Sean: I have hit some speed bumps on my journey to starting a business and I'm starting to feel discouraged. How can I keep pushing forward?

Get mentors. That's the best thing. I mean, when I'm stuck in a rut, I actually ask mentors because they've been there, you know. These are people who have also struggled with the things that you are struggling with, or have failed where you’re struggling with, and they got up and they learn from it.

Mentors are good because they evaluate their failures. They evaluate their experiences. If they didn't, they'd still be failures and they're not going to mentor you. And make sure to choose your mentors well. Make sure that they are mentors with no agendas, that they really have a helping spirit. There are people who just want to help. They have a helping spirit. Make sure that they are those kinds of people so that you can ask them for time and ask them questions.

And also respect them. Respect their time. When you ask them for one hour, stick to one hour. And make sure you prepare your questions before the mentorship session. Don't go into the mentorship session and say, “I'm here. I want to learn from you.” Mentorship is not like that where you sit on the teacher's feet and get enlightened. Mentorship is about asking questions to people who have gone the way. So prepare your questions ahead.

With my mentors, usually, I have 20 questions. I'm just being safe, but usually, with 5 or 10 questions, the one hour has gone by. It has flown by. But I prepare a set of 20 questions just in case there's still time I want to squeeze that in because I want to learn from this person, you know. So that's how I do. And I feel encouraged after that because I realize it's not so bad where I am. It's actually worse what they've gone through because of technology or the advent of, you know, having mentors like this person or that person.

So get mentors. That's one of the ways that I have been able to do it. And I found it very encouraging, very enlightening. I mean, I'm not going to be where I am today without my mentors. That's how important they are to me. How about you, JM?

JM: Besides getting mentors it's important for you also to get a group that can encourage you. I hope I can pronounce it right. Inklings. Have you heard about C.S. Lewis? And then the other authors also, they have this group called The Inklings. So they meet every week for a certain day. And then at a certain, I think that's a cafe in the UK and then, they will just meet, and discuss the books that they're writing about.

And so it's very important for you to have those people who can give you support and feedback when it comes to the challenges that you're facing. And also to give you encouragement whenever you need it, whenever you feel stuck, or whenever you feel, I like your words earlier, you're paralyzed, Sean. And I know a lot of people are dealing with that also nowadays. So that's my encouragement for you to get a group as well, besides having a mentor, which is very important.

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