Mentors can make your World go Round

Working with the right mentor, can and will be extremely rewarding, on both the professional and personal front, for both the mentor and mentee. JP Morgan Chase has an excellent mentor program. One of the research programmes they ran revealed that over 87 % of protégés, reported significant career advancement, as a result of the mentoring program. They also reported massive improvements in their confidence levels and things in their personal lives improved as well.

Creating a Great Mentorship program

The first thing to remember is that a mentorship program, is never a substitute for leadership, nor is it a replacement for an appropriate training and development program, within your organisation. Mentorship is always a complimentary program to support great leadership and targeted training. 

Remember that a winning mentorship relationship is one built on trust, between two individuals. It is basically one where, the more experienced person provides insights and guidance to the less experienced one. In many cases they also help the other person make the right contacts, with the right people too. 

Make it part of the organisational DNA

To really be successful with any mentoring program within your organisation, it needs to not be something separate from the organisation. It must become an integral part of the DNA or culture within the organisation. Right from the recruiting phase, you should look to hire people, who are willing to listen and who have an appetite for teaching. Remember that a great mentor fills the role of both a teacher and a trusted friend. To really be successful, you should not only mentor a few rising stars within your organisation, but try to ensure that everyone within your organisation is supported. When mentoring is an entrenched culture within your organisation, it is far easier than you think to support and guide everyone to greatness.

Making this work in your organisationü 

• Make mentoring part of the DNA of your organisation. It should be an integral part of what your organisation wants. As everyone within your organisation grows, so too will your business over time.
• Identify a good passionate and driven leader within your organisation, to champion your mentoring program. This will help keep the program focused and support the program to grow and flourish.  
• Identify people within your organisation, who are good listeners, great teachers and truly passionate about guiding and supporting others to grow. They should not mentor anyone to get a feather in their own cap, but rather for the greater good of the organisation.
• Invest resources to train your mentors. Clearly define their roles and establish boundaries, to support both parties to make the mentor process work.
• Nominate mentees and try to match them as perfectly as possible with their mentors. The better the fit, the greater will be the benefit enjoyed from the programme. The best fit often comes when the mentee, gets to choose their mentor themselves.
•  Create a very clear framework for the relationship. The best results come from longer term relationships, so try to ensure that the relationship will be for a minimum of one year. Set a minimum number of meetings, which should be conducted during this period. Bi-weekly seems to work best. Once you have given them a formal platform, allow them to develop things more naturally going forward.
• Schedule gatherings for all mentors and mentees to get together. This gives them the opportunity to connect with each other and allows them to share experiences. Quarterly meetings for mentors and mentees, is a great way to learn from each other and build on experiences.
• Regularly measure success. As you monitor your mentoring program. Check to see if it is delivering on expectations. Are the mentees growing and improving the professional success and is the level of job satisfaction for both the mentor and mentee, where it should be?

The mentoring program, within your organisation, will be a fulfilling experience for both the mentors and mentees and will help your organisation to expand and flourish. As you know this will be a worthwhile endeavour for any organisation.

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Small Steps to Greatness

Success does not come to those, who do a lot a little. It comes to those people, who are consistent and who do a little a lot. If you only have ten minutes a day or 10 dollars a month, available to devote towards living your dream. Then that is the perfect place to start. When added together over time, small contributions add up into something really significant. Take building your own business for example. Consistent small steps taken over time can and will add up into that dream business, which you have always wanted to start, but felt you lacked the resources and time to tackle.

Huge Hairy Audacious Goals

Every single goal, both large and small, was achieved one small step or positive activity at a time. Every small step consistently taken over time, adds up into small strides and eventually giant leaps forward. The best way to show you how this works is through offering you a few examples, of people just like you, who achieved remarkable success, using this simple process.

Matt Dwyer is the owner of a small business located in Canada. He runs a business which converts old photos into digital format at an affordable price. He started to build his business, while he was still in full time employment. All he had was ten minutes every day, in his busy schedule, to devote towards creating his dream. This shortage of time did not stop him at all. He chipped away every day for more than eighteen months. 

All he did every day was analyse his current website, for ten minutes every day, pinpointing areas, where he could improve it, so that it would become more attractive to search engines. This consistent effort added up and after eighteen months his website feathered prominently on local searches and he was able to leave his full time career to follow his dream. Can you find ten minutes a day to devote towards creating and living your dream?

Scott Newman is now the proud owner of a training business in Adelaide Australia. He felt trapped in a corporate career, but lacked the time and resources to just up and leave his job. He never let that stop him though. He scheduled 30 minutes a day towards building his training business, used his annual leave and weekends to offer free training courses at the local schools and spoke in the evenings at any associations that would have him. 

This dedication and consistent effort added up and just over five years after he started working towards living his dream, he had built his reputation and business up, to a point, where he was earning sufficient income, to allow him to leave his full time job. He had finally reached a point, where he could begin living his dream and he could run his training business full time. The advice from Scott is simple. He says, take your time, be patient, consistently take action daily and any goal is possible to achieve. 

Action Idea: Look at your own circumstances. What is it you want to achieve? Identify a small daily activity, which over time will support you to achieve your dream. Keep carrying out that activity daily and you can achieve anything you want. 

To make this really effective add a few more ingredients. 

PLAN – DO – REVIEW – IMPROVE. 

Plan what you need to do very carefully before starting – Take action daily – Review or measure your performance regularly – Improve where necessary. Continue to follow this cycle of success and nothing can or will stop you from succeeding.

Motivational Speakers

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Do you suffer from Competence Delusion?

Andrew Horton Inspirational Speakers: Do you suffer from Competence Delusion?: It is truly astounding to see how many people leave school or university, never to touch a book to attempt to learn anything new, ever ...

Do you suffer from Competence Delusion?

It is truly astounding to see how many people leave school or university, never to touch a book to attempt to learn anything new, ever again. It is time to rid yourself of competence delusion and to become aware of the challenges, which are potentially affecting your knowledge, skill and abilities. The first challenge you face, once you commit to life-long learning and growth, is to not become overwhelmed by the endless data and the variety of training courses available. To get started, you need to take a look at your vision for the future and decide what skills, knowledge and new abilities will support you to achieve it.

Action Idea: Invest some time today, to identify the skills, knowledge and abilities you need to acquire in the next 12 months, 3 years, 5 years and then create a plan around how you intend to acquire those skills, within those time frames.

There is just not enough time Available

The second challenge you face is that nagging feeling that you are just too busy to make the time necessary to allocate any time to your personal growth. My experience has shown me that it is never a shortage of time most people experience. It is simply a lack of commitment. All the people I have met, who have continued to expand their competencies, seem to have plenty of time available. They are the ones, who despite a seemingly huge workloads, just seem to get so much more done.

These achievers have an abundant mindset and they have developed a supporting mindset around how to use their available time more efficiently and effectively. The effective person does the right things and the efficient does those things right. As you invest more time into your personal development, you too will become more efficient, efficient and successful. Have you noticed how successful people seem to have time to do more? They seem to live in an uncluttered world, where they appear to make fewer mistakes. Well that successful person could be you. They seem more effective and efficient, because their competence makes them so. Their competence comes from their commitment towards their personal growth. What is your commitment to your personal growth?

Action Idea: Invest time today to schedule time to invest into your personal development every day. I recommend a minimum of one hour a day, more if possible. This investment will deliver greater returns than any other investment you will ever make.

Making time to grow

So you push the snooze button every day and get that extra ten minutes of sleep. Imagine that instead of pushing the snooze button, you woke up and read an educational book instead. That means that you could read about five pages a day, 1825 pages a year, which equates to about 8 – 9 educational books a year.

How about driving around in your car, do you waste all that time listening to the radio? Well it is estimated that the average person spends about 500 hours a year commuting in their car. That equates to two semesters at university. Imagine, if you used that time to listen to educational audio books. Do you think two semesters at university every year could change the trajectory of your life? Do you still think you do not have enough time to invest into your personal growth?

It is now your time to start drinking from the fountain of wisdom. Stop stumbling through life, only occasionally gargling at the fountain, learning little and continuing to remain trapped in average. Now is your time to shine. All it requires is a new success habit. One focused on you and your personal growth and the way your future will turn out is very bright indeed.

SalesTraining

Winning the Hearts and Minds of others

If you want to win the hearts and minds of the people around you, you can try to bludgeon, promote or sell them into submission or you can choose a better option, where you enchant them by working to create a voluntary, long lasting and mutually beneficial relationship of support and loyalty. So I hear you ask, “How do I become enchanting”?

Become Enchanting 

As you know it is seldom the most complicated solutions, which work best in life. So here is one that although simplistic, works really well. The best way to not come across as grumpy, cold or annoying requires you to make a good first impression. This is done by projecting a genuine, authentic “George Clooneyesque” smile, when you first meet someone, followed by a firm meaningful handshake, which projects your genuine interest in the meeting the person. 

Dress Appropriately

Always ensure that you dress appropriately. Ensure that you are not too formal or too casual; ensure that you are dressed at the same level as the person you are meeting. When you speak, ensure that you use simple unambiguous words and speak in an active voice. Try to speak in shorter sentences and stay on point. 

Don’t Judge Others

Ensure that you do not judge people. As you know everyone has strengths and weaknesses as well as issues they may be dealing with in their lives. Keep an open mind and do not allow your impression of who or what they are cloud your approach to them in any way. Remain friendly, authentic and be real. Everyone has different values, so do not try to impose your values on others. Great enchanters have the ability to savour the difference between people’s values and include everyone

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Uncover Passions 

Find ways to uncover shared passions, as this is the easiest way to break down barriers and build bridges with people. Remember that the best way to enchant people is to ensure there is always a modality of fair exchange, in all dealings with them. As long as there is a win-win feeling and all parties feel like they are better off after the encounter, you will succeed to be enchanting. 

Adopt a “Yes” attitude

Try to always respond in the affirmative, when building any relationship. This buys you time and allows you to build rapport with the other person. By contrast a “No” stops everything. In other words, there is no place for the conversation to go, nothing to build on. A no attitude, stops things and removes any further options you may have had available to you. You can never build any long term sustainable relationship, unless you invest the time to allow it to begin.

Getting People to accept you

Dress appropriately. Yes I know people should not judge you by what you wear, but as you know they do. So to be successful at getting people to know, like and trust you. It is crucial that you create the right first impression, by wearing the appropriate clothing. Dress the equal to the person you intend to meet. The second crucial factor is your smile. Don’t project a false smile, where you only smile with your jaw. Smile with your eyes. The more crow’s feet you can project into every smile the better. Finally deliver a genuine, firm handshake, which projects your confidence and genuineness. Once you have got through this initial phase, where you have made the most incredible impression. 

Building that long term sustainable relationship is all about remaining authentic and genuine, always ensuring that there is a modality of fair exchange, where everyone feels like a winner. Sustaining that relationship, comes from ensuring that there is on-going mutual benefit for all parties and that everyone feels they are getting something from the relationship.

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