Why Restaurant Industry Professionals Need Mentors

Written by Shed Wallace, The Ea
JobsArticle.com


During high school I worked part-time and summers for an Italian family owned catering company named Jay's Catering in Orange County California.? Less than a week into my new job I was asked to get olives from the kitchen store room.? I moved briskly to the store room found the can of olives and walked over to the table where the huge commercial can opener was attached.? The device looked simple enough, so I proceeded in trying to open the can.

After several failed attempts, I realized that I was doing something wrong.? Just then, Michael Mastrianni, one of the company owners walked in and noticed my trouble.? He walked over grabbed the can, flipped up the handle on the opener,? slammed the opener's blade into the can, cranked the handle a couple of time, and within seconds the can was open.? Michael, then put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye with a smile, and said? "Sometime you have to pause and say, by George there's got to be a better way".

This was the beginning of my first professional mentor relationship.? Over the following three years Mike taught me an amazing amount about catering, customer service, and leadership.? Over my foodservice career mentor-mentee relationships have helped me achieve career successes that I could not have dreamed earlier.? Likewise, acting as a mentor has enriched my life and allow me to help many others achieve their professional goals.? Here are a few important things that mentors do:

Mentors provide us with knowledge? and expertise that we otherwise would not have.? Just like the can opener example, we often don't know why our efforts fall short of delivering us to our goals.? Sometimes we are closer than we realize when frustration or fear takes over.? The best mentors have experience in the areas and subjects, in which we are striving.? They can guide us through new experience and on to successful outcomes

Mentors help us stay focused and accountable.? Even the most disciplined and talented individuals struggle to allocate there time, energy, and focus among competing interests.? It is sometimes hard to maintain the focus to see big challenging goals through to completion.? This is precisely why the most accomplished people in their fields rely on mentors, trainers, and coaches.? Being accountable to another encourages us to keep our commitments.

Mentors can be an excellent source for contacts.? When your connect with the right mentor in your profession, you gain access to their years of experience as well as their networks.? Over the years, my mentors have introduced me to critically important contacts.? They have been invaluable references and opened countless doors for me.? This is one of the most under-appreciated and under-reported secrets of most people's success.

Mentors are also a steady and dependable voice of objectivity.? The problem with asking your mom, spouse, or best friend about major ideas is that you are likely to get responses filtered by their emotional connection to you.? Although their feedback is needed, candid and object insight is the key ingredient to good decision making.? As intelligent and capable as First Lady Michelle Obama is, I doubt that anyone would advocate her being President Obama's sole policy adviser.? Like the President, high achievers need advisors who are experts in their respective professions.

Finally, mentors provide a great source with whom to share our wildest ideas.? Great mentors know that some of the best ideas start as crazy notions.? Take Chipotle's Mexican Grill for example, I am sure that when founder Steve Ells decided to introduce fast-casual restaurants with upscale Mexican food, organic ingredients, hormone-free meats, and environmentally friendly buildings it may have seemed like a far out visions.? Ironically, today his company is ahead in some of? the hottest industry trends .? Rather than shoot down your ideas, the right mentor will challenge you to develop your ideas in ways that will steer you to a successful outcome.

So, if you want to turbo-charge your career, business, or personal projects, I strongly recommend finding a reliable mentor, adviser, or coach.? I guarantee the relationship will help you progress faster toward key goals, balance any weaknesses you may have, avoid costly mistakes, and achieve breakthroughs currently out of your reach.

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Life after Retrenchment & Retirement

Written by Dennis, JobsArticle.com

Have you imagine what will tomorrow going to be if you are retired, retrenched by the end of the business TODAY? For a spur of moment, you felt relieved. However, do you still have a comfortable income to sustain you till end of the year? What are your plans when you woke up the next day?

Not many people have considered that. Many people are striving very hard to keep their current full-time job till they are going to retire or time to be retrenched.

I am not saying that there is not a bad idea. But have you started to ponder what you will be doing if that unlucky day really strikes on you when you are least expected?

Even though some people might have considered, they do not know where to start with. Many people thus go into fast cash opportunities, like shares, stocks, options and so forth. They put in their hard-earned money into such opportunities.

These are the high risk games. If you are not guided properly, you will not be able to reap the benefits from the market. Since you are not well-trained, thus you might not have the clear visibility of what you are investing. You might have invested your funds without in-dept thoughts or understanding thus you might have open your wallets to the bigger suckers. Thus your credits cards debts might have risen once again.

In order to keep away from such mishaps happening, you should avoid this route of getting yourself wealthy or engaged into such activities so as to past your time.

There are few other industries you can enter if you are planning to.

One of the industries is training, be a public speaker or a trainer. Some friends told me they were afraid to speak in front of a crowd. However, there is always a first time in everything you do. And the fear in speaking can easily be managed. Just follow some simple steps and the fear will be flying in formation. You are then in total control of the fear.

Alternatively, you can also hop into the Internet band wagon. Its low risk and low cost. You can learn something new in this new advanced technology too.

You may not be well versed with the speaking industry & Internet technology. In fact, there is not a requirement to be well versed with them too. So long you understand the basic concept of marketing, speak from your experience. You are ready to earn some fast cash from the respective industries.

Would you like to know more?

Learn how to: Communicate in public, Internet Marketing

Whatever it is, I will be sharing with you the above home based career in my next article. I might publish it on my website. Check it out at http://www.dennis-kwan.com/wtgt/

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How To Effectively Promote Yourself Professionally

Written by John Parks, JobsArticle.com
People who make their living by doing freelancing work - regardless of the type - have a lot of special things they need to take into consideration that people who hold "traditional" jobs do not have to. In addition to generally having to calculate and pay their own taxes, freelancers have the unenviable task of needing to generate enough business to keep them afloat professionally. Although some freelancers become complacent when they have built up a large enough roster of clients, most of them continually work to get new sources of income and to expand their skills. If you are a freelancer, then you probably feet into the latter category and would like to find new ways to promote your skills.

How does one go about promoting their freelancing skills for maximum effect? Rule number one lies in the work that you are currently doing. For all assignments - big and small - always do the most professional, impeccable work possible. Treat low paying gigs with the same level of professionalism as you do high paying ones. You never know when a client who tends to give you piddling assignments will suddenly have a use for more important work - and will he or she think of the mediocre freelancer for such a job? Absolutely not; they will think of the person who consistently hands in excellent results.

Besides always being conscientious about quality in all of the work you do, there are a number of other basic ways to promote your freelancing skills. Getting word out there about your abilities is an obvious one. This can be done through traditional advertising methods, although the Internet is changing a lot of that. Social networking websites are very efficient ways of spreading the word; for each satisfied customer, ask them kindly to mention you to others in need of freelancers. If even one or two satisfied clients send out "tweets" about you on Twitter - by linking to your professional website or your LinkedIn profile - you have already widened your scope considerably.

That brings us to the next point: technology. More than ever before in history, it is essential to be comfortable and savvy in regards to using a computer and the Internet. Being familiar with popular trends online is incredibly important to all freelancers - not just those who work in a computer related field. Freelancers from all sorts of backgrounds need to not only have a presence on the web, but also be active on it on a daily basis. Forming relationships on popular networking sites is a free, easy way of doing this; finding niche blogs revolving around industry related topics is another good place to hang around online.

Always be willing to provide free samples of what you do to interested prospective clients. Charging a fee for a glance at your style is not going to win you any new business. This falls under the general category of being flexible overall; do not set any rules in stone, but always be willing to try new ways of doing things to please individual clients. By doing some or all of these things, you can effectively promote your freelancing skills.

For more information on freelance work, visit?http://www.freelanceyourskills.com

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