Joe Capista on Business Life and Success

Today is Monday, so this post is on self confidence.

As you know, I believe that self confident people have three things in common.

1. Self confident people are optimistic.
2. Self confident people face their fears and deal with them.
3. Self confident people surround themselves with confident people.

Mentors, by definition are positive people.  Last week, I blogged about what to look for in a mentor. 

Over the weekend, I read Dr. Joe Capista’s new book, What Can a Dentist Teach You About Business, Life & Success? I like this book, Dr. Capista and I think a lot alike.  Dr. Capista believes in the power of mentoring.

Dr. Capista had a mentor: Charlie Schaivo.  He calls Mr. Schaivo “the man who changed my life.”  At the end of Chapter 2, Dr. Capista summarizes his thoughts on how a mentor can change your life and career for the better.  I’ve listed these ten thoughts below.

1. Another person can change your life if they believe in you and you believe in you.
2. A mentor can often see in you what you cannot see in yourself.
3. Listen and act on advice from experts or from people who know more than you do.
4. A mentor’s legacy will be realized in countless ways: through the beliefs you adopt, the thoughts you have and the actions you take.
5. Success comes from the way you think, feel and act; coupled with intense emotion and a steadfast belief in “self.”
6. A good mentor can be instrumental in helping you to find ways to manifest your goals faster and more efficiently that if you go it alone.
7. To get results, you must take action.
8. A mentor creates accelerated learning.
9. The greatest gift you can give a mentor is the gift of mentoring another.
10. A mentor/mentee relationship can last a lifetime or be one that is only meant to least a short while.

I agree with all of these points.  I particularly like point 8; “A mentor creates accelerated learning.”  If you pay attention, mentors can help you take advantage of the things they learned the hard way, through experience, without having to have the same experiences yourself. 

Experience is a great teacher, but it is also a painful one.  Most of the lessons I have learned from experience came at a price.  If you work with a mentor, and pay attention to what he or she says, you can get much of the value of his or her experience without having to have those same experiences yourself.  This not only accelerates your learning, it reduces the emotional toll of learning.

The common sense point here is simple.  Find a mentor to guide you through your life and career.  Once you find a mentor, listen to what he or she says, and then take action on what you learn.  As you grow in your life and career give back by mentoring others.

Dr. Capista is running a special this week.   If you purchase What Can A Dentist Teach You About Business, Life & Success tomorrow (March 4), you will receive over $2500 in bonus gifts.  I am going to buy a couple of copies for people that I mentor.  You can take advantage of this offer by going to http://www.joecapista.com/amazon.htm.

That’s it for today.  Thanks for reading.  Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense.  I am not posting regularly on my www.CommonSenseGuy.com blog right now, as I want to concentrate on this one.  It is still up though.  Please don’t cancel your RSS feed as there is a lot of good content there, and I will be posting there occasionally.

I’ll see you around the web and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.

Bud

PS: Speaking of Alex’s Lemonade Stand, my fundraising page is still open.  Please go to www.FirstGiving.com/TheCommonSenseGuy to read Alex’s inspiring story and to donate if you can.