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7 Sound Reasons to Have a Mentor in Your Life

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Below is a guest post by Arina from Arina Nikitina.com. After Arina contacted me, I visited her site to have a look around. I always go to an About Page when I’m checking a new website or blog out for the first time – it feels like a handshake. When I saw the quote she had at the top of her about page, I knew we were going to get along brilliantly – not only is it one of my favorite, it’s pretty much my mantra: “If it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right.” (Bob Basso)

After reading her wonderful article, I hope you’ll visit her bright and beautiful blog. You can always tell her the coffee drinking animal lover sent you. She’ll know exactly who you mean. ~ Joi

7 Sound Reasons to Have a Mentor in Your Life

“Many receive advice, few profit by it.” – Publilius Syrus

For the longest time, just like many other people, I underestimated the importance of having a mentor. After all why look for a specific person, when you can always turn to your parents, friends, colleagues, multiple social networks and even public forums when you need advice and moral support. If like me, you, are wondering why anyone would need a mentor, here are some serious reasons for having one:

1.  Valuable experience.

As much as it boosts our ego to think that we are smart and we can “handle everything” and “figure it all out”, sooner or later we might face a problem bigger than we can handle. You would never think of using a trial and error method to neutralize a bomb. Neither would you try to fly a plane for the first time without an instructor. It might not sound very optimistic, but life is infinitely more complicated than plane flying or neutralizing a bomb. There are some situations when too much is at stake and guesswork is simply not an option. In this case a mentor could be the only person, who is knowledgeable and experienced enough to help you make the right decision and prepare you for the serious exam called everyday life.

2. Self-improvement.

It is not always easy to live according to our conscience. The line that separates “right” from “wrong” and “good” from “bad” is often blurred and it can be tempting to make a convenient choice instead of the right one (especially if our heart is telling us one thing and our mind another). A mentor is a person who with one simple question is able to clear your doubts and gently, but firmly push you in the right direction.

3. Encouragement.

We all have those days when everything seems to go wrong. We feel demotivated, tired, frustrated and alone. Good-intended remarks like “Cheer up!” or “It is going to be ok” accompanied with an affectionate pat on the shoulder may have the opposite effect, especially if there are coming from a person who has never been in our situation and has no idea what we are going through. A mentor, on the other hand, might not tell you that everything is going to be just wonderful, but somehow they still manage to reassure you and give you the necessary encouragement to keep on going forward.

4. Honesty.

Wise men of ancient times believed that a people can be qualified to give a good advice if they meet three conditions:
a. They should not be emotionally attached to you, because otherwise they will not be unbiased. Their emotions will interfere with their judgment.
b. They should not ask to be paid for their advice or depend on your income, otherwise they will be conditioned to tell you what you like to hear.
c. And finally, they should practice what they preach.
There are plenty of friends, coworkers, and neighbors who will readily give you advice, but only a few can overcome the impulse to tell you what they believe you WANT to hear and have enough wisdom and inner strength to tell you what you NEED to hear. A mentor is a rare person who can do this.

5. Better chances of success.

Basically there are two ways to gain wisdom in life – learn from your own mistakes or learn from the mistakes of other people. The first way is more painful and more time consuming. The second one requires a mentor who will share their experience with you and help you to avoid mistakes that you would otherwise make. There is no doubt that any failure holds a valuable lesson that in the future will help you to improve your performance. However, why fail more than it is necessary? If you want to achieve success faster and with less effort, finding a mentor might be your best option.

6. Greater motivation.

Most of us have a pretty clear idea about what we should do to improve our health and quality of life: exercise regularly, eat less fried and greasy foods, be more patient with our children, go to bed at a reasonable hour, yada yada yada… But for some unknown reason we do not do any of these things. Why? Because there is a huge difference between knowing something and really understanding it. We might know something for years, but one day out of nowhere it just makes sense. If you have ever had those “Aaaah…Now I get it!” moments, then you know exactly what I am talking about. A good mentor has the rare ability to explain to you what you need to do and why, in a way that makes sense. That is why an encounter with a mentor often becomes a turning point in many people’s life.

7. Less room for excuses.

Our ability to quickly come up with excuses and half-truths is basically a built-in self-defense mechanism that serves to protect our sense of self and ultimately our ego. Think about it… Excuses allow us to procrastinate, give up on our dreams, blame our failures on someone or something else, or avoid helping another person when we do not feel like it (and we can do it all without having to deal with such unpleasant feelings as guilt, fear and embarrassment). The only real problem with this excuse mechanism is that it holds us back and makes it impossible to succeed at anything. A real mentor will easily be able to see through your carefully fabricated stories and will not let you get away with them. Why? Because his main purpose is not to please your ego, but to bring out the best in you.

“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” – Oprah Winfrey

The article above was written for Self Help Daily by Arina.  Please visit her Self Improvement blog.

Great stuff, Arina – thank you!

Thursday Throwback to 1923: How to Get What You Want in Life (Part 2)

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Continued from How to Get What You Want in Life Part 1

HOW TO MAKE YOUR DESIRES MATERIALIZE by Elsie Lincoln Benedict, 1923

A friend in Denver once told me she “wanted a new spring suit more than anything.”  We were walking down Sixteenth Street a few days later and there in a front window she saw the VERY suit she was looking for – for $35.  In the olden days$35 actually bought a suit good enough for anybody, you remember?

“How lovely,” I exclaimed, “and to think you have the $35 right in your purse.  Let’s go right in and get it before somebody else does!”

Would she?  No.  She had said she wanted that suit more than anything else in the world.  But she didn’t even want it as much as she wanted the $35.

She WISHED she had a new suit like this one, but what she really WANTED was the money.

“But what about the person who hasn’t the $35?” I hear you ask.  And the answer is you will find is the utter truth.  It is this:  You can GET it, honestly, legitimately, quickly, and surely, provided YOU WANT IT.

…Decide to restrict yourself because you “can’t get the money for things you want” and the money you do get will come that much harder.

But make up your mind to MAKE ALL THE MONEY YOU NEED for the things you want – and from the hour of reaching that decision you will make five dollars easier than you now make one.

The richer you become the easier it is to make money.  The less you have the more difficult it is to get more.

…. All successful men and women who are frank will admit that many good things followed in the wake of that first big effort, and followed almost without further effort.

“Nothing succeeds like success” is an old and true saying.  Another not so old but equally true is that nothing fails like failure.

The world always helps you along whichever way you are going.  If you are headed uphill it will help pull you up.  If you are headed downhill it will give you a push.  We should not complain of this, but awaken to the fact that it IS a law, and instead of fighting it put it to work for us.

If you want to go uphill you must manifest this to the people around you.  They are all driving along Lif’e’s Highway too, and they see you, think of you, and get an impression of you.

If you want to go down all you have to do is to let it be known and you will have plenty of kicks and company.

The world gets one of its deepest impressions of you FROM THE DIRECTION IN WHICH YOUR CAR IS MOVING.  Everything about you tells what that is.  Even children and those who catch a glimpse of you for only a moment sense this and act toward you accordingly.

You never deceive them very much of very long in any way. Bluffing and pretending do not deceive anyone.  These only make you resemble a man who tells you he is traveling north when at every corner possible he turns south.

All of life is a journey along the great Highway.  We are always coming to crossroads.  We always make our own choice.  We turn or go straight ahead – as WE CHOOSE.

We come to scores of these corners every day and the world notes the turns we make.  It will give you plenty of time to get to your destination in the North, and many a lift besides, provided at the crossroads you keep heading in that direction.

Another strange thing about it is that the higher up you get the MORE help the world gives you, and the lower down the harder it gets.

You can see it for yourself.  If you haven’t a cent and ask the world for a quarter to keep you from starving, it will not give it to you very quickly or very graciously.  It says it “cant’ encourage that kind of thing.” It is afraid you “might not deserve it.”

But if you are a millionaire, with more money than you know what to do with, people will gladly loan you millions…

To the big dinners the hungry are not invited.  The guests are those already overfed.

“This is all true,” you say, “but how is one to get started in the right direction?  Especially when, as you say, the whole world is busy helping us downgrade already?”

The answer is: Change the CAUSE and you also change the EFFECT.

Your present condition…  is the natural and inevitable outgrowth of the attitudes and feelings HARBORED in your subconscious mind.

Most people secretly cherish the delusion that this is not a law-ruled universe, and that somehow they will be able to get something for nothing.

Look again at the word “harbored,” for it reveals the crux of your situation.

All kinds of things come into your consciousness.  You can’t help seeing and hearing and even sometimes thinking these destructive things.

But you CAN refuse to HARBOR them.

The things that get down into your subconscious mind come out in your life.

But remember, nothing can get into your subconscious mind save as you dwell upon it and encourage it.

“But how can I start forward NOW, from this very spot?,” you ask.

To begin to go uphill in life instead of down…. it is only necessary that you TURN AROUND.  Other things will come later, but for today this will be enough…

To get anything you want, gently open your mind to the idea that you CAN get it, somewhere, somehow.  Do not dwell upon the things which just now seem to stand in the way of your getting it.

It is a law that two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time.  So, turning your attention toward the good thought drives the bad one out.  Soon this becomes a habit, and then out of your subconscious will comes the ideas of HOW to get what you want.

Thursday Throwback to 1923: How to Get What You Want in Life

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Today’s Thursday Throwback is from a real powerhouse of motivation:  Elsie Lincoln Benedict.  This is an excerpt from a lesson-lecture that she delivered to students in various cities of the United States long, long, long ago.  Don’t let the multiple longs fool you, though.  The advice, the motivation, the inspiration, and the grit will leave an impression on you.  I plan to publish more of this amazing lady’s teachings on Self Help Daily because she moves me.  She simply moves me.

I will type in Elsie Lincoln’s Benedict’s words as they appear in the texts I have.When I skip around a little (because some illustrations simply aren’t built for time traveling), you’ll see a family of dots….. just call them The Dots and follow them to the next room.  Once or twice you’ll notice something in parenthesis – this is where I pitch in my two cents for clarification.  Having read the entire series of lectures, some things may be clearer to me – and I thought I’d wipe the window, so that you can see more clearly as well.

When the writing/teaching begins, Elise Lincoln Benedict is addressing the subject of “Making Your Desires Materialize.”

Enjoy! ~ Joi

HOW TO MAKE YOUR DESIRES MATERIALIZE by Elsie Lincoln Benedict, 1923

The distance we cover (in the pursuit of our desires) depends on the number of hurdles we are able to take and the speed with which we cover the distance between.

We may run along for quite a while on smooth ground, thinking “Everything’s going to be smooth from here on,” but pretty soon looming up ahead we descry an obstacle.  It may be a low one which we scarcely notice.  Or it may be a high one.  If we refuse to scale it, thinking it looks impossible, or if we are tired of running, we can stop right there and our progress ends….

But if we draw upon our courage we will always find that this hurdle, high and forbidding though it appears, is nothing compared to the first ones (previous obstacles, trials and tribulations). Because we have developed strength from jumping those before – a strength we are not aware of till we put it to the test, but which never fails us if we take a good jump and try for it….

There come times in every human life when the game doesn’t seem worth the candle. But it is.  When the price looks bigger than the prize.  But it never is.

The price is always less, when you come right down to paying it, than it looks to be – just as a piece of work looks impossible as long as you postpone it but is suddenly easy when you begin.

Life always lets you make your own decisions and she takes you at your word.  Your words always express themselves in your secret attitudes.

To try to fool others is bad enough, but to fool yourself is fatal.  You never can really fool your subconsciousness. It knows whether you really want a thing or not, and whether you are in earnest.

If you are not it lets you alone.  But if you are it will find a way. It will help you get what you really want MOST.

You may not believe it at first glance, but many poverty-stricken, sick, shiftless failures already have what they want most in life.

They won’t admit it to you, but in their inmost souls they know it is true.

They don’t really want riches, health, and success MOST.  They only WISH they wanted these things most.

What they really want most of all is doing what they please with their time, taking things easy, sleeping late, overeating, being free of responsibilities – and they are getting every one of them!

They delude themselves with the notion that they are getting them for nothing – that success, health and happiness would cost more.  But the fact is that they are paying the highest price for the worst articles when the very best could be had at a bargain.

If you have ever seen a man trying to get out of work, you know that he worked twice as hard at it as those who pitched in and did something….

Your great subconscious will get for you the things you want MOST in life.  It will do so more completely and more quickly than you can believe.  It will do so with unerring accuracy and unfaltering, unswerving perfection.

If you want happiness, success, fame, it will show you how to get them.  They must be paid for, but the price is not as high as you think, not even as great as that we pay for failure.

I often think of the world as a colossal department store.  In it are all the things we want, displayed on the counters within reach of all, and to be had the moment we pay for them.

If we really want the things we SAY we want, we will do what we always do to get the things we want in the store – walk up and pay for them and TAKE them.

You see something you say you want.  But if you are not willing to pay for it, Life knows you only wish for it.

– – – – – – – – – –

I’ll continue the lecture next Thursday.  Trust me, it only gets better!

Amazingly Relevant Self Improvement Article From 1956

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Old Country Store

The following wonderful article is from A New Treasury of Words to Live By, 1956.   The article is titled Make a Weakness Pay Off and was written by playwright and motion picture executive Dore Schary.

Make a Weakness Pay Off
by Dore Schary

“If you have a weakness, make it work for you.” – Dore Schary’s Mother

My mother was a hard-working and very wise woman.  Many years ago she observed to me, ‘If you have a weakness, make it work for you as a strength – and if you have a strength, don’t abuse it into a weakness.”

Through the years, and in the different jobs I have held, I have seen constant demonstrations of the truth of my mother’s observations.

A person who chooses to call himself frank and candid can very easily find himself becoming tactless and cruel.  A person who prides himself on being tactful can find eventually that he has become evasive and deceitful.

A person with firm convictions can become pigheaded.  A person who is inclined to be temperate and judicious can sometimes turn into a man with weak convictions and banked fires of resolution.

Good habits of health too rigidly followed can make you a hypochondriac.

Hard work, unless balanced by relaxation and mind and body, may eventually destroy you.

Loyalty can lead to fanaticism. Caution can become timidity.  Freedom can become license.  Confidence can become arrogance.  Humility can become servility.

All these are ways in which strength can become weakness.  But the reverse is true too.

Destructiveness based on a desire to know what makes something tick can often be channeled into constructiveness directed at making it tick better.

Gullibility can be turned into understanding and compassion.

Relentlessness can be turned into versatility.

Laziness can be turned into contemplation and study.

Extravagance can be turned into generosity.

I think of this often and, while I lead quite a regulated life, I very often deliberately break habits -change patterns – merely to avoid the danger of extremes and open up new avenues of inner growth.

Look at that first line again:  “If you have a weakness, make it work for you as a strength – and if you have a strength, don’t abuse it into a weakness.”  Study it, apply it, and I think you will find comfort, strength, and truth in it.

*****************************************

I’m sure you can see why I was so anxious for you to read these words.  Aren’t they brilliant?  “ I very often deliberately break habits -change patterns – merely to avoid the danger of extremes and open up new avenues of inner growth.”

Great stuff! ~ Joi

Napoleon Hill – Three Feet From Gold

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Keep on keeping on. Git ‘er done. Winners never quit and quitters never win. Don’t stop now! Keep plugging away…

We’ve all been there – times we would have choked on any combination of the words above. Face it, a lot of times, saying the words is easier than plugging the words.

But plug we must. After all, if we don’t, there’s no telling what fortunes we may miss out on. The story below is an excerpt from Napoleon Hill’s infamous and oft-printed classic, “Think and Grow Rich.” It’s a “golden” illustration of this very subject. (The last two sentences beg to be written down and memorized.) ~ Joi

Three Feet From Gold

by Napoleon Hill

One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. Every person is guilty of this mistake at one time or another.

An uncle of R. U. Darby was caught by the “gold fever” in the gold-rush days, and went west to DIG AND GROW RICH. He had never heard that more gold has been mined from the brains of men than has ever been taken from the earth. He staked a claim and went to work with pick and shovel. The going was hard, but his lust for gold was definite.

After weeks of labor, he was rewarded by the discovery of the shining ore. He needed machinery to bring the ore to the surface. Quietly, he covered up the mine, retraced his footsteps to his home in Williamsburg, Maryland, told his relatives and a few neighbors of the “strike.” They got together money for the needed machinery, had it shipped. The uncle and Darby went back to work the mine.

The first car of ore was mined, and shipped to a smelter. The returns proved they had one of the richest mines in Colorado! A few more cars of that ore would clear the debts. Then would come the big killing in profits.

Down went the drills! Up went the hopes of Darby and Uncle! Then something happened! The vein of gold ore disappeared! They had come to the end of the rainbow, and the pot of gold was no longer there! They drilled on, desperately trying to pick up the vein again— all to no avail.

Finally, they decided to QUIT.

They sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars, and took the train back home. Some “junk” men are dumb, but not this one! He called in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little calculating. The engineer advised that the project had failed, because the owners were not familiar with “fault lines.” His calculations showed that the vein would be found JUST THREE FEET FROM WHERE THE DARBYS HAD STOPPED DRILLING! That is exactly where it was found!

The “Junk” man took millions of dollars in ore from the mine, because he knew enough to seek expert counsel before giving up.

Most of the money which went into the machinery was procured through the efforts of R. U. Darby, who was then a very young man. The money came from his relatives and neighbors, because of their faith in him. He paid back every dollar of it, although he was years in doing so.

Long afterward, Mr. Darby recouped his loss many times over, when he made the discovery that DESIRE can be transmuted into gold. The discovery came after he went into the business of selling life insurance.

Remembering that he lost a huge fortune, because he STOPPED three feet from gold, Darby profited by the experience in his chosen work, by the simple method of saying to himself, “I stopped three feet from gold, but I will never stop because men say ‘no’ when I ask them to buy insurance.”

Darby is one of a small group of fewer than fifty men who sell more than a million dollars in life insurance annually. He owes his “stickability” to the lesson he learned from his “quitability” in the gold mining business.

Before success comes in any man’s life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and, perhaps, some failure. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to QUIT. That is exactly what the majority of men do. More than five hundred of the most successful men this country has ever known, told the author their greatest success came just one step beyond the point at which defeat had overtaken them. Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach.