Reading and Writing--Another form of Mentorship

Good readers make good writers--when they practice.  Award winning writers can become mentors for people looking to improve their craft in writing. Krashen makes some good points about strategies for reading and writing.

I began working with books for youth when I began teaching K-12 students.  I started focusing on authors for middle school students when I began teaching in middle schools in 2006.  To date I have probably read between 400 and 600 books, many by Newberry award winners.  My goal was to begin to get the feel for how the books "sound" and their "readability."

My goal is to begin to write some youth fiction soon.  In the course of reading all of these books, I have found some favorite authors and others whose books I enjoy less.  Rarely I have discontinued reading with I found the topic or how the book read incompatible with my personal preferences.

Recently I was working with Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson books.  Rick Riordan was picked by Scholastic to be the first author in the Thirty-nine Clues series of books--Maze of Bones.  I listened to the six books in his series for adults involving Tres Navarre, private detective.  My goal was to explore the differences in the author's style when he changes from books for adults to books for youth.  There is a significant different in vocabulary, among other things.

I have some favorite authors and themes.  One of my Wikispaces websites focused on much of this youth reading. 

I need to begin practicing my writing skills in this genre.  Some of my favorite authors are Tamora Pierce (in the youth market) and Anne McCaffrey (her dragon series of books).  My mother and I both enjoy the "Cat Who" series by Lillian Jackson Braun.  I need to learn from each of these mentor-authors and to use their influence to create my own cast of characters and worlds.








Krashen, S.D.  (2003).  Free voluntary reading:  still a very good idea. In S.D. Krashen Explorations in Language Acquisition and Use  (pp. 15-29).  Portsmith, NH:  Heinemann.  Preview retrieved on March 21, 2009, from http://books.heinemann.com/shared/onlineresources/E00554/chapter2.pdf.

Books, Mentors, and Infopreneurship

In 2001 I became a protege of Robert G. Allen on the advice of a friend of many years, Jack Canfield (co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series). In March of 2001, along with many fellow proteges, I attended the Book Expo in Chicago where I met Lynn Pierce, a fellow protege who had just completed her first book and was promoting it at the expo.

I had started a book and did not have it ready for the expo.  In the morning of  September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.  That afternoon I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  I had the cancer removed and devoted the next six years to teaching K-12 students.  My book remained unfinished and my development as an infopreneur didn't move very far.  I completed an additional masters degree and published several research articles concerning education.

I had maintained contact with Lynn Pierce over the years and have been aware of her progress in her infopreneurship business.  I started listening to Lynn's SuccessBlueprintRadio programs and signed-up for her SuccessBuildingSecrets program.

Nine years after the Book Expo in Chicago I am ready to edit my first book for publication.  This blog will be the content and I will begin organizing the posts into chapters based on the tags I have embedded in each post.  I hope to complete the editing soon and will probably publish using my connection with Lightening Source Press.

Multiple Streams of Income--Sources of Independence and Interdependence

In earlier posts I wrote about Robert Allen and Multiple Streams of Income.  Today I participated in Lynn Pierce's Success Blueprint Radio.  Lynn "interviewed herself" today.  Lynn spoke about multiple streams of income in a way I totally identified with.

Lynn spoke about the need to create income "while we are sleeping" "24/7" (24-hours per day, 7 days per week).  A great way to do this, for me, is to create information products and to offer them for sale over the Internet.  She also spoke of the need to create a stream of residual income--best coming from a successful Network Marketing business.  I've been involved in network marketing for many years and am now more selective about the businesses I involve myself with.  I am currently a representative for one network marketing business and look forward to building a steady stream of residual income.

Lynn also mentioned being involved in affiliate marketing programs.  I just renewed my affiliate status with Amazon Associates and can see the need to get involved in more programs whose products I already use and endorse.

Lynn had some very useful suggestions and I look forward to working with her to develop my own products in the near future.  I did sign-up for her Success Building Secrets program and look forward to learning more about her process.

Building productive streams of income by working with ideas I am passionate about makes perfect sense to me.  Once that is established I will have a good source of "independent" income though it will be based on interdependence--the sharing of information with people who find value in it and share the value in the form of referrals, repeated purchasing, memberships, and income.

It seems to me that I have many of the pieces in place and, by working with Lynn, I can bring the pieces together into an integrated whole.  That sounds like fun!!

Wisdom Models--Finding Them and Using Them

A "wisdom model" can be thought of as someone or some organization who can act as a mentor for one or more people.  "Model" in this sense refers to examples of human behavior to be copied.  "Wisdom" refers to the recognized ability to organize learning, experience, insight, and other relevant inputs in order to make appropriate and effective decisions regarding behavior and values.  In short, a "wisdom model" is someone we choose to guide us in our learning and behavior for as long as we make that choice.

For infants, their wisdom models come from their environment--their immediate family or others who they interact with throughout their early life.  Much of the influence of these models is unconscious.  Unfortunately, infants may not be able to distinguish between positive and negative models in this stage of development.  The history of many abusers shows that they, themselves, were abused at an early age.

Children often choose teachers as wisdom models when they reach school.  As they become more independent, they may come to recognize some teachers as either positive or negative models.  Teenagers, as part of their growing development to make their own choices, may shift their focus of wisdom models to people expressing behaviors not endorsed by the mainstream--for example, "gangbangers" and "gangbanger-wannabe's" in grades six through twelve.

When we leave school we may move through a variety of wisdom models.  On a personal note, I have held some wisdom models in high esteem, then found that I did not want to do what they were successful at and I needed to change wisdom models to another that was more appropriate for me.

At certain stages in our lives, we can serve as wisdom models for our children and our friends and colleagues.  There may be an element that one person has that is worthwhile to copy.  Hopefully we become more descriminating as we move through our own stages of development.

Priorities in life will also impact who we choose as a wisdom model.  Adults at an early stage in their working life (which may involve multiple careers) may embrace work behaviors that include overbalancing their lives in favor of work.  At a later stage, they may want to move to a more evenly balanced lifestyle or even place more priority on family rather than earning and work.

Authors of many self-help books also serve as wisdom models--at least for their specific expertise if it is something we want to copy or to use.  More and more self-help books are being published daily--via the Internet as well as in paper and audio form.  We have a wide choice of wisdom models and may work with an abundance of them at any one time.

As we develop our own wisdom and expertise in working with wisdom models, we need to pay careful attention to the process we use to find them and then what we do with the examples and wisdom they provide.  How we use our wisdom models is important to our daily life experience.  Sometimes we may have them, then ignore their wisdom and exampleship.

Some key questions to ask ourselves:
Are we doing what we want to be doing in our lifes?  Who is (are) our wisdom model for our life right now?  How are we using the wisdom the model provides to our best advantage?

The Business of Getting Noticed by the Right People

In the 2009 economy in the USA, much time on the internet is invested in trying to get noticed by "the right people."  Who are the "right people?"  That depends on the goal.  If I want a job, I want to be noticed by people who are hiring.  If I am looking for contract work, I want to be noticed by the people who are looking for someone to fill the contract.  If I want to find consulting work, I want to be noticed by organizations who would like to use me as a consultant.  Sologig.com and Fulcrum Network both focus on identifying opportunities for contract or consulting work.

How do we go about getting noticed in this age of social networking?  We post resumes to job boards, fill-out profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other locations.  We create web sites, blogs, create podcasts, put out promotional pieces on YouTube--and hope for the best

Many people are in the business of helping people get noticed.  In fact, there are almost more people trying to help others improve their resumes than there are people hiring for jobs. 

We do need to get noticed by the right people--for the right reasons--and for the right "investment" of our time and energy.

When do we look for a mentor or guide? Why invest in mentorship?

Shortly after graduating from college I had the opportunity to travel for a few weeks in Europe--I was a graduate counsellor at Florida State University's Study Center in Florence, Italy, and had a couple of weeks off in the summer.  I went to Switzerland, and did some labor in return for room and board at an inn in Zermatt, on the side of the Matterhorn.  In my spare time, I hiked up the Matterhorn as far as someone could go without a guide and climbing gear.  Should I have wanted to go to the top, I would have needed a guide--someone who had been there many times and knew what I needed to do--and wear--to achieve the goal.  At the time I didn't have that kind of money, so I got as far as the climbers hut that is the starting-off place for a real ascent of the mountain.

In the U.S. Army, on my way to Vietnam, I became a paratrooper.  In three weeks at Fort Benning, GA (at the age of 22), I went through lots of hands-on-practice guided by experienced instructors.  As an officer, when we made our first five jumps at the culmination of the training, I was the first to leave the plane.  A colonel had spoken to us before our first jump, reminding us that, after we opened our parachutes, if we saw anything other than a circle of white above us, use our reserve parachutes.  When I jumped, a panel melted in my parachute and I had a circle of white above me with a big patch of blue (a blown gore).  I used my reserve parachute and remembered what my mother taught me about putting sheets on a bed--that's what I had to do to get the air under the reserve parachute.  I landed just a little faster than normal with both parachutes fully open.  (I later learned that experts use parachutes designed to be the way mine was.)  At the time I was very thankful to have had a mentor whose advice I followed less than 30 minutes after receiving it.  (I only had 10 jumps in my career and loved them.  After I left the Army I found it hard to justify the risk, though it is fun!!)

When I have sought to engage in other work that I perceived as challenging, I have sought mentors.  I invested $4,000 as a discount price to be a protege of a mentor who I believed had some real insights that would help me in book publishing and in building net worth. 
School districts frequently have mentoring programs for new teachers--someone who is an experienced teacher who can guide new teachers through the challenges of the first few years of teaching.

Three years ago I registered on the Federal government database to be a contractor and recipient of grants.  As a full-time teacher, I didn't have the time to follow-through with any.  This summer I renewed my registration and also registered with the ORCA (word for Shark) database--another government-required registration site.  President Barack Obama, in his Recovery Act program, has improved  two federal websites to help people and small businesses find government contracts and grants.  These websites are FBO.gov and Grants.gov.  By following the instructions and registering on the federal CCR database--first obtaining a DUNS number individuals and organizations can be ready to do business with the Federal Government.  ORCA registration is another step to take after the CCR registration is complete.  The Business Partners Network is designed to be a "single source for vender data for the Federal Government.

To be successful with Federal Grants, all the "i's" need to be "dotted" and the "t's" need to be "crossed."  I applied for a Federal Education Grant this summer and had only a few hours to complete the Letter of Intent (LOI).  The Grant Administrator called to my attention that the project I proposed (or the way I had proposed it) didn't match the Grant Application Requirements.

For contracts, the Federal Government relies on the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) as its guide.  If a bid for a contract does not meet all the requirements for that contract as listed in the FAR, it will not be considered.

Needless to say, working with the Federal Government either looking for grants or bidding for contracts seems to be as complex as climbing a mountain.  Of course a mentor would be helpful.  The challenge is to find a mentor who will add value and who will not require an "up front" payment.  By this I mean that someone working with me to secure a grant is entitled to some of the moneys secured by his or her efforts to secure the grant.  It would be built into the grant proposal.  The same concept applies to a mentor for federal contracts.  It's much better if the mentor can share the risks and rewards with the mentee.