Welcome back! It's good to see you again. Please note that I am now publishing all new material at my hub site: In Context Blog

Liz Strauss has an excellent post about an alternative to the one-on-one mentoring concept:
6 Ways to Build Your Own Personal Developmental Network

Many folks find a mentor by accident. Some never had one. Some turn to the closest person they meet at a new job or choose to go it alone it. Others work with a coach or a trainer. A few make a commitment to a mastermind team. They’re similar, but not the same as a Personal Developmental Network.

In their Wall Street Journal report Kathy E. Kram and Monica C. Higgins defined a personal developmental networks this way.

A better approach is to create and cultivate a developmental network — a small group of people to whom you can turn for regular mentoring support and who have a genuine interest in your learning and development. Think of it as your personal board of directors.

Kram and Higgins’ approach to building a developmental network is career and business focused — pointing out how network composition might change based on where we are professional path: entry level, midcareer, or senior manager. Their suggestions focus on career goals.

Their key steps match my own, but their execution is more narrow.

I need a more holistic approach. I don’t want a professional life that’s divorced from my life as a human. When I face down my hugest goals and quests, I want my whole life — head and heart — focused on the same purpose. So I suggest that we start with their key steps to building a Personal Developmental Network and expand them to include more than what happens under the heading “business / professional.”

For me, the purpose of a Personal Developmental Network is to offer guidance in becoming the best I can be inside and outside the world of business. My approach to building my network is life focused — I want a network that helps me grow as a human meant to achieve something and I believe that a network that grows with me offers depth and insight that are priceless.

Here are the five solid, complete, and intuitive main ideas Kram and Higgins put forward and suggestions after each for building your own Personal Developmental Network.

Liz recommends these 6 steps:

1. Know Thyself — Start with a foundation of concrete not sand.
2. Know Your Context — Pick your path.
3. Enlist Developers — Choose unique and valuable guides.
4. Regularly Reassess — Seek opportunities to learn what you’re learning.
5. Develop Others — Return the favor and pay it forward.
6. Communicate. Let your network know when you need help, when you have questions, or even when you need to vent in a safe venue. A developmental network that doesn’t know where we are can’t help us move ahead.

This is a fantastic resource, and rather than copy it wholesale, I recommend that you pop over to Liz’ blog and read the whole thing. And subscribe. Liz has been my semi-formal blogging mentor for a couple of years now, and her knowledge is well worth seeking out.

You all know that I am a HUGE fan of journals, journaling, and blank journal notebooks. Kevin Eikenberry wrote about a particular type of journal that he uses that is simply amazing. I am stunned that I hadn’t heard of this before!

Learn More, and Faster, with a Learning Journal

Asking yourself the right questions – and answering them – creates the lessons and insights; writing them down in your journal solidifies them and makes them yours forever.

Ask yourself questions like:

• What happened?
• Why?
• What is the lesson?
• How can I apply this to another situation?
• What could I do differently next time?
• How could this problem/challenge/issue be solved/removed?

Of course, there are as many questions as there are learning opportunities, but this very short list should at least get you started.

These questions are designed to help you reflect on your daily events and happenings to use as fodder for your own development and progress. Asking and answering them regularly will make a big difference in your results.

I believe that I have found a use for the new notebook that I picked up a while back! Read the entire post - One of the best ways to learn more, learn faster, and accelerate your progress towards any goal is by using a learning journal.

What are you going to write in your Learning Journal?

I just found a list of 100+ motivational techniques for students at Smart Teaching. I believe that many of these are of use to anyone, not just students:

Here are 100 or so suggestions of ways that you can make your classes more engaging and encourage your students to work harder at learning.

General

Here are some basic ideas to consider when motivating your students.

1. Encourage internal motivation. While some students may need a great deal of motivation from you, your ultimate goal is to get them to motivate themselves. Encourage students to provide their own motivation for getting things done rather than relying on you to motivate them.
2. Prepare students to learn. Before you begin teaching, make sure that students have been prepared and are in the appropriate mood to sit down and learn. Those who feel uncomfortable for any reason will feel much less motivated to pay attention.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Craig Harper has some insights into personal development in his new post “Seven Self-Help Pitfalls“. I recommend everyone read this:

While the benefits of working on ‘us’ are seemingly obvious, I believe there are a few challenges, pitfalls and curve balls that the would-be, self-helper needs to be mindful of in his or her search for their best self and best life.

1. Self-Help Selfishness. One of the potential dangers of constantly working on us is that we can inadvertently become self-absorbed, selfish, unaware of the needs of others and disconnected from reality. Some Personal Development devotees are so ’self-focused’ (their world, their issues, their problems, their relationships, their body, their finances) that they struggle to relate to, take an interest in, and connect with people who don’t have the same mindset, values, attitudes or thinking. Sometimes we need to put our own reality, situation, goals, needs and desires on hold for a while and simply and selflessly invest time, energy and love into others with no agenda.

I, too, am a believer in “paying it forward” over looking for what’s in it for me. This outlook has helped me grow myself and my business much more than eyeballing every angle ever did. Go read Craig’s post and leave a comment!