As some of those close to me know, yesterday was my birthday(I will not say my age). Usually this is a day in which I sit back relax reminisce a little about where I am, where I began, where I've been, and where I want to go. Due to the continued success of CertificationPoint, the affects of mentoring weighed heavily on my mind.

I've had some very good mentors in my time here, most notably my father, but with respect to my career field of choice I have had mentors who have forced success upon me as well as some who've forced failure. Those times of success do wonders for keeping you encouraged and feeling really good about yourself, but I am becoming more of a believer that in those times of failure an individual is forced to expand. I can recall holding grudges against some mentors but they have also helped me to grow probably moreso than the mentoring who provided steady and glowing encouragement.

My initial college years were full of failure as I tried to pursue a degree in computer science and also play basketball. Those were some awesome experiences but my growth in my future field of choice grew at a snails pace. Some classes I took I got great grades in put lack the real applicable knowledge behind the theories. They were other classes where I failed horribly. At the time I wasn't aware that I needed to together my puzzle via these classes, but also learn to apply in the workforce or better yet apply via creativity(entrprenuership). I use the term puzzle because normally we don't see one person putting together a puzzle, most times there's more than one person working together to connect the pieces.

I evetually called a timeout on college but not on learning as I joined the military, many military members know what I mean. I chose an IT career field and was introduced to a different type of learning and application. It was during these times I was like wow...what did I really learn in college and why wasn't trying to apply what I was learning. Eventually I completed my core military learning and was permitted to start back taking college courses. It was at this time my puzzle started coming together. I believe I started to really experience great growth due to the fact all or most of my courses tied to my degree. I could close all of my learning gaps via our more experience and longer tenured military members in the organizations that I was part of.

Evetually, I started to really that creating useful apps for various processes was my route. I could create little apps and allow member to use them and critique...some where cool and some sucked and some led us towards similar but more well-design off the shelf products.

Mentors have played a very big role in my life and this is the intended purpose of CetificationPoint. I believe vertical mentoring and horizontal mentoring
(mentoring from peers)can add to the depth of others puzzle as they begin to reach there potential and validate their credentials.

What are your thoughts on the benefits of mentoring?

How has it helped you in your career path?

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