A reader asked me last week what books I’ve gone to over the years that have been “virtual mentors” so to speak. Great question I’m often asked, so here goes my partial list of favorites…
For Business
- Principle-Centered Leadership by Stephen Covey
- The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
- The 360° Leader by John Maxwell (many other Maxwell books too.)
- Seth Godin, pretty much anything he writes
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
- A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
- Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk
- The Brand Called You by Tom Peters
- Over the last few years I love TED Talks on YouTube
For Personal, Relationships, Marriage, Child Rearing
- The Sacred Romance by John Eldrege
- Wild at Heart by John Eldrege
- Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Eliot
- I Gave God Time by Ann Kiemel
- Finding the Love of Your Life by Neal Clark Warren
- Date or Soul Mate by Neal Clark Warren
- The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason
- How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen by H. Norman Wright
For Design and Fashion
Instagram has become THE place to follow trend setters and fashion influencers. Hard to pick even a few as I enjoy so many. My favorite of late is husband wife design duo Alex and Michael Toccin, who just launched their own clothing line. I also enjoy Rachel Zoe, and Blaire Adie Bee. For home design I love Ashley Stark and Sarah Sherman Samuels, though there are so many others I follow too.
I am not a huge podcast listener in this season, though there are many I enjoy off and on. It seems I have very few alone moments with blocks of time where I don’t just prefer quiet (ahh the challenges of parenting toddlers!)
The key with virtual mentoring is finding authors or speakers you really like, then follow all they do, either live, on YouTube, TED Talks, blogs, or whatever. You can often reach them directly through Twitter or email, you’d be surprised how accessible people really are, myself included. But be sure to read all they have out for public consumption first, as often your question or inquiry has already been answered somewhere in their universe.
We need to be life-long learners craving knowledge. Read, ponder, discover, and experiment. That’s how we become experts with a growing bank of our own knowledge and ideas to share and say.