Tweet

Mentoring to remove the barriers to your success

Guest post by: Nicholas Fraser

Article Overview: Mentoring to remove the barriers to your success “As a result of the one hour I spent with Nicholas, I’ve achieved more in the last 3 weeks than I did in the previous 3 months! Thank goodness for his perception, honesty, clarity of thought and encouragement”. Looks a great testimonial but there is more to this than meets the eye and at one stage I was quite questioning of my approach.

Mentoring to remove the barriers to your success

Mentoring to remove the barriers to your success

“As a result of the one hour I spent with Nicholas, I’ve achieved more in the last 3 weeks than I did in the previous 3 months! Thank goodness for his perception, honesty, clarity of thought and encouragement”.

Looks a great testimonial but there is more to this than meets the eye and at one stage I was quite questioning of my approach. I met the lady who wrote this a month or so ago at a networking event. She had been in throes for the previous 6 months in getting a new business proposition off the ground. I was quite engaged by her enthusiasm and the concept of the business she was proposing. But I could sense a problem. I was not sure exactly what the problem was but in my usual giving frame I offered her a no obligation hour to review what she had done and where she was going. So we set a date for a couple of weeks later and she came to my home office/consulting room to review the state of play.

As soon as we started I could see that she was stuck. “Analysis paralysis” is a good phrase for the place she was in. She had been researching the market for 6 months and had had lots of supportive feedback but she had still to arrive at a definitive plan of action. We spent two hours on a review of the business, the market, the competition and her approach to it. At the end of the session I suddenly felt impelled to be open with her in respect to what I was genuinely feeling (its called Congruence in counselling terms). I blankly told her that she really needed to stop pussyfooting around and go out and do it (JFDI – Just F****** Do It). I suggested that I felt uncertain as to whether she could do it as I clearly sensed she was too frightened of failure and this was causing her “Analysis Paralysis”. She was quite shocked by this and she wrote an email back a bit later in the day admitting to not feeling as elated after the meeting as she had hoped.

Now this caused me some pain. My role is to benefit the client; not to put barriers in their way but to remove them. Thankfully I met with my Professional Supervisor the following week and he reaffirmed me in my congruent approach. Having said that I was still feeling somewhat guilty; that is until I met with her by co-incidence at another event later that week. She was transformed. Seemingly after emailing me and then reading my reply, her husband returned home and she reviewed with him what we had discussed. He suggested to her that perhaps I had a point and that she was too frightened of failure. That catalysed a change in her which led to her sending me the comment above. She went on to describe what attributes in me and our discussion led to this major change.

“ Nicholas helped me to change because he was

• Extremely perceptive – especially about deep-seating personal fears / phobias about actually getting anything off the ground, and clear about me needing to dispel these.

• Honest – by making me question my own commitment and faith in myself. If I don’t believe in me, no-one else will!

• Positive and focusing me on action – JFDI ... not just talking about it!

• Objective –and with the ability to recognise things that were staring me in the face but which I hadn’t noticed!

• Able to provide clarity of process in terms of some specifics to think about at start-up stage.

• Knowledgeable and interesting - with the credentials to be taken seriously!

• Genuine and keen to help / provide me with the support I was looking for – always comforting.

• Open friendly style and easy to be honest / discuss concerns with”

What she describes here are the general characteristics of the good Mentor which I aim to be. I use carefully directed and managed processes and without the assistance of my Professional Supervisor and the CPD activity I carry out I do not believe I could have delivered the change necessary for her; the taking down of the barriers that she was facing.

Related Articles
  How to Make it Easy for Prospective Clients to Say Yes
  Lowering the Joint Venture Barrier
  Who SHOULD be mentored?
  Mentoring - It’s All Greek to Me!
  Mentoring in the Workplace

Article Tags: compatibility, div, endif, family auto, fareast, font definitions, footer, gte, mso, object classid, orphan, paper source, pitch, signature, style definitions, times new roman, xml, zoom



Related Forum Posts
Re: Search Engine Optimization - As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.
Re: Hello fellow wealth builders - I do not see a post for Jason. Did he remove it, or did someone else remove it? Just wondering.
Re: Essential Leadership skills - Vision Values Mission Strategic Thinking Decision Making Communication Team Bonding People Development Coaching / Mentoring / Guiding / Grooming Presentation Thanks Robert
Re: Internet Marketing is the best business in the world - Hi ideasuniversity, But with such low barriers of entry and high competition, do you think internet marketing truly is the best small business route?
Re: Can someone explain Search engine optimization to me? - Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. The acronym "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure. Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Igniting Your Unstoppable Business Destiny

Time management for DIY PR

Smart & Simple Internet Techniques

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.