Yesterday afternoon, I got a copy of Chris Edmond’s new book, #Corporate Culture Tweet in the mail.
If you don’t know Chris, I hope you’ll check out his work. His tweets, which I always love, look for, and retweet, comprise his new book. He shares great ideas for creating positive, healthy, fun, and productive work environments. His book is the kind you want to keep close by so you can read a few tweets each day for inspiration. It contains 140 tweets (a fact my oldest daughter discovered and delighted in.)
I got the mail on my way to pick up the girls from school. While sitting in the parking lot at school, I ripped the box open. I took a quick glance at the front and back covers and then passed the book around the car so my daughters could look at it while I drove to gymnastics.
I first met Chris during the book launch for From Bud to Boss. I liked him instantly and I’ve enjoyed our friendship and collaboration.I felt honored when he asked me to provide advance praise for his book, so I wasn’t surprised when I saw my name on the back cover of the book.
I was surprised, pleased, and thrilled at the acknowledgment Chris shared for me inside the book. (You’ll have to buy the book to read it!) Here’s a hint: Chris calls me his mentor.
Social media channels have revolutionized my view of mentoring. Because of relationships and connections I find through Twitter, Facebook, and this blog, I can mentor people from a distance, for a season, and about specific topics.
I can share what I know with people I have not yet met face to face. I can make a difference in the lives of people who have far more life experience, knowledge, and expertise than I do.
And, while I am looking for ways to add value to others, I have found a host of mentors to encourage, inspire, and support me. In fact, most of the time, the people I am mentoring and the ones I am being mentored by are the same.
Tell me something! How have social media channels changed your view of mentoring? Who are your mentors? Who are you mentoring? What can you share to add value to others?
I am sharing more about this topic in a guest post at my friend and mentor Jesse Lyn Stoner’s blog. I am honored by her kind words about me and happy about the chance to share my work with her readers. I hope you’ll read that post also because it deepens many of the ideas I introduce here.
Chris and Jesse, I can’t wait to meet you in person… very soon!
I am the founder/CEO of the Weaving Influence team, the author of Reach: Creating the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause, and the host of the Book Marketing Action Podcast. I’m a wife and mom of three kids, and I enjoy running, reading, writing, coffee, and dark chocolate.
Many of my mentors (including YOU, Becky) are ones I’ve “met” through Twitter. I doubt that I’m the only one to benefit from the wisdom of people I’ve only virtually met. Yet the connections and interactions are as genuine as if we were in the same room together.
Many people have referred to me as their mentor, a “title” that I prefer to shrug off. I view mentoring as something leaders are obligated to do naturally, in a “pay it forward” kind of way. To me, it seems like a no-brainer that we should be investing and sharing ourselves in nurturing and growing others, that’s what true leaders do.
Lead on,
angie
Becky. You’ve expressed the way that I feel, far better than I could have done. I’ll have to get the Kindle edition of this book.
Becky
Initial reaction: Oh great, another book on my Must Read list, which already would extend past China if printed out:)
Reflective reaction: I am not surprised that Chris described you as his mentor. You have a nurturing personality.
This also speaks to a change in how we view mentors and mentoring over the past few years. At one point, mentors were older, wiser folks who had been where we were and were willing to help us move down paths they had already traveled. Sometimes formal and sometimes informal, it was always about leading and following in a structured hierarchy of some type.
Now mentoring has become like coaching – it’s something we do and the ways in which we mentor have increased and mutated.
After all, wisdom and nurturing is where you find it:)
John
I think you’re on to something worth pursuing, Becky, the impact of social media on mentoring. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything on it besides what you’ve written and I think you capture important changes. Nice work.
Becky,
You’ve been a mentor in so many ways…as a follower of Jesus, pastor’s wife, mother, homeschooler, friend, blogger. I’m sure the list could go on (cook, housekeeper,etc.). It’s so great that you have the opportunity to nurture as many people as you do through this avenue of social networking. Mentoring is something so many people are hungry for, but really don’t know where to begin to find it. With social networking mentoring is easier to come by, and not as difficult to define.
Thanks for all you’ve invested in me.
Mentors have made all the difference in my life, as a wife, mom and writer. In all 3 areas I had so much to learn. So I went looking for those who knew more than I did, who seemed to have discovered both a formula of success and a certain delight in their life. I usually tweaked the formula some–made it my own, but the best mentors encourage us to be ourselves, not mini-mes.