Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 616, Having a Business Mentor.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 616.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is called Having a Business Mentor.
A mentor is a person who gives you advice.
It's a conversation between Alex and Kenya.
Let's get started.
I'm going to meet my business mentor.
Your business mentor?
What do you do with a business mentor?
Well, my mentor is like an advisor.
We meet regularly, and I get her feedback and guidance with my ideas on starting a business.
Oh, so you're her protege?
No, I'm not.
I simply go to her with my ideas, and she helps me hash them out.
She's a successful entrepreneur, and I'm there to learn from her experience.
How did you get her to be your mentor?
Were you already friends?
No, I contacted her out of the blue, actually.
I've read about her company and her many successes and I wrote her a letter telling her about me and what I hope to accomplish.
She agreed to meet with me and at that first meeting we really clicked and now we meet once a month.
That's very generous of her.
What does she get out of it?
I'm not sure, but I think she enjoys giving me pointers and sharing her expertise.
I'm very appreciative, and she says I remind her a lot of herself when she was my age.
I take that as a huge compliment.
You should.
If you're like her, you'll be a multimillionaire in no time flat.
Our dialogue begins with Alex saying to Kenya, Where are you going?
Kenya responds, I'm going to meet my business mentor.
A mentor or mentor M-E-N-T-O-R is a person who provides advice, help to someone for free, usually someone who is either much younger or someone who is less experienced in a particular area.
So if you decided to become a lawyer and I hope you don't then you may find an older lawyer or a lawyer with more experience to be your mentor, to help you, to give you advice and so forth.
Kenya says, I'm going to meet my business mentor.
So obviously this has to do with helping her in her business.
Alex says, your business mentor?
What do you do with a business mentor?
Kenya says, well, my mentor is like an advisor.
An advisor, A-D-V-I-S-O-R, is someone who also provides advice to another person, who helps someone make a decision.
A mentor is one kind of advisor.
Kenya says that she and her business mentor meet regularly, meaning on a schedule, perhaps at the same time and the same day each week or each month.
She says, I get her feedback and guidance with my ideas on starting a business.
Feedback, F-E-E-D-B-A-C-K, is your opinion about how something is doing, whether something is working well, whether it is a good idea.
The verb we use is typically give, to give feedback.
We appreciate your feedback on our podcast, your opinions, your advice and so forth.
Well, Kenya gets feedback from her mentor.
She also gets guidance.
G-U-I-D-A-N-C-E.
Guidance is another word for advice, assistance, help on how to do something correctly.
In this case, how to start a new business.
Alex says, oh, so you're her protege.
Protégé, P-R-O-T-E-G-E, is a word that we borrowed from the French.
In English it means a person who receives advice help guidance, perhaps even money, from someone who is older or more experienced.
So the protégé is the person who is receiving, who is getting the advice.
Kenya responds, To hash out.
H-A-S-H, something out or to hash out something, is a two-word phrasal verb, meaning to discuss something in great detail, to look at every possible piece of information about something, to spend a long time discussing it.
Often we use this expression when two people have different views, if they have a disagreement about something, and they're trying to come to an agreement.
Kenya says that she's not her business mentor's protege, but I think she really is.
Perhaps she just doesn't like that word.
I'm not sure why.
You will have to ask Kenya.
Kenya says that her business mentor is a successful entrepreneur and I'm there to learn from her experience.
Entrepreneur is another word from the French.
In English, it means someone who takes risks and starts a new business.
Usually a small business owner, someone who decides to start their own business, is an entrepreneur.
E-N-T-R-E-P-R-E-N-E-U-R Alex then asks, how did you get her to be your mentor?
Kenya replies, Actually.
Kenya contacted.
Made contact with her by calling or emailing, or sending a bird with a message, or throwing a bottle into the water with a message.
All of these are ways to contact people.
You can contact us here in Los Angeles.
If you live near an ocean, just put your note in a bottle and throw the bottle into the ocean and eventually we'll get it.
Or email.
Where were we?
Kenya, yes.
Kenya had contacted her mentor out of the blue.
The expression out of the blue, like the color blue, means unexpectedly, something you weren't expecting, or something you do without planning, without any previous connection to the person.
In this case, it is really the last meaning, without any previous connection. or prior relationship.
Somebody called me out of the blue and asked me to teach their daughter English.
I did not know this person.
They contacted me and I wasn't expecting it.
Well, Kenya contacted her mentor out of the blue.
She read about her company and said, her many successes, the things that she was successful at.
And so Kenya wrote her a letter telling her about herself and what she hopes to accomplish.
To accomplish means to do something successfully, especially something that is difficult or unusual.
The noun is accomplishment.
Running down the A marathon is a long race, so it has to be something difficult.
The mentor has many accomplishments.
She agreed to meet with Kenya, and at their first meeting, she says, we really clicked.
When we say that we click with someone, or simply we clicked, It means that we had a good relationship almost immediately with the other person, that we enjoyed talking to each other, that it didn't take long for us to be comfortable with each other.
The word click, C-L-I-C-K...
Has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some more information.
Now Kenya says she and her mentor meet once a month.
Alex says that's very generous of her.
That's very nice of her.
What does she get out of it?
The expression to get something out of something else means to receive some benefit from your action or your participation in something.
That you get something too.
So if you help, for example, teach a young child to read, the child learns to read and, And what you get out of it is the joy, the satisfaction of knowing that you helped that young child do something.
Alex wants to know what the mentor gets out of this relationship with Kenya.
Kenya says, But I think she enjoys giving me pointers and sharing her expertise.
A pointer, P-O-I-N-T-E-R, here means a piece of advice, a recommendation.
We might say a tip, T-I-P.
That's a pointer.
There are some additional meanings in the learning guide on this word as well.
EXPERTISE
Notice that it is spelled with an I at the end, I-S-E, but is pronounced like it were an E, expertise.
Well, expertise is special knowledge about a certain subject, a certain what we may call field, area of study or interest.
A person who has expertise is called an expert.
Kenya says that she's very appreciative.
She's appreciative of her mentor.
Appreciative means that you feel thankful.
You feel grateful for something that another person has done for you.
We should all be more appreciative of our families, our houses, our jobs, and so forth.
There's always things to be appreciative for in our world.
Kenya is appreciative of her mentor.
Her mentor says that Kenya reminds her a lot of herself.
She reminds her of herself, meaning she sees something about her own experience in Kenya.
I take that as a huge compliment, Kenya says.
A compliment...
C-O-M-P-L-I-M-E-N-T means nice words about someone, showing that you respect them, you appreciate them, you admire them.
That's a compliment.
There's another word pronounced the same, compliment, except there's an E in the middle of the word.
That means something very different.
Compliment with an E is something that goes along with or matches or completes something else.
A compliment with an I is is a nice thing you say about someone.
If your husband or wife cooks you a good meal, you should compliment them.
In fact, even if it isn't good, you should compliment them.
Well, Kenya takes the fact that this woman sees herself in Kenya as a huge or big compliment.
Alex says you should.
You should take it as a compliment.
If you're like her, Alex says, you'll be a multi-millionaire in no time flat.
Multi or multi M-U-L-T-I hyphen says is a prefix something that goes in front of the word.
That means many or more than one.
So a multimillionaire is someone who makes more than a million dollars two million, three million, ten million dollars a year.
Let's say
The expression in no time flat says F-L-A-T means very quickly, very soon, in the very near future.
Alex means that if Kenya is like her mentor, she will soon be a multimillionaire.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Where are you going?
I'm going to meet my business mentor.
Your business mentor?
What do you do with a business mentor?
Well, my mentor is like an advisor.
We meet regularly and I get her feedback and guidance with my ideas on starting a business.
Oh, so you're her protege?
No, I'm not.
I simply go to her with my ideas and she helps me hash them out.
She's a successful entrepreneur and I'm there to learn from her experience.
How did you get her to be your mentor?
Were you already friends?
No, I contacted her out of the blue actually.
I've read about her company and her many successes and I wrote her a letter telling her about me and what I hope to accomplish.
She agreed to meet with me and at that first meeting we really clicked and now we meet once a month.
That's very generous of her.
What does she get out of it?
I'm not sure, but I think she enjoys giving me pointers and sharing her expertise.
I'm very appreciative, and she says I remind her a lot of herself when she was my age.
I take that as a huge compliment.
You should.
If you're like her, you'll be a multimillionaire in no time flat.
We're all very appreciative of the expertise of our scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
