The Mentor Whisperer

By Larry Chiang

Have you heard of Cesar Milan?? He is the dog whisperer. This means he can communicate with dogs really well.

Cesar Milan is a sequel to the Lone Ranger who is the original Horse Whisperer. Johnny Depp was a pirate whisperer before when he wore a fluffy ruffled pirate shirt in the Disney (Tent-Pole) franchise: Pirates of the Carribean.

I cant talk horse but I do whisper to MENTORS.

In class I call myself the ‘Old Person Whisperer’. It’s a li’l politically incorrect so I pivoted the phrase to “seasoned executive whisperer”

Now…

Larry Chiang ✰ (@LarryChiang) 7/8/12 10:23 AM The Mentor Whisperer.

The Mentor Whisperer is about a topic that I explore in a method and magnitude that is UN-matched: Mentorship.

Here are seven ideas that you can copy paste or cut paste:

-1- Mentorship is about doing 400+ li’l things out of a potential 650.

Granular = mentorship.

If you are skimming, I’ll put this in a box because 80% of this articles benefit is

************** Granular = mentorship. ##########

If the devil is in the details, then mentorship chases the devil away and helps you focus on executing little things.

There are two VentureBeat articles on this where people mistake them for being the same. They are not.

-2- Mentorship is About Updating Yourself AS-IF You Are a FedEx Package

Engineers should update like a fedex package because they can go entrepreneurially stratospheric in a heartbeat.

Federal Express (FedEx) is a #sequel business to the Federal Post Office btw. Anyway, FedEx packages know where they are going. We as entrepreneurs do not. But our mentor knows.

So effen update your mentor like a fedex package

QUESTION: But Larry Chiang, I don’t want to spam ANSWER: Look, your mentor spent 3 hrs w you. Let them scan your email which takes them 3 minutes. It leads to my next point

-3- Email Like an Old Person in CS

Kids email w no subject line cuz kids hate email.

Email like an old person in CS. (If you don’t know what CS is just leave this blog now. Seriously. I cant know you or have it seen that you’re reading me. Close the browser. Bye)

Old people, defined as older than 23, in Computer Science use subject lines as clear as when they annotate code. It’s like a “Code Whisperer”. Omg sequel blog post! The “Computer Science Code Whisperer”

For example: subject line of email

“VentureBeat / MobileBeat / satellite event / Gua Gua Guacamole recipe #8 / techCrunch afterparty hack / Zynga / 10:05pm”

For example: subject line of email

“VentureBeat / MobileBeat / ANCHOR event / hotel bar / Gua Gua Guacamole recipe #4 / StartX entrepreneurs w #ENGR145″

Paul Graham believes that when you don’t hear from entrepreneurs, they have crawled away to die

http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html

Conclusion: Update a lot.

-4- Thank your mentor repeatedly.

Maybe I’m cray cray but I think the person who helped you should get paid.

My mentors are uber rich already so paying them is weird. So I just get a stack of thank you cards and send then notes.

Trust me, when you’re back from vacation and are faced with a daunting stack of postal mail… Thank you cards are a vacation.

-5- Be a Vacation

Google Larry Chiang be a vacation

Don’t be a part time job for your mentor

Be a vacation. Be fun and only be positive when you meet

-6- Watch Your Comm Ratios

Communication ratios are messages to him/her versus messages back

Messages To