EXCERPT
Mentor Me: GA=T+E -
A Formula to Fulfill Your Greatest Achievement
A Formula to Fulfill Your Greatest Achievement
by Ken Poirot
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Description
Happiness. Success. Motivation. Influence. Inspiration.
Groundbreaking Practical Self-Help, Mentoring, Coaching, Personal Success, Business Guide.
We all want to have success and happiness in every area of our lives, as well as be a positive influence and inspiration to other people. But too often, we get lost in our resolutions to do just that, having no idea where to start or how to get there.
This book is the perfect guide! Fun, Concise, Succinct, Proven, and Filled with Wisdom!
Successful mentor and coach Ken Poirot provides answers and walks you through in this groundbreaking book, Mentor Me: GA=T+E—A Formula to Fulfill Your Greatest Achievement!
Finally a Real-World Practical Self-Help, Mentoring, Coaching, Personal Success, Business Book!
In Mentor Me, you will discover:
- How to formulate a plan to achieve your dreams
- Your personality style and how it relates to the personality styles of other people
- How to most effectively learn new information, motivate yourself, and others
- The two most powerful words in the English language and how to put them to work for you
- The best-and most effective-way to handle any conflict in life
- And so much more...
Mentor Me delivers what other books only promise: real-world strategies, techniques, and information that produces effective, tested, and proven results!
Easy-to-implement directives and personal life illustrations combine to provide readers with the pathway to success they have only previously dreamed about.
There are also some fun "smile" moments included along the way...
Begin reading and following the plan found in Mentor Me today and step-by-step, you will transform your life!
A Fun and Simple Self-Help, Mentoring, Coaching, Personal Success, Business Book!
Book Video
Excerpt
I
A New Beginning
Right now is the best time to create your tomorrow.
Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want. This book will walk you through the process, and we will do this together. Today will never come again. Once today is gone…it is gone forever. So the best time to take action, to begin creating the tomorrow you want, is right now. I am with you, and I will help you start walking through the process found in these pages.
Wherever you are in life…you are not alone. You may be struggling in the Abyss of Emotional Bankruptcy, searching for the next rung in the ladder of your journey to find peace and happiness, or you may already be at the Peak of Happiness seeking the way to stay there.
There are others just like you—struggling with hardship, stress, financial or emotional bankruptcy, family problems, and health issues. Many people, just like you, have found what they need—the strength to get up one more time after being knocked down in life. Where do you find the strength? Right here. This is your first step to tap in to this strength and energy to make the life you want for yourself. All the things that have happened to you in your life—good and bad, failures and successes—had to happen to you to bring you here, to this point in your life…at this very moment…today. Today is another chance to create the life you want, the life you dream about. Draw the energy you need from these words. Take all you need to start a new day and a new life for yourself. This life…it is yours to make of it what you wish.
Per Newton’s Law of Conservation of Energy—often quoted as, “Energy is neither created nor destroyed”—these words, my energy, and my strength are being imparted to you right now, by your action of reading or hearing these words. I believe in you, and I know you can create the life you want for yourself.
Today is a new beginning for you. This book is your GATE from your life yesterday to your new life tomorrow. Enter through the GATE to start your new life, the life you want, the life you deserve.
There are some questions you need to ask yourself as we begin our journey together. Tell me: What do you want for yourself? What do you want for your life? When you look back on your life, what do you want to say has been your Greatest Achievement (GA)? This journey is all about you—your hopes, your dreams, and your desires for yourself.
What do you enjoy doing? How do you like to spend your Time (T)? What is your vision of happiness? What do you want for yourself and your life?
Take some time…close your eyes, and set your mind free to explore.
Write down the picture of what you just saw for yourself—your ideal life. Put it into words, all you envisioned and imagined just now. The emotions, the pictures in your mind, your hopes, dreams, and desires—this is the life you want. This is your Greatest Achievement (GA). Write it down in the space provided below. (If you have the e-book version of this book, use a bound notebook to complete the exercises found in this book so you will have everything you write in one place.)
My Greatest Achievement (GA):
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Something magical happens when we put down what we want on a piece of paper, verbalize it, visualize it, define it, and allow ourselves to experience it with the full range of our thoughts, feelings, imagination, and the emotions of achieving it. We can program ourselves to have it!
Today you begin the journey to acquire all you wrote down in the space above, your Greatest Achievement (GA). Keep this in mind every day as a reminder of what you want in life. This will be your driving force, your motivation, your inspiration—to know you are well on your way to having all you want and desire in life. You can have it…I know you can because I have seen it happen over and over again in my personal and professional life.
You have already taken the most difficult step. The hardest part is figuring out what you want in life—what you want for yourself. After that, it is just a matter of working backward…putting together a plan to move you from where you are today, forward to reach your Greatest Achievement (GA) in the future. So let’s begin your plan by starting to think about other people you admire the most—your role models. These are the people whose lives you want to emulate.
Who Has Motivated, Inspired, and Influenced You?
To start, I will give you an example of some individuals I admire, whom I view as my role models on my way to attain my Greatest Achievement (GA), and why I have chosen these people.
The first is Brian Tracy. I was introduced to his teachings as a first-year financial advisor with American Express Financial Advisors, Inc. My manager showed us some of his videos during our daily sales meetings.
Later on in life, I visited Brian Tracy’s website, www.briantracy.com, looking for inspiration. I found a CD program titled The Psychology of Achievement. This program was the most beneficial CD series I have ever found with respect to programming/reprogramming yourself for success. I highly recommend it; you should get a copy for yourself. I revisit this program from time to time, just to find inspiration and remind myself to remain focused. I was so impressed with this CD series that I bought copies for my entire team of investment officers (financial advisors), my boss, the CEO of the company, as well as one of the other senior corporate managers when I worked for Frost Bank.
At the time I was sales manager/senior vice president of my department, Frost Investment Services. I gave this CD series to all of these individuals named above, as a gift around the holidays.
I summarized the most important lessons in the CD series and delivered it to my team via our weekly Monday morning conference calls. My people thanked me for the gift, and many of them relayed to me how much they appreciated the information. These were their honest opinions. They were not kissing up to the boss, as I was “approachable” as a boss, accepting of both negative and positive feedback.
I remember one gentleman in particular, whom I was told had a “negative attitude.” He told me he gained so much from the CD series that he gave it to his wife and son to listen and learn from it. It is amazing what happens when you actually speak and listen to people in a caring way. I will say this gentleman had a lot going on at home that would be difficult for anyone. His wife’s health was deteriorating from a chronic, incurable disease, and his son, who was in high school, had gotten in and out of lots of trouble many times (including with the police).
No wonder this poor gentleman was having a difficult time. The CD series helped him and all the members of his family better position themselves mentally with regard to all their personal challenges. It was one of the most rewarding moments of my career, knowing that through Brian Tracy, and my gift, I was able to help someone in need. I thoroughly enjoyed working with this gentleman, especially after this experience we shared together.
I have a great deal of respect for Brian Tracy, his accomplishments, and the fact that he is doing what I want to do in life, namely, help people both personally and professionally. In addition, he is a bestselling author, coach, and public speaker.
I booked Brian Tracy to speak at our semiannual sales meeting shortly after giving my people his CD series. The sales meeting consisted of my department, the department we reported to, our trust department, our private banking partners, and some of the upper-level management for our retail partners. I also invited our CEO, letting him know that Brian Tracy, whose CD series I had sent to him, would be the speaker for our sales meeting. The CEO came to our departmental sales meeting, it was the first time he had ever attended one of our sales meetings. So, in attendance, I had over 120 people, including my boss, my boss’s boss, my boss’s boss’s boss, and everyone’s boss, the CEO of the company!
I kicked off the meeting with a speech, outlining my plan to achieve our fifth consecutive year of double-digit revenue growth, after the four consecutive years of double-digit revenue growth my department had just delivered. In my outline, I explained what had been driving my focus for the last four years as far as my priorities, namely, people, products, and partnerships, and how I would continue to focus on those three areas moving forward.
So, yes, with this audience (including Brian Tracy), I had to deliver a strong, powerful, energetic, and organized message to kick off our meeting. The good news is, I did just that. At the time, I was a fairly new manager (having only had four years in management), so I was still a bit nervous as a public speaker. I introduced Brian Tracy, who led the rest of our meeting; he was an exceptional speaker. I received more positive feedback concerning Brian Tracy than any other speaker at our previous sales meetings.
We took our lunch break, and as the manager, I made sure everyone had their place at lunch first. Seeing all were well taken care of, I arrived last in line for the buffet-style lunch. As is often the case when you have someone who is as powerful a speaker as Brian Tracy, it seems most people were too intimidated to sit next to him. I was last to a seat—and the only seat open was on the left side of Brian Tracy. I must admit, I was also feeling a bit timid. I hesitantly sat next to Brian and proceeded to tell him how intimidating it was speaking before him (and in front of him), as well as introducing him (at least I did not have to give a speech after him!).
You always assume someone so successful, like Brian Tracy, would not be approachable or someone you can relate to (which was why he had an empty seat next to him and others were afraid to sit there). What I will say is that I was blown away with how approachable, humble, sweet, and downright nice Brian Tracy is as an individual on a personal level. He proceeded to tell me I had given a great speech, and we had a wonderful conversation. Furthermore, he remembered our conversation—weeks later he sent me one of his CDs with regard to public speaking. I have many reasons from both a personal and professional point of view to admire and respect Brian Tracy. He motivates, inspires, and influences me, and I can say he had an impact on my life. He has also helped me to have a positive impact on others by introducing them to him and his work. He is a great man!
The other person I really admire is Oprah Winfrey. I cannot possibly tell her story any better than it is told here on the website biography.com, so I will quote:
American television host, actress, producer, and philanthropist Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi. After a troubled adolescence in a small farming community, where she was sexually abused by a number of male relatives and friends of her mother, Vernita, she moved to Nashville to live with her father, Vernon, a barber and businessman. She entered Tennessee State University in 1971 and began working in radio and television broadcasting in Nashville.
In 1976, Oprah Winfrey moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she hosted the TV chat show People Are Talking. The show became a hit and Winfrey stayed with it for eight years, after which she was recruited by a Chicago TV station to host her own morning show, A.M. Chicago. Her major competitor in the time slot was Phil Donahue. Within several months, Winfrey’s open, warmhearted personal style had won her 100,000 more viewers than Donahue and had taken her show from last place to first in the ratings. Her success led to nationwide fame and a role in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film The Color Purple, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Winfrey launched the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986 as a nationally syndicated program. With its placement on 120 channels and an audience of 10 million people, the show grossed $125 million by the end of its first year, of which Winfrey received $30 million. She soon gained ownership of the program from ABC, drawing it under the control of her new production company, Harpo Productions (“Oprah” spelled backward), and making more and more money from syndication.
In 1994, with talk shows becoming increasingly trashy and exploitative, Winfrey pledged to keep her show free of tabloid topics. Although ratings initially fell, she earned the respect of her viewers and was soon rewarded with an upsurge in popularity.1
Needless to say, through all of her adversity in life, she found the strength to make her tomorrow better and to succeed. Furthermore, she gives back to society with her philanthropy and has driven herself to never rest on her laurels, becoming more and more successful, now even having a television network, OWN.
She has an incredible story—I admire her and what she has created in life, not just for herself, but through her commitment to giving back and helping others.
Take a moment to think about those whom you admire. Who do you see as a role model for yourself? In the space provided, write down who has been motivational, inspirational, and influential in your life and why.
I Have Been Motivated, Inspired, and Influenced By:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Why?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Think about how this person achieved such status in your mind. Think about your Greatest Achievement (GA), and how someone might be writing this about you someday. Who will be saying similar things about you, as their role model and the person they admire? What will they write as far as “why” about you?
In the space provided, write down what you want to read and hear when someone admires you as their role model one day. What will they write as their “why” about you?
When I Am Admired, the Following Will Be Written about Me:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Keep your role model in mind, as well as the reasons you chose this person, and what you want someone to write about you someday, as we continue to work toward your Greatest Achievement (GA).
In the next section, we will discuss the elements of a goal and how to define your Greatest Achievement (GA) using the language of a goal. This will crystalize your focus, bringing you one step closer to becoming like the role model you defined above, someone who motivates, inspires, and influences others.
The Elements of a Goal
When it comes to setting goals, there are certain elements that need to be considered. These elements are best described with the acronym SMART: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Target Date.
This acronym first appeared in an issue of Management Review written by George T. Doran. It is commonly attributed to Peter Drucker, as he used it in his “management objectives concept.” It is a good way to remember all the necessary elements for formulating a proper goal.
As you will see, we will alter SMART slightly to accommodate your Greatest Achievement (GA), turning it into a lifetime goal, in the language of a goal as follows:
Specific: Write specifically and in clear language exactly what you want to achieve.
Measurable: Write how you will measure your progress.
Actionable: Write the steps you will need to take to get you there, from today to the achievement of your lifetime goal in the future. What steps are necessary to take in order to get you there (certifications, degree, professional licenses, classes, training, actions like getting a new job in a different field, writing a book, etc.)?
Radical: For your lifetime goal, we will change this “R” from “Realistic” to “Radical.” This is the goal for your lifetime; keep your dream big. Per the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the meaning of the word radical is as follows: “Very different from the usual or traditional; extreme: favoring extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions.”
Target Date: For this scenario, the Target Date is your lifetime.
I wanted you to dream big and think like a child again with no constraints and no structure (like SMART) for your first mental exercise, to really get to the deep-rooted purpose and emotions behind what you want to achieve with your life—your Greatest Achievement (GA). If you are an adult, you have most likely forgotten how to think and dream big like a child. It is amazing what happens the moment you ask someone to dream and then put a structure on it: their dreams and thoughts immediately get compressed. I wanted you to first dream without structure or constraint.
Now that you dreamed big, we can work on structuring your Greatest Achievement (GA), to put it in the language of a goal, using SMART, to make it tangible and actionable for you.
Let’s face it, the more time we have lived in this world, often the more jaded we become. Remember what you wanted to be when you were a child? Remember what life was like before someone ever told you, “No…you can’t”?
I am here to tell you…“Yes…you can”! You can once again dream without constraint—you can make what you want of your life. Think radical; think outside the box the world tries to put you in.
Over time, our dreams get squeezed and shrink. We have to deal with everyday realities—the stresses and pressures that go along with making a living and survival. The world beats us up, pushes us down, and tells us what we can and cannot do. We are told to conform, and we are punished when we don’t.
If you have ever worked in corporate America, and you have ever come up with a new, better way to do something at work, you know exactly what I mean.
Have you ever proposed to the boss a “better” or “different” way to do something? How well did that go over? Have you ever been told, “But this is the way we have always done it”? (Yet, usually no one can tell you why!)
Children know no limits or boundaries. It is only through society and others telling us what we can and cannot do, what we can and cannot achieve, what we can or cannot accomplish in life, that we shrink or compress our beliefs in what we can achieve. Ask yourself, what really changed in you from that time in your life, your childhood, when you knew no boundaries or limits? What changed in you when you were a child who dreamed and fantasized about the life you wanted someday?
You will find nothing changed except for your beliefs, most likely due to what others and society told you. The only thing that really changed was your belief in yourself and what you believed you could do with your life. There are no real boundaries or limits on your life—only those you impose upon yourself, reinforcing what others have told you.
It is time to believe again, to believe in yourself and the truth. You have no boundaries in what you can achieve. The same people who told you what you can and cannot do are only saying that because they gave up on their dreams. You can choose to have all you want in life—it is your choice. Make a decision today: choose to dream and then to fulfill those dreams. Choose to believe you can have all you want in life, and believe it with conviction. Resolve to never give up; make a plan to attain your Greatest Achievement (GA) and make it happen!
You can make a different choice than those other people. You can choose to make your dreams happen. Believe in yourself as I believe in you. You are here, reading this book for a reason. You have the ambition to make your dreams a reality. For this reason alone, you can have all you desire.
Let’s develop your plan, celebrate the successful implementation of your plan, and then pursue your eventual success together. Are you ready to have all you dream about in life?
Live your life with urgency and singleness of purpose. The purpose and meaning of your life is yours to choose and decide, so make your life what you want it to be and start on this process…today. None of us knows how much time we have on this earth, so it is of utmost importance to begin your plan to attain your Greatest Achievement (GA) immediately.
Go back to what you have written as your Greatest Achievement (GA). Below we will put this in the language of a goal, giving it some structure, so it contains all the elements of a goal. Take what you have written out previously for your Greatest Achievement (GA), with all that excitement and emotion, and now make it Specific, Measurable, Actionable, and Radical. For the Target Date, state that it is your lifetime.
My Greatest Achievement (GA) in the language of a Goal
Specific:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Measurable:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Actionable (Steps to Take):
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Radical:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Target Date/Lifetime:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Keep this in front of you every day as a reminder of what you ultimately want to accomplish, and visualize yourself achieving your lifetime goal often. Experience the emotions, thoughts, and feelings associated with achieving this lifetime goal. Write those emotions, thoughts, and feelings in the space where you wrote your Greatest Achievement (GA) in the language of a goal, so you are reminded of them every time you look at your lifetime goal.
We will work toward achieving this lifetime goal, your purpose in life, your Greatest Achievement (GA), making it real—no matter how radical you think this dream is today. We will develop a step-by-step process to get you there one year at a time.
As Stephen Covey wrote in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you need to “begin with the end in mind.” We will work backward from your Greatest Achievement (GA), to decide how you need to spend your Time (T) and Energy (E) each day in order to attain it (GA=T+E). We first need a short-term plan, based upon getting you one year closer to your lifetime goal.
In Summary
In this chapter you did the following:
Thought about a role model—someone whose qualities and life you want to emulate.
Dreamed big—formulated your lifetime goal, your Greatest Achievement (GA), and put it in the language of an actionable goal (SMART).
Remembered—you have no boundaries in what you can achieve in life.
You established the foundation, the driving force behind your life and your daily activities. Think about who you wrote about as your role mode—the person whose life you most admire and why. Think about your Greatest Achievement (GA), what it means to you—visualize, experience, and picture yourself attaining it. Above all else, believe in yourself!
In the next chapter, we will work on developing a one-year goal, keeping this lifetime goal as our “end in mind.” I will share with you a one-year goal of mine, as an example, along with the daily/weekly plan I put in place to achieve it. Let’s move on to Chapter II…
Praise for the Book
" ... fascinating ... His analysis of the different ways in which people learn is equally enlightening. He deftly demonstrates how he personally put into practice much of the advice he conveys in the book ... Poirot's writing style is conversational, educational, and often inspirational. Chapters are well organized, and exercises are integrated into the text at appropriate, logical spots. The text is easy to read, and the pages are nicely composed ... Mentor Me ... should prove to be a valuable guide" ~ Barry Silverstein, Foreward Reviews - Clarion Review
" ... everyone - should think about reading this book." ~ Kathryn Bennett
" ... this is a great book, enjoyable to read and with useful knowledge." ~ Teodora Totorean
" ... motivating and inspiring book that will help change your attitude towards life." ~ Mamta Madhavan, provided by Readers' Favorite
About the Author
Ken Poirot grew up on Long Island, New York in the quaint village of Northport. After graduating from Cornell University with a B.S. in Microbiology, he moved to Houston, Texas to pursue his Ph.D. studies in Cancer Research at MD Anderson Cancer Center through UT Health Science Center. Upon receiving a US Patent for his research, "Lipid Complexed Topoisomerase I Inhibitors", he left graduate school for a career in financial services.
Over the last two decades, he worked for many of the top financial services firms - some better known New York Stock Exchange-listed companies like American Express, Charles Schwab, Merrill Lynch (now part of Bank of America), JP Morgan Chase, as well as some smaller New York Stock Exchange-listed companies like Cullen/Frost Bankers (NYSE: CFR) and Guaranty Bank (now part of BBVA, NYSE: BBVA).
As the Senior Vice President and Sales Manager for Frost Investment Services, the brokerage division of Frost Bank (NYSE:CFR), he led his department to four consecutive years of double-digit revenue growth, increasing revenue by over 83% while substantially increasing the profit margin from approximately 27% to 37%. During this same time period, his financial advisors increased their individual production from an average of less than $25,000 in revenue per month to over $41,000. He achieved similar results at various other firms, including Guaranty Bank and JPMorgan Chase, consistently increasing the sales of his territories/producers by double-digits as a regional manager and personal/professional coach.
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