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Business Fundamentals was developed by the Global Text Project, which is working to create open-content electronictextbooks that are freely available on the website http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu. Distribution is also possible viapaper, CD, DVD, and via this collaboration, through Connexions. The goal is to make textbooks available to the manywho cannot afford them. For more information on getting involved with the Global Text Project or Connexions email us atdrexel@uga.edu and dcwill@cnx.org.
Editor: Molly Lavik (Vatel International Business School Los Angeles, USA)
Reviewer: Debbi D Brock (Berea College, USA)
Mentor insights are the lessons learned by the protégé/mentee. Mentor insights are depicted as spokes on the wheel because they are the glue that effectively holds together everything else. Understanding your mentor’s driving philosophies is essential if you want to gain the wisdom that your mentors possess. There is a tremendous amount you can learn from a mentor’s successes as well as their setbacks. Mentors come literally in all “styles, shapes and sizes”. When you are away from home be sure to keep a “look out” for people who might have some business wisdom to share with you.
Places you can go to find mentors potentially ideal for coaching you with your startups include:
To keep track of the insights that you pick up from mentors try keeping a journal of the lessons you are learning that are applicable to your startup. Mentor insights can come from a business executive or role model who you want to emulate. Mentor insights can also come from observations of others.
I was fortunate to meet a student named Jay Milbrandt while teaching a Social Entrepreneurship course at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management. Jay had recently traveled to Bangladesh and kept journals of his first-hand observations of meeting people who were prospering through micro-finance loans. I found these journal entries extremely inspirational and we hope you will as well. We encourage you to be on the alert for micro-finance opportunities in your country as a proven method for helping those that are less fortunate than yourselves. By reading these journal excerpts you can experience how those less fortunate are finding success no matter what their economic situation. Micro-financed loans are imparting a great deal of opportunity to those that really need it and transforming the economies of developing countries in remarkable ways! The following are excerpts from the journal of Jay Milbrandt.
The shear numbers are impressive. 1.2 billion people throughout the world live in extreme poverty. Accordingly, extreme poverty is defined by the World Bank as living below $1 per day purchasing power parity threshold. The United Nations set the Millennium Challenge goal of eliminating extreme poverty by the year 2025. In Bangladesh, at least, it appears to be well on the way. It’s easy to get lost in the numbers. But, when you travel through Bangladesh meeting the microcredit borrowers, you realize that behind every number is a life—real people and real families. Suddenly, the statistics come alive.
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