Anonymous Mentoring

Formal learning, or institutional learning, which is the idea of learning formally from a designated, certified teacher in some kind of a structured format (e.g., schools, conferences, workshops, speakers, webinars, etc.) is a relatively new concept of learning. It’s only about 150-200 years old. Prior to that and since the advent of time, the oldest and quite possibly the most effective way of learning we human beings have used, has been mentoring. Hundreds of years ago, for example, if one wanted to be a carpenter, one would find someone in their town/village or someplace nearby and learn from them. In most cases, these apprenticeship models had no time frame … it was not limited to a semester or year or four years.

Hierarchy of Misery

Last week, I had the pleasure of listening to a good friend, Debra Moore, speak on Diversity & Inclusion and we followed that up with lunch. She spoke about a concept she called the “Hierarchy of Misery,” where one minority or victimized group feels like their misery is worse than that of some other groups’. Blacks feels more persecuted in their past than say, women do, or vice versa. Jews feel more prejudice than, say, Mormons.

Prejudice and EQ

I had lunch last week with a senior executive about having me sit on a non-profit board that deals with prejudice and injustice worldwide. During the course of the conversation, we begun to share our personal stories … getting to why these topics are important to us, and the root cause of the passion behind this noble effort.

Mental Coaching vs. Emotional Coaching

I have the great privilege of working with many individual athletes and sports teams. Last week, I spent time with one such team and their coaching staff. The head coach is a remarkable former athlete whose success was, in large part, because of his work ethic, grit, and tenacity. He is, without doubt, an overachiever. He is as passionate about coaching the sport as he was playing it.  However, he has had some issues transferring his vast knowledge and experience to his players. He becomes frustrated when his players don’t perform, and seemingly, don’t try to perform as hard as he did.