career, and can offer support when it is time to make a big step in a new direction.

By Unselfishly Sharing Personal Stories

As hard as it is sometimes, we can’t be all work and no play. Mentors can alleviate some stress of figuring out how to balance a budget, a full-time job, paying off debt, buying a house, starting a family, all while being a successful professional. By sharing their own personal stories, professional mentors build personal relationships with their mentee. That relationship is worth it’s weight in gold.

By Teaching What They’ve Learned

With Gen Y being branded as unmotivated, disrespectful workers, these young professionals need to constantly aim to break the mold. I’ve worked or networked with many of these young professionals who are the hard working, ambitious kind — just like I was when I started my company at 17. Mentors see beyond the everyday lazy young person, recognize the hard workers, and share the lessons they’ve learned to better prepare young professionals in their careers.

There are many great solutions and movements focused on helping to end unemployment for today’s young people. #StartupLab, launching Labor Day weekend, is a great example offering a free virtual mentorship program for our top young statups. The message is clear: mentors are essential for combating unemployment and underemployment among today’s young workers and can make those hard earned college degrees seem like they were worth it again.

Do you think mentors are vital to combat unemployment among recent graduates? Why or why not?

Read more:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ilya-pozin/why-young-professionals-n_b_1842738.html

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Recharging Your Relationship

by Chris Widener

Now you may ask why we would write an article about developing better relationships. The reason is because I believe that those who are in a relationship will be significantly and directly affected in all areas of their life by how that relationship is going, and how healthy that relationship is.

Research has proven that those who are happy at home are more productive and less stressful at work. Developing a better relationship with your mate can help you develop a better life and a better business! Here are some thoughts to chew on for developing a strong and healthy relationship with your mate.

Listen. Communication is the key to a lasting relationship and listening is the key to communicating. Too often when we are quiet we are not listening, but waiting to speak. Instead of listening to what our mate is saying, and intently trying to understand them, very often we are making mental notes of what we would like to say in response. This is particularly true for us males. We often are trying to find the weakness in our mate's argument, rather than really listening to the words that they're saying and the manner in which they're saying it. Why not take some time this week trying to internalize and understand your mate's words and feelings?

Schedule a regular time to go out or spend time together. With today's busy lifestyles, it is too easy to put our relationships on the backburner and take them for granted. While we might have every intention of spending regular time with our mate, we often find ourselves driven by a schedule that has us running in every direction and leaving us little time for our most important relationships. Work gets in the way. The kids get in the way. Our hobbies get in the way. We need to realize the value in the importance of that relationship with our mate and its effect on our total life. Then we need to make spending time with our mate a major priority by scheduling a specific time at least each week to get alone together, talk, and simply renew our relationship. Be sure to set some time aside each week to rediscover each other and enjoy your time together. Pencil it into your schedule and don't give up that spot. In fact, it is probably best if you and your mate sit down and decide what night will work each and every week, then put it into your daytimer. If someone asks you if you're available at that time, you tell them you already have an appointment. In the long run, that time that you spend with your mate will help you to become more of a success than you could ever mention.

Consider your mate's interests more important than your own. When each person has decided to give of themselves to the other, you form a reciprocating relationship of love, concern, and devotion. When you come to a place where you disagree or where the two of you have differing opinions, try to get to the point where you can consider what your mate likes as more important than what you would like to do. The simple decision to do this goes a long way toward developing a healthy relationship!

   
         
Learn your mate's love language. There is a lot of talk recently of love languages. What this is, is that each individual has certain ways they receive love from other people. Some people like to have time spent with them. Others like gifts, small or large. Still others respond best to personal touch. And others appreciate verbal affirmation. Our tendency is to show love the way that we like to receive love, but what will recharge our relationship fastest is to find out what way our mate likes to receive affirmations of our love. The next time you get a chance to speak to your mate, ask which of the above ways they like best to receive your demonstration of love. Then make a conscious effort to begin showing your love in that manner.

Do the small things you did when you first fell in love with your mate. Do remember when you were first in love? Remember the small things you did to show your love? But as time went along, you probably began to get weighed down with simply living life and forgot the small things that made the difference in the beginning. Things like a phone call in the middle of the day just to talk or say "I love you," an appreciative note, flowers, gifts, and opening doors. Recharge your relationship by consciously going back and doing the small things that you did when your love first began to grow.

Forgive. I've done a lot of work with couples having troubles, and one of the most common elements I find that is working against the development of their relationship is that they are holding something against the other and they aren't willing to forgive. The fact is that your mate is going to fail you from time to time. We need to understand that. What we do when we get to that point however, is what will make all the difference in the world. In a relationship that is going to last, the people involved are committed to forgiving one another. Those whose relationships last longest, and will be the healthiest, are those who are committed to forgiveness.

I hope these thoughts are helpful to you in recharging your love relationship. I truly believe that if we will put these principles into practice we will see our relationships grow in ways they never have before, and that in turn will make our whole life better.

Chris Widener

Six Behaviors That Increase Self-Esteem

by Denis Waitley

Following are six behaviors that increase self-esteem, enhance your self-confidence, and spur your motivation. You may recognize some of them as things you naturally do in your interactions with other people. But if you don’t, I suggest you motivate yourself to take some of these important steps immediately.

First, greet others with a smile and look them directly in the eye. A smile and direct eye contact convey confidence born of self-respect. In the same way, answer the phone pleasantly whether at work or at home, and when placing a call, give your name before asking to speak to the party you want to reach. Leading with your name underscores that a person with self-respect is making the call.
Second, always show real appreciation for a gift or compliment. Don’t downplay or sidestep expressions of affection or honor from others. The ability to accept or receive is a universal mark of an individual with solid self-esteem.

 

Third, don’t brag. It’s almost a paradox that genuine modesty is actually part of the capacity to gracefully receive compliments. People who brag about their own exploits or demand special attention are simply trying to build themselves up in the eyes of others—and that’s because they don’t perceive themselves as already worthy of respect.

Fourth, don’t make your problems the centerpiece of your conversation. Talk positively about your life and the progress you’re trying to make. Be aware of any negative thinking, and take notice of how often you complain. When you hear yourself criticize someone—and this includes self-criticism—find a way to be helpful instead of critical.

Fifth, respond to difficult times or depressing moments by increasing your level of productive activity. When your self-esteem is being challenged, don’t sit around and fall victim to “paralysis by analysis.” The late Malcolm Forbes said, “Vehicles in motion use their generators to charge their own batteries. Unless you happen to be a golf cart, you can’t recharge your battery when you’re parked in the garage!”

Sixth, choose to see mistakes and rejections as opportunities to learn. View a failure as the conclusion of one performance, not the end of your entire career. Own up to your shortcomings, but refuse to see yourself as a failure. A failure may be something you have done—and it may even be something you’ll have to do again on the way to success—but a failure is definitely not something you are.

 

Even if you’re at a point where you’re feeling very negatively about yourself, be aware that you’re now ideally positioned to make rapid and dramatic improvement. A negative self-evaluation, if it’s honest and insightful, takes much more courage and character than the self-delusions that underlie arrogance and conceit. I’ve seen the truth of this proven many times in my work with athletes. After an extremely poor performance, a team or an individual athlete often does much better the next time out, especially when the poor performance was so bad that there was simply no way to shirk responsibility for it. Disappointment, defeat, and even apparent failure are in no way permanent conditions unless we choose to make them so. On the contrary, these undeniably painful experiences can be the solid foundation on which to build future success.