Tag Archive - mentor

Bringing Excellence to Maturity

August 16, 2010 in Business, Leadership, Quotes with 9 Comments

Many of us have bought into the fantasy of becoming an overnight success. We want it all to happen now.

Excellence and Maturity 300x149 Bringing Excellence to MaturitySometimes, your head is bursting with ideas, yet your career track isn’t keeping pace with your perception of your talents. You may be past the initial entry-level point, yet you still have a supervisor or a manager above you whose job you covet because you know you could do it better.

Take a moment to see your position from your manager’s view and look closely at it’s importance.

Slow down. Give yourself time to learn everything you can in this period. Realize this is a golden opportunity to make money and learn your trade. For hundreds of years, apprenticeships have been a time-honored tradition. Indeed, Publilius Syrus, an Assyrian slave in Italy in the first century BC, served an apprenticeship of sorts with a master who educated him and became his mentor. Publilius’s wit and talent were so remarkable that his master freed him. He became a writer of maxims like the one here.

Maybe you feel like a slave yourself on some days, groaning, “This career track is taking too long!” But when you start thinking like that, change your focus. Look at the larger picture and realize where you are now and what it’s going to take to get where you want to me. You’re not likely to become president of the company overnight.

“It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.” – Publilius Syrus

If you want to be the best at your job, you need to mature in it. Excellence only comes with time.

This is a great time to write down some objectives. Both individually and team oriented. How is what you are doing today, helping you help others you work closely with on a daily basis?

Searching for a Mentor?

June 10, 2010 in Business, Leadership with 9 Comments

mentor shopping 285x300 Searching for a Mentor?Setting unrealistic goals, or goals you never intend to meet, wastes everyone’s time. If you’re so out of touch with your inner self that you spend time daydreaming about wealth and riches with no plan for achieving then, it’s time for an attitude overhaul.

Ron Willingham is best known for helping organizations succeed with ethical, value-driven strategies. He teaches that the right mental attitude can make the difference in what you are realistically going to achieve. Knowing who you are and where you are going helps you set positive goals. Sure, it’s fine to fantasize about buying a Mercedes Benz (and even to purchase one if your budget allows for it), but do not allow yourself to to be motivated or driven by status. Status is really nothing more than buying things to impress people, that you really don’t like, with money you don’t have! Keeping up with the Joneses is a dangerous game to play. If you find yourself more concerned with status than personal values take stock of your life. Change your mindset: read or listen to some good books, listen to personal development CDs, and go to lectures. Redirect your thinking to focus on practical goals based on the reality of what is feasible in your life.

You may be young in the business and in need of a positive support system to plan exactly how you are going to reach your goals. Seek out a mentor and discover some new standards and practices. Experience in the field and right mental attitude is an excellent combination to enable you to achieve. Let’s face it, to succeed in business, you need to stay motivated and focused, right? But of course that is easier said than done. During a lecture by Stephen Covey, who preaches self-reflection as a way to discover the unlimited power of your own potential, knows that at some point, everyone is going to hit a wall. That is where a mentor can step in and help out. But, according to Covey, finding a mentor takes more thought and effort that most people realize.

A good place to start is to find someone whom you admire who shows an avid interest in you. Don’t prematurely choose your mentor. Get to know a variety of people who can potentially mentor you, which will minimize the chance in choosing someone for the wrong reasons. A magnetic personality is captivating, but too often, you can end up becoming a groupie, basking in the glow of your mentor’s superstar stature. It’s better to pick someone whose thought process and personality mesh with yours.

A mentor want you to learn and adapt his or her philosophies to become your own. A mentor should be available for advice and feedback, but not babysitting your insecurities. If you pick the right mentor, and you may have more than one, it’s usually the foundation for a life long friendship.

Setting Goals

October 13, 2009 in Leadership with 13 Comments

Setting Goals is a Key to Success 200x300 Setting GoalsIt’s incredible to see so many people out their achieving their goals in times like this. The clock is ticking and so many of us are doing things that we’ve only dreamed of.

There are five frogs and they’re all sitting on a log. Four of them decide to jump off.  How many are sitting on the log???  The answer is five.  Why?  Because their is a difference between deciding and doing.  You have to make a decision that do it!  You have to see it through to the end.  So many times we get started in things and then we just stop.  We meet an obstacle and instead of going “You know what?  I am going to find a way through this, I am going to learn it..I’m not sure how I am going to change but I am going to get together with my mentor and we are going to talk about it and figure this out!”.

We all dislike correction, don’t we?  Understanding that correction is constructive criticism is a way to take a step back and put things in perspective, because we are in the middle of it and we can’t see what we are doing wrong all the time.  When we are setting goals, we need to always remember to apply the “M.A.S.T.” (Meaningful, Achievement, Specific, and Time) equation to it.  Meaningful.  Is it going to benefit you and others.  Is it going to be something that I can make a difference in somebody else’s life too?  Achievement.  Ask yourself if the goal is achievable because sometimes we set are goals so far out there that when we get into it, we get to a point where we say to ourselves “What was I thinking, I can never do that”.  Well, then you’ve set your goal so high that in your own mind, you can’t achieve it.  SO ask yourself, “Is it achievable?”  Specific.  Is your goal defined, is it specific?  Sometimes we get out there and we are all pumped up and we’re like “whoo hoo…this is what it is and….”  What exactly is it?  We always have to know what we’re running for.  Then there is Time.  Do we have time on it?  Do we have a time limit?  If not, then it will be forever and we will keep running after this goal forever.

After we put a MAST on our goal, we then need to ask “How much is this going to cost?  What price is it that I’m going to have to pay for this goal?”  We ask ourselves this because we are going to have to determine what the price is that we are going to pay…if we don’t set the goal!  Understanding that there is a price for everything.  Check and Adjust.

Are you hanging around toxic people, or hanging around the people that inspire you!