Insider Tips from the Pocket Mentor: Be for Others

Vince Reardon, author of The Pocket Mentor: Insider Tips from America’s Most Successful People, is back to share more great advice. In addition to motivational tips in Monday’s feature of the Motivational Minute, Vince shares advice on being yourself through self compassion in this week’s Insider Tips.

This week Vince shares advice on being for others about it is a value that is so important for success in life.

Vince explains that it is great to be yourself, but secondarily, it’s important to be for others. “If you want to be successful and have a happy life, you’ve got to be for others,” he says.

In some way, try to make a difference in someone else’s life – through volunteerism, coaching, or mentoring. Try somehow to brighten someone else’s day, not just your own. And if you do that, you’re going to be a lot happier than not.

One of the people Vince spoke to in compiling his book was Ricardo Kobe Williams. He comes from the ‘mean streets’ of Chicago and was involved in gangs at an early age. During his career in gang life, he spent three stints in prison. When he got out the third time, he decided to change his life. Vince shares that this wasn’t easy to do because the gang was all he knew – it was his family, his employment, his future.

One night while Kobe was watching TV, he saw a segment on a new organization in Chicago called Cease Fire. (It’s now called Cure Violence.) The segment talked about the unique organization and how they were violence interrupters. They didn’t use the police to break up gang fights; rather, they utilized former gang members to go into homes and talk to gang members and encourage them not to resort to violence. This had never been done before. As a result of these programs, gun violence has gone down by 40-70% in certain neighborhoods.

One of the most moving things about Kobe is that he is a father figure to hundreds of young men in Chicago. And the irony is he never really had a fater himself. His mother was a drug addict and his father was a gang member. Yet Kobe Williams is an effective father figure to many young men that don’t have a father figure themselves. He exemplifies the value of being for others. This value is one that so many people interviewed say is a so important.

Stay tuned to Insider Tips from the Pocket Mentor each week to hear more about varying topics from the variety of people in Vince’s book, The Pocket Mentor: Insider Tips from America’s Most Successful People.