Mentorship Philosophy

[Rich Kressly]

Powerful thread here John. Thanks for starting it. I was struggling with how I wanted to answer this last night, so I slept on it. Then this AM, while searching for something else I stumbled upon a file I put together a few years back called "Pauschisms" which are quotes/excerpts taken from the late Randy Pausch's book and presentation titled The Last Lecture.

In general, and very honestly, I've come to learn that it's my life's work (regardless of what I might get "paid" to do) to inspire and enable dreams for as many people as possible on this planet in the most efficient way possible using the talents and energies I possess. With that in mind, some Pauschisms that heavily influence my mentoring...

Chapter 3 – “…when there’s an elephant in the room, introduce it.”
Chapter 4 … “Just because you’re in the driver’s seat, doesn’t mean you have to run people over.”
Chapter 5 … “Anybody out there who is a parent, if your kids want to paint their bedrooms, as a favor to me, let them do it. It’ll be OK. Don’t worry about the resale value on the house.”
Chapter 7 … “You’ve got to get the fundamentals down, because otherwise the fancy stuff is not going to work.”
Chapter 7 … “When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you.”
Chapter 9 … “So what was Kirk’s skill set? Why did he get to climb on board the Enterprise and run it? … there is a skill set called “leadership.””
Chapter 9 … “I don’t believe in the no-win scenario.”
Chapter 11 … “The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”
Chapter 11 … there are right and wrong ways to say “I don’t know”, “I need more information”, etc