New Thinking.

Many people continue to not achieve success. The problem is, they don’t know what is their problem. 

Most people are limited to their own experience and knowledge.

Are you SO VERY SURE of your real problem that’s obstructing you for success?

Chances are, unfortunately, you don’t.  You need a different point of reference in order to solve your “problem” to success. That’s it. That’s why you read books. Talk to people. And be humble of other people’s feedback.

Albert Einstein said it well… “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

If you need help and a new point of reference check out Mentorplus.me. It just might be the "New Thinking" you need to solve your problem. 

10 excuses why we fear giving and getting advice

I have been doing a lot of soul searching over the past year in regards to my personal and professional life. One thing that always draws me to making decisions is the importance of asking for help, advice, guidance and assistance from someone, a mentor, who has gone through similar experiences. It's has not always been easy for me to do this and at times I become very fearful of it. But as human beings we must help each other, it's in our nature to share our life experiences in order to get better at what we do.

Asking for advice begins when we start to understand the teaching on the subject. We are blessed with these tremendous online tools and resources that allow us to get information and advice at our finger tips. We are all dependent on each other for help and when we overcome that fear of asking, it opens doors to get us where we want to go.

Many people fail to seek out experts for advice because of various misunderstandings and excuses:

1. They think the concept of mentoring doesn't apply to them.

2. They don’t believe it works today.

3. They’re too embarrassed to admit that they need help.

4. They’re too proud to ask for help.

5. They’re afraid to help others because their advice might not be accepted.

6. They’re too embarrassed to confess their mistakes or failures to someone else.

7. They’re so consumed with their own needs and don’t have time to sympathize or provide help for others.

8. They have problems in their own lives and doubt that can help anyone else.

9. They don’t feel worthy to be used.

10. It’s easier to send a card or email than to engage in serious help for others.

Are you allowing to be used as an agent of help? Many people are going through difficulties and need someone to listen and give them great advice. You don’t have to be a leader or senior to be used. If you’ll allow yourself to make an effort and find someone who needs your expertise, your effective advice will accomplish much.

If your looking for great self-help, career, business,or startup advice, Mentorplus.me is a community that offers online mentoring with a social purpose by helping you do what you do... only better. Join us to EXPLORE, DREAM and DISCOVER.

What's holding you up?

Do Something Remarkable Today...

Today was a great week for Mentor+me as I am so encouraged and thankful for all the positive comments coming in on what we are trying to build and create here.  We live in a world where so many people need to be given hope and help. Especially in regards to career, self-improvement and making good business decisions. But there are lots of theories out there on how to approach. The simple fact is we just need to get going, stop talking about it, stop theorizing about it, stop stalling - "Just Do It". On that note, I'm thrilled to welcome a new Mentor+ member - Gary C. Bizzo. Gary is strategic certified business counselor, mentored over 900 business startups and business writer. He has published a bunch of articles with Evan Carmichael in Toronto on his blog and writes for the Toronto Star as a feature writer on occasion. Gary has also accepted a role on our Board of Advisors for Mentor+me. I look forward to Gary's personal mentorship as we continue to rapid growth here. Gary has already posted some great blog articles on Mentor+me : Your Dream Team - Finding the Right Employees and Critical Issues for Business Coaching. Excellent information so check them out when you get a chance. I also like to thank Jamie McClelland, Derek Smith and Chris Willard for their ongoing support as advisors as well. Please connect with anyone of them as they are all here to help. Again, thanks so much for being a part of our launch and signing up. If you haven't, well get to it and visit Mentor+me too register and setup your profile. What are you waiting for?

Online Social Mentoring - connecting for a purpose

5 reasons to give and get great advice.

Today people and business startups are hustling to make connections and network on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but what we are discovering is even though it’s nice to have a great list of friends and colleagues to develop outposts, there is a better way to get the answers you need than these larger social networks are able to provide. 

Special-interest communities like Mentor+me attract members who know that being successful is more about quality than quantity. Users looking for solutions and resources seek out advice from others with answers which is often a great starting point in developing a longer term mentor relationship. This is the easiest and most efficient way to establish an informal relationship with someone who wants to really help. 

Here are 5 reasons to give and get great advice:

1. Connecting for a purpose 

Special interest-based social sites like Mentor+me give you all the networking tools that we know and love like publishing your profile. Your profile can be found in searches by typing in a word such as “startup advice”, “need help with a career change”, “should I get an MBA?”, “what do I need to do to become a manager?” Instead of connecting with people randomly, you connect with people on specific issues in a community whose sole purpose is to help its members. This is social networking for a specific social purpose. 

2. People are experts in their own life experiences 

People tend to want to speak to individuals they understand or who speak their own lingo. If people have had experiences like: having a great career in marketing; a career change; a personal crisis such as a health issue; or had success with a a startup business, then this gives people an opportunity to connect with the things that are important to them. 

3. Raise your personal stock 

Members are rewarded for engaging in the community, whether you are a Mentee earning a way to “Mentor” status based on your contributions to the community, or you are a Mentor who engages in online relationships and is recognized as a thought leader in your area of expertise. 

There are all kinds of benefits to this, some of which include: professional advancement, speaking opportunities, self-promotion or just plain bragging rights. Sometimes you might not get the respect you deserve in the workplace or your personal life, but among your Mentor+me peers you will be given the respect you appreciate. 

4. Personal and Professional Referrals 

Tapping into an online community like Mentor+me  is the most efficient and effective way to find peers who are similar, enabling a wealth of useful information to be shared. 

This type of support group can keep peers up-to-date on a news article or latest technique for accomplishing a task. Peer recommendations carry a lot more weight then a Google search result. 

5. Advice you can trust 

Face it, when making a decision we often seek out advice from people who have gone down the same path. Mentor+me focuses on the people you want to reach and engage. 

Mentor+me is online mentoring with a social purpose by helping you do what you do... only better!

Mentor+me Launches

Today marks the beginning of what we believe to be an evolution in your career, personal and business acceleration. Mentor+me is a new web & mobile application that leverages social networks to connect industry leader mentors with people who want personalized and actionable advice.

Although we've officially launched, the mission has only just begun. As with any beta, the feature set will evolve as the community grows. We are in the middle of recruiting a great selection of mentors who want to help. As we are just beginning to open the site to members, we will quickly grow the amount of participation. We need YOU to sign-up and help promote the site to all your colleagues and friends. Please register at mentorplus.me.

Here are only a few of the cool features the site offers:

• A featured set of mentors available for each special interest group.
• Search and request advice from an expert. 
• Exclusive collaboration tools such as email, chat messaging, video chat and scheduled live events with special speakers.
• The latest in Career, Personal Achievement, Business and Startup news.
• Free access to The #Mentor+ Daily -- Top curated mentoring, career, business and startup content from around the world.
• M+ Library of recommended reading materials brought to you by Amazon.com.
• Doing your own research? Create your own poll to get membership feedback.
• Earn reward points for every time you engage in activity on the site. You will be able to see "My Stats" in your own profile. These points will be used to change your ranking and achievement on the site. Ex. Mentee to Mentor.

For now, take time to explore the network, share your thoughts on the IDEAS page, evaluate and join the groups and forums available. Your feedback is very important, so we will do our best to make improvements on a regular basis.

Please join us in our mission to impact one billion people, worldwide, in a positive way, over the next 10 years (2022). So let the journey begin... Don't go it alone -- EXPLORE, DREAM and DISCOVER. Again, go to mentorplus.me and accept your personal invitation.

See you soon.

"There is no passion to be found playing small." --- Mandela

3 KEYS TO NOT LIVING YOUR LIFE WITH REGRET

During my personal and professional life journey, I have experienced the news of  my two son’s chronic diseases, the tragedy of a failed marriage, the loss of a job and home and the death of a parent to cancer. Along the way, I had the experience to be influenced by some great Giants(mentors) in my life. These people shaped and to continue to re-shape me to the person I am today. The common theme that has come out of their advice is do things that help discover your passion. Although I find myself at times doing things the hard way I follow their advice and ...

SO I EXPLORE...

I have done a lot of crazy things in my life but the past year for me I have journeyed into one of the riskiest decisions of my adulthood... I decided to become an entrepreneur. Over the past few years, as I came to a turning point in a number of personal and career situations I realized that my passion has always been to serve people. I love to see individuals excel and be successful especially when they come out of their own trials and tribulations. I believe adversity makes us stronger.

If you really think about it our lives are like running our own enterprise. We balance what we do between two major departments - Personal and career. The success in one department determines the success of the other. If you want to take it to another level... how profitable the personal determines how profitable our career department or vice versa.

AND DREAM...

I discovered in others and my life journey that people sometime live their life with so much regret. They are not happy with their career and thus personal life suffers. People are just looking for so much hope today. Maybe why so much success of all the reality TV shows?

I want to be a part of the solution now and know there are others that want to do the same. I believe that as the baby-boomer generation gets older that there is and will be a ton of help from people willing to share their professional and personal life experience. I want to bring these individuals of diverse generational groups together in way that makes it easy and simple to get personal and actionable advice. Hence, the reason for Mentor+me. This will be unlike any other social or professional network as it will provide the  successful advice you need in your career and personal life.

The career, job training and self-improvement market is a Multi-billion dollar industry world-wide and close to 200 Million people would be willing to enter into a mentoring relationship. Imagine if these people were able take 5 people and mentor them. That would be 1 billion people that would be impacted.

Mentor+me is a social networking site that connects industry leader mentors with people who want personalized and actionable advice.

THEN DISCOVER.

Mentor+me  is a dedicated community that will ensure that you Don’t go it alone. For mentees, if you are looking to improve your job performance and career growth, expand you personal network or just see what others are doing to become successful then we are here for you.

As a mentor, this will enable you to be recognized thought leader. If you are a person that has something to say or add-value and have the ability reply to calls for help then this platform is for you.  Mentor+me will help you grow your personal network from a diverse community group.

So now Facebook has connected you with your family and friends… LinkedIn has connected your with your collegues…  Mentor+me  now helps people become a mentor(s) and/or a mentee(s) and helps both to achieve their highest potentials.

Please join me as we begin to help you make your life the best ever and help us impact a billion people by 2022. Let's do this!
Sign up today at thementorplusproject.com.

The Future is Ours

Lately, I have been inspired by so many great videos. Let this one encourage, inspire and give you hope. Move towards making this your best life now! 

Created to inspire by Michael Marantz: michaelmarantz.com - twitter.com/michaelmarantz

The future excites me so much, that is why I made this video. We need to be inspired by the immense possibilities of the future and work extremely hard to achieve them. We can do it, we just have to commit.

Help inspire others by sharing this video and tagging any interesting content on twitter with #TheFutureIsOurs

Produced by Already Alive alreadyalive.com

The Future is Ours from Michael Marantz on Vimeo.