What is a Mentor? || Port Alberni Investment Advisor

As a Port Alberni, Tofino & Ucluelet Investment Advisor, I find that my role is often one of a mentor.  So I’d like to spend the next few blog posts talking about mentors, mentees and mentorship.  Let’s look, first of all, at what a mentor is.  Historically, the original “Mentor” is a person from Greek Mythology.  The story behind Mentor lead to the name being adopted as an English term, meaning someone who imparts wisdom to and shares knowledge with a less experienced colleague.  The Merriam-Webster definition of a mentor is someone who serves as a “trusted counselor or guide”, but generally speaking a mentor is an experienced individual who can help and guide another individual’s development.  This guidance is not done for personal gain.  Mentoring is used in many settings, and certainly is a role that I adopt as an advisor.  There are other words that I believe define my role as a mentor – coach, tutor, guide, facilitator, counsellor, and trusted advisor.  I willingly spend my time using my expertise to guide the development of other people.  The term used for a person a mentor guides is “mentee” or “protégé”.  Mentees are people who want to learn and seek out advice to grow personally and professionally.  In order to have a successful mentorship, there are several key objectives that I feel must be accomplished.  These are:

• valuing the mentee as a person
• developing mutual trust and respect
• always maintaining confidentiality
• to really listen to what is being said and how it is being said
• help the mentee problem solve, rather than give specific direction
• focus on the mentee’s development as an individual and provide support that is unique to their specific needs

A mentor must bear in mind that the ultimate goal is for the mentee to learn to do for themselves.  Benjamin Franklin was the originator of this very powerful statement:  “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” 

 

When things in life become confusing, I find that a walk or bike ride helps to clear my head while I reflect on life, relationships and career.  It's important that we all take a few moments out of our day to stop and think about what is important in life.  Try it and see if this works for you and while you're at it, reflect on what it is that you might need help or guidance with.  If there is something that you can not achieve alone, find a mentor to help you.  Head down to the Harbour Quay, sit on a bench, watch the birds, and reflect on what is important to you.  Here's some of the sights you may see while you are there.

Photos by Stirling Images Photography

 

Laughter is the Best Medicine || Port Alberni & West Coast Investment Advisor

According to Psychology Today, the average 4 year old laughs 300 times a day, while the average 40 year old only laughs 4 times a day.  Studies show we need laughter in our daily lives to stay healthy.

The sound of raucous laughter is infectious and when it’s shared it can bind people together and can create a wonderful sense of happiness and intimacy.  But the interesting thing about laughter, from a physiological perspective, is that it triggers healthy physical changes in the body.  Laughter can help strengthen our immune systems, increase our energy levels, help reduce pain, and can protect us from the damage caused by stress.  This medicine is free, fun and easy to implement!

Laughter can help relax the entire body and it triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals.  Laughter can also help improve circulation which protects the heart and can protect you from heart attack.

The bottom line is that laughter makes you feel really good, and this good feeling lingers long afterwards the laughter subsides.  Maintaining a sense of humour throughout your day can help you have a positive, optimistic outlook and can keep the blues away.  Laughter is a wonderful antidote for sadness and pain.  It can give you courage and strength.  Laughter goes a long way toward making you feel better and better able to cope with life’s problems.  Just hearing someone else laugh can bring a smile to your face and make you ready to join in the fun.  So go ahead - look for the laughter in your day.  Let it go - a good, gut-busting belly laugh.  It's the best medicine there is!  Here are some friendly, smiling faces to help remind you to put a smile on yours, and make time for laughter.  

Photos by Stirling Images Photography

Become a Positive Thinker || Port Alberni & West Coast Investment Advisor

The new year is well underway and January is half over.  If you haven’t already made a new year’s resolution, here’s one you should make and resolve to keep it going for the rest of your life.  What is this resolution?  It is quite simply – be a positive thinker!  If you adopt a positive mental attitude, you are teaching your mind to expect good things – happiness, joy, success, health and well-being.  Have you ever heard about the power of positive thinking?  Many people believe in the effectiveness of this concept.  When we have a positive attitude, our body and mind responds with feelings of pleasantness, well-being, and contentedness.  This in turn makes us feel confident and more secure.  It is then that we begin to feel as though we can accomplish anything. 

If you have a choice, would you rather be around someone who is negative and unhappy, or someone who is positive and upbeat?  Negative thoughts and attitudes can lead the way to frustration, disappointment and failure.  Positive thoughts and attitudes on the other hand can lead to feelings of happiness, comfort and success. 

If you tend to be a “negative thinker”,  it’s not easy to change your attitude overnight.  Here are a few tips to help you become a positive thinker.

• When approaching a new task, persuade yourself repeatedly that you are going to have a successful outcome.  The brain will begin to believe what you tell it if you repeat it often enough. 
• Ignore negative comments from other people and don’t worry about what people say or think about you.  
• Visualize yourself succeeding at everything you do, using your imagination to visualize favourable and positive situations and outcomes. 
• Smile often. 
• If a negative thought enters your mind, be aware of it, but put it in a mental closet in your mind, shut the door and mentally lock it and put away the key.  If it returns, repeat, and try replacing the thought with a positive one. 
• Develop short, positive statements that you can repeat to yourself over and over again. 
• Persevere!  You can’t change overnight, so be patient, be consistent and keep trying to maintain a positive outlook on everything you do.  It will eventually transform the way your mind thinks! 

Becoming a positive thinker is a great lifelong habit, but it is also a skill.  If you practice it daily, it will become second nature and it will transform the way you think, act and live your daily life.  You only have one life to live, so make the most of it!  Be positive – and enjoy this beautiful life of yours!

Here are some beautiful scenic and floral photos to remind you that the world we live in is truly magnificent!

Photos by Stirling Images Photography

New Year - New Hope || Port Alberni Investment Advisor

For some people a new year brings new hope, new visions, new ideas and new ways of doing things.  The origin of new year’s resolutions goes as far back as the ancient Babylonians who made promises to their gods at the start of each year.  The Romans also made promises to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named.  At the end of the Great Depression, about a quarter of the population of adults in Canada and the United States made New Year’s resolutions.  Here are some inspirational thoughts about bringing in the new year.

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul. G. K. Chesterton

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. Benjamin Franklin

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
Hal Borland 

Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right. Oprah Winfrey

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true. Alfred Lord Tennyson

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding" 

Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits. Author Unknown

A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. Author Unknown

Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it's twice as onerous a duty. John Selden

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. Edith Lovejoy Pierce

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.
Ellen Goodman

As 2013 begins to unfold, let's remind ourselves that the most important thing is that life is beautiful, and we must make the most of each and every day.  Here are some photos of the beauty of the West Coast at this snowy time of year.

Photos by Stirling Images Photography