Coaching, Mentoring, Lunch, and Business

Posted on 01. Dec, 2008 by Craig Peters in Uncategorized

Four of my favorite topics: coaching, mentoring, lunch, and business.

Coaching. Coaching is about how to do something. It’s like my teaching days, coaching students in the ways of life. How to be a student. How to be a member of a group. How to be an individual. How to get along. Of course, I taught my students how to understand fractions, the scientific method, and a couple other things along the way, but what really got me excited to be there–and what I’m most proud of–was coaching my students on how to navigate life better.

Mentoring. You could say that mentoring is my replacement for coaching since I’ve left teaching and entered the business world. In recent years, I’ve found myself drawn to help others who are starting out in the world of web design (more specifically user-experience strategy and design). I like it. Mentoring makes me feel useful. Helps me understand my life better. Strokes my ego.

Lunch. How can you not like lunch? You have it every day. It’s the one time every day that nobody’s going to load up my calendar. It’s a time when we’re all taking a break from our computers and desks. We’ll be saying a lot more here about lunch.

Business. There’s a surprising amount of creativity available in the business world, particularly as an entrepreneur. Opportunities to reinvent yourself at a moment’s notice are all around us. Something doesn’t work out? Make a change - do something else. Want to make something of yourself? You have that choice. There’s something profoundly wonderful—and at other times frightfully daunting—about knowing that your successes and your failures are entirely up to you.

So, my interest in my friend Mark Cornish’s new start up was a no-brainer. Mark set out to help people improve how they interact face-to-face with other people, particularly around business. I’ve joined him in this effort, as have a few others. Our vision is very exciting, the details of which will be laid out in these pages over time.

In the meantime, we’re just about done with our first consumer product, The Power Lunch Training Video. It’ll be available for purchase in exactly one month: January 1st, 2009.

As excited as I am, I’m sure Mark is more so. I’ll let him tell you more about the training video.