Tag Archives: mentors

Your Friends May Change as Your Kids Grow Up

It is a lovely fantasy to imagine our children growing up with the same friends while we, as the parents, stay friends with those children’s parents. In reality, however, our children may go through different stages and phases and choose different peers and friends to share their journey and we parents change too. There may be some people with whom we trundle along the entire parenting path together, but for most of us, our friends will probably change as our children grow up and our overall lives change. Keep in mind that while your children are busy growing and developing, … Continue reading →

People Who Can Help You

This is not going to be an article about how to get people to do things for you or how to be opportunistic about using people. Instead, I want to talk about how important it is for single parents to be open to, and seek out those individuals who can add to our lives in different ways. Not just those people who can connect us to a great job or provide childcare, but having people in our lives who can be helpful can make all the difference! We all need a hand now and again. It took me a long … Continue reading →

We Share Our Belief System Through Praise and Discipline

Values and beliefs are not just taught through lectures and organized lessons. In fact, I would argue that is one of the least effective ways to teach our children what we value and believe in as parents. We pass along our belief systems through the things we praise and encourage and the boundaries we set and the type of discipline we choose to use (and what we discipline our children for.) Do you value winning? Participation? Getting along with other? Academics? Risk-taking? Physical strength? Chances are your child can tell you what is important to you based on the things … Continue reading →

They Might Need to Hear it From Someone Else (Too)

No matter how wise and forthcoming I think I am with my children, they are never as keen on my advice and wisdom as I imagine they should be—in fact, they are often downright resentful! Over the years, I have learned that often times it is not the advice that is sour—they just need to hear it from someone else. I do not know why this is the case, but I definitely have witnessed it as my children have scoffed at my advice or suggestions and then heeded the exact same advice when it came from someone else. I do … Continue reading →

Who in Your Life Can You Ask ANYTHING?

I think we all need to have at least one person in our lives of whom we can ask absolutely anything—we can show our silliest, least educated and most desperate sides to and they will be able to respond appropriately. As a parent, we may feel like we have to be that person for our kids (and I think it is a good thing if we are) but we still need to have someone like that in our lives too. We all need someone we can ask for parenting advice, dating advice, or just express some of our most unsavory … Continue reading →

Talk to More Senior Citizens

My life does not naturally have a lot of senior citizens in it and I know that I am fairly typical. So many of us live far away from extended family and we live lives that can be incredibly homogenous in terms of age demographics–our best friends are our age or have children the same age as we do, we work with people who are generally the same age, and we tend to do activities and socialize with people who are in a similar place in life. We might be missing out on the wisdom and perspective that come with … Continue reading →

Imitation–Friend or Foe?

Surely we don’t want to reinvent the wheel in our home businesses and mentors and advice are the mainstay of any beginning entrepreneur trying to make a go at a home business. But, can imitation help or hurt us? Is there a happy medium between borrowing from others who have gone before and coming up with our own original business path? I have written before about how much we can gain as new business owners and operators by finding people who we admire and businesses that are successful and learning from those who have gone before. If we try to … Continue reading →

Find Examples of What You Want to Do

There really is no sense trying to reinvent the wheel. Often we can get into a mindset in our home businesses that we are isolated and on our own and therefore we need to come up with all the answers and solve all the problems on our own. But, you might be surprised to discover that we can often find samples and examples of what we are trying to do and we don’t have to start from scratch all on our own. I am not advocating stealing other’s ideas or not respecting copyright law—but you can usually find examples of … Continue reading →

Interviewing Potential Mentors

I know that it can be awkward trying to find and get to know mentors and colleagues who we think COULD be mentors. When I sat down to write this, I thought about how a few years ago, someone I barely knew called me and asked to take me to coffee in order to ask me questions about my work. It was someone who was interested in making a career switch and doing the sort of work I was doing at the time and he wanted to find out more about what I did, how I felt about it and … Continue reading →

Who Would You Invite to a “Fantasy” Business Support Group?

Some of us are lucky to have business mentors in our lives who encourage and support us as we work to build our home businesses. Others of us might have colleagues, ex-co-workers, and others who we can turn to when we need ideas or information. But, there are also those individuals out there who are NOT a part of our little daily lives–but whose ideas and information we would love to have. I don’t know about you, but there are people both living and “passed on” who I would love to have as mentors. If I had my way and … Continue reading →