A couple years ago, I participated in a blogging round table at HoneyAndLance.com and I thought it was one of the coolest ideas I’d seen. So, I hope my friends there won’t mind if I borrow (heavily) from their call-for-posts post. WorkLoveLife is hosting a round table. The subject is mentors. Any blogger can participate, but a few of you I’m contacting directly to make sure you do. Ahem.

How It Works

Write a post on the topic on your blog. I’m not curating the posts, there are no prizes or winners, and all posts are included in no particular order. If you do participate, please drop the link to your post in the comments section of this post. When all is said and done, I’ll post a round-up of everyone who participated with links to your blog posts on the subject. I think the rest of the participating bloggers would appreciate you spreading the link love on your blog, too, after I post the round-up.

I’ll be looking for your post to be up by next Monday, March 1.

Benefits

As my friends at HoneyAndLance pointed out, there are many benefits to participating:

1. Test out your writing chops.

2. By interlinking the posts everyone will pump up their pageranking and take advantage of search engine traffic. Having a keyword like “mentors” or “personal board of directors” could be popular, too, and give your post a long tail.

3. Drive our individual audiences to other blogs.

4. Read interesting and diverse perspectives.

To Get the Ideas Cranking

The mentorship round table topic was spawned from a single tweet I sent out last week.

It got a ton of response – more than I thought one sentence would get, but apparently it rings true for a lot of people. I got a bunch of replies from people who could relate, and it spurred a lot of online (and offline) conversations with friends about the nature of mentorship. I joke that it takes a board of directors to run my life. But you’ll have to read my post to find out more about that.

So, who are your mentors? What do you do when you outgrow a mentor? How do you find your mentors? What value is there in having a mentor? Do any of you think having a mentor is pointless? Are you a mentor to someone else? Tell us your story. Again, don’t forget to post your link in the comments!

I’m looking forward to hearing what you think.

From my latest contribution to Untemplater.

In Annie Hall, Woody Allen describes his adult relationships with women by referencing a quote attributed to Groucho Marx: “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.”

That pretty much characterizes a lot of my friends’ love lives, too. Every time I sit down to coffee with a girlfriend or dial up one of my long-lost wingmen, I hear the sound of heads beating against a proverbial wall. He won’t commit. She treats you, your time and your interests with indifference. And Woody Allen pops into my head.

Why is it that we want the people who don’t want us?

This is an oversimplified question, of course. Because if you’ve ever had a close friend in one of these relationships, or god help you, you’ve been in one of these relationships, then you know it’s not that easy.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with me – he just doesn’t believe in monogamy.

It’s not that she doesn’t care about me. She says she cares about me. Her personality is just naturally indifferent.

Well, he’s just really busy right now, being a (start-up owner/lawyer/musician/pilot/insert self-important time-consuming profession here).

She likes me. I can tell she likes me, but she’s just flighty.

These are the rationalizations of those who suffer from Woody Allen Syndrome (WAS), a case of almost subconscious-level low self-esteem issues when it comes to the opposite sex.

Naturally, those who don’t suffer from WAS will ask, “What’s wrong with the guys/gals who actually like you?”

Nothing. Nothing at all. WAS sufferers simply never get that far. Consider the odds: You’re bound to run into more potential significant others who aren’t right for you than those who are. In my mind, it’s like a 80-20 ratio of non-matches to matches, depending on your pickiness and temperament.

Here’s how you banish Woody Allen from your dating life.

Stop waiting for things to change.

Listen to me now, fellow WAS sufferers: they will never be more interested in you than they were at the beginning. Yes, every good relationship will grow and you will be more and more in love with that person, but that starts from a pretty high level of interest from the get-go. It doesn’t start from indifference and grow to strong affection.

Stop doing the same thing over and over.

I hope by now that we all know the definition of insanity. If not, click here. It amazes me that we haven’t figured out that this applies to our romantic lives as well. If you keep picking up douche bags in bars, STOP GOING OUT TO BARS as your romantic strategy. If you keep dating people who don’t really seem that into you, STOP DATING PEOPLE who aren’t that into you. If internet dating isn’t working, then STOP. It’s not going to change. The odds of the right guy popping up after the first month is slim-to-none.

Go where the nice, caring people are.

My therapist told me to start volunteering so I could meet a nice guy. I volunteered and guess what? I met a nice guy who actually wanted to be in a relationship with me. Do something different, even if it seems improbable that it will actually work. It doesn’t have to be a soup kitchen or an animal shelter. Do something that utilizes your skills and is something you genuinely care about. I volunteered to do social media strategy for a political group, which also helped my resume.

Don’t settle for someone who won’t join your club.

As cheesy as this sounds, you need to know your worth. And you are worthy of a significant other who thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread. Imagine there’s a You Fan Club. Would he join? Would she be the president? If he or she wouldn’t even show up to a You Fan Club mixer because they have other stuff to do, then 86 ‘em. You deserve someone who is your #1 fan. And that doesn’t make them somehow less desirable. It makes them smart.

…

Check out the great comments on this post at Untemplater! Click here to read the post at Untemplater.

I was invited by the excellent folks over at Untemplater to blog about relationships. If you don’t know about Untemplater yet then you’re missing out! Untemplater is a blog network dedicated to showing the grit, reality and triumph of real young people living life outside the template, i.e. the traditional life. We write about working where you want, living how you want, and being who you want to be.

You can read the manifesto here. And you can subscribe to the RSS here. But I would visit the site – the comments section is alive and kicking.

I’ll be reposting excerpts of my Untemplater posts here, so don’t worry – you can’t miss me.

Gumption (noun): Enterprise [readiness to engage in daring or difficult action], initiative

What a great word. I love looking up words. Did you know that the better your vocabulary, the better you are at communicating? It makes sense when you think about how many wonderful words there are out there that describe exactly what you’re trying to say.

Back to gumption.

My love of the word started the first time I saw “Working Girl.” When the main character finally moves up from being a secretary, the CEO tells her, “Gumption, Ms. McGill.” And in “The Holiday,” when the main character has her moment of triumph, she announces, “I think what I’ve got is something slightly resembling… GUMPTION!”

Gumption. Initiative with a side of enterprise.

It’s one of those words you stick in your back pocket for motivation. It’s a one word inspirational quote. It’s the word you whisper to yourself when  you just don’t feel like doing anymore. It’s the backbone when someone is telling ‘no’ when you need a ‘yes.’ It’s the extra boost you need to take a good idea and grind out a business plan while everyone else is watching “So You Think You Can Dance?”

Gumption is what will set you apart, no matter the generation, the industry, or the gender.

Photo credit: MassDistraction via Flickr.

Fortune takes aim at Gen Y and profiles more than 40 twenty-somethings (most of them early twenty-somethings) who have very, ahem, grown-up jobs. It’s heartening to see a little positive media coverage for what seems to be the favorite whipping boy generation these days. Check it out. It’s inspiring, even to a fellow twenty-something!