Brian Tracy answers questions on finding mentors and prioritizing work. To find a mentor, identify someone suitable, ask for 10 minutes to pose three written questions, and offer help in return. For tasks, pick the one you'd finish if called away, then judge everything by the consequences of doing or skipping it.
Hi there. Throughout the year I've received a lot of questions from my friends on Facebook. So we've decided to sit down and answer these questions and let me give you my thoughts and insights and experiences and they may be helpful to you. And questions from one person may be a question that you might have asked yourself. So let's get started.
John from Facebook asked, how has finding a mentor changed as compared to 10 to 20 years ago?
Well, I have no idea what finding a mentor was like 10 or 20 years ago. It's always been the same, how do you find a boyfriend or a girlfriend? As you fish, where the fish are, you go where they are. The way you find a mentor is you look around yourself or look around your world and you say, who would be a good person to give me advice to help me at this stage of my career? And then you approach that person and in approaching a mentor, you ask them for 10 minutes of their time to ask them three specific questions which are in writing and you give them a copy of it. No more than 10 minutes. Most people who are valuable as mentors are also extremely busy and they do not have time for open ended rambling conversations. I have people say, please be my mentor and tell me everything I need to be successful at life. And I hang up the phone figuratively I pull push delete on the email because I simply don't have the time. If a person writes me and says, could you answer this specific question, then I will almost always answer that specific question. So look around yourself and say, who would be a good person to be a mentor? And then remember, a mentor relationship has to have some benefit for the other person. So what are you going to bring to the party? Whatever the person offers you in terms of advice or guidance, do it and report back. But then ask, how can I help you? What can I do to help you? Even if it's merely moving boxes on moving day, what can you do to help your mentor? Remember, the rule in life is you have to give to get. And the more you give of yourself without expectation of return, the more that will come back to you in the most unexpected ways.
Arul from Facebook asked, how do I evaluate my highest value activities?
Well, the most important part of time management and if you take all the thousands of books and you put them into a big pot and you boil them and you come up with one thimble, it'll be how do you set priorities? And setting priorities is choosing what to do first. And choosing what to do first is the most important decision that you make in time management. So the question you have to ask is, what are all the things that I have to do? And of these things, which are more important and which are less important? We say you need a to do list each day, but you need a not to do list. There are certain things you say yes to that are of high value, and there are certain things that you say no to. The simplest of all techniques, by the way, is to make a list of everything that you have to do the coming day. And ask yourself this. If I was to be called out of town and I could only do one thing on this list before I was called out of town for a month, which one task would I want to be sure to complete? And that's the most important and highest value task on your list. Now, there's a second technique that I teach with regard to finding your highest value task, and that is to ask what are the potential consequences of doing this task or not doing it? And a task that has big potential consequences is very important to you. A task that has low or no consequences is not important at all. So discipline yourself to do the things that have the greatest potential consequences for your long term future. And those are the best techniques to determining your most valuable task for the moment. Now, I've given you a couple of ideas. So the most important thing that you can do is to take action. So what one action are you going to take as a result of these key ideas that I've just given you? Whatever it is, jot it down and let me know. Remember, one action that you take that you would not have taken in the absence of this discussion can change your life forever.
