Baby Bristol

In my last post I shared the joy of experiencing the 4D Ultrasound of the arrival of my third son. Well he has arrived and the dust is beginning to settle and here “I am back in the saddle again.” Oh great – now I have the Aerosmith version of the song playing in my mind threatening to suck me into endless clicks of YouTube. Of course depending on the era of life you grew up in you may have the Gene Autry version playing in your mind but none-the-less it is good to be back in the saddle.

Babies are cute and cuddly – a noise at one end and a smell at the other. We do not mind changing them – with a clothespin over our nose – because that is what we are supposed to do. It is when they get older that they must transition to changing themselves. Nobody wants to change a teenager with diapers the size of bed sheets.

Taking the transition from working a full time job to entrepreneurship is truly a learning and growing experience that can be messy – maybe even down right dirty in the beginning. I believe it is necessary to have a coach or mentor who is willing to put the clothes pin on the nose and tell you the truth.

Who are your coach and mentor?

The realty is you will not find a personal mentor just sitting back and waiting for them to appear. You must seek them out and in most cases it will cost you something. If you are in direct sale marketing or multi level marketing – find a leader in that field and get in their organization and stick to them like glue gleaning everything you can.

The internet can be your mentor – content, content, content. You can learn so much from the content available online. You may not have the direct phone number of a great mentor or leader but you sure do have access to the knowledge base of wisdom that can help you.

Mentors come in all shapes and sizes.

Do not just get hung up with following the so called greats. Mentors and leaders are all around you. I enjoy submitting things to people around me that I know will give me honest and truthful feedback. These are also my coaches and mentors.

Don’t just learn – ACT!

You have heard the saying, “Actions speak louder than words.” This is where you go from diapers to undies. Take what you learn and put action to it – otherwise you become a storage facility of knowledge with no substance and you will move very slow and fail. Like I said, “No one likes a teenager who knows it all and is still in diapers.”

Let the clothespin become your award.

So you’ve gotten dirty, transitioned to undies and now you graduate and your diploma is your very own clothespin! That’s right – it’s your turn to take someone under your wing and develop them with this mindset: That they may succeed greater than yourself. A true mentor will have the Patriarchal desire to see the ones they raise up actually to go beyond them.

So go ahead and comment, share your nuggets of wisdom or failures that we may all learn from you.

Get in – jump in – and take the plunge! Let the mentor rise in you!