Colleagues are a wonderful thing - but mentors, that's where the real work gets done.

The truth is we're all searching. We're all looking for guidance, for mentors, and I'm by no means someone to follow.

Our job as friends, mentors, parents, and writing coaches is not to write anyone's college essay. That's cheating. Plus, it sends a discouraging message to the teenager that he or she can't be trusted with this important assignment. Trust the student to write the essay, but verify that it gets done. Gentle editing and proofreading are allowed.

There are lots of women I look up to, but mentors are someone you talk to and not just admire. A lot of my friends that I trust are my mentors.

My advice is for veterans to seek out mentors, people who are doing what you want to do. You have to decide what you want and have a goal. Don't worry about how you're going to do it. Just trust that you'll get there.

The things I was allowed to experience, the people I was able to call friends, teammates, mentors, coaches and opponents, the travel, all of it, are far more than anything I ever thought possible in my lifetime.

I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment.

I look at where I'm at today and realize that most of my success is owed to the mentors that was in my life.

My success was due to good luck, hard work, and support and advice from friends and mentors. But most importantly, it depended on me to keep trying after I had failed.

No one goes on a direct path, even though it sometimes feels like your peers might be racing ahead. Everyone's trying to figure it out. But if you just put yourself out there, step out of your comfort zone, establish yourself in terms of skills, mentorship, but leave space for your passions, then you're going to turn out pretty well.

I think it's important for us as a society to remember that the youth within juvenile justice systems are, most of the time, youths who simply haven't had the right mentors and supporters around them - because of circumstances beyond their control.

Mentors of mine were under a big pressure to minimize their femininity to make it. I'm not going to do that. That takes away my power. I'm not going to compromise who I am.

In a world where people are hungry for quick fixes and sound bites, for instant gratification, there's no patience for the long, slow rebuilding process: implementing after-school programs, hiring more community workers to act as mentors, adding more job training programs in marginalized areas.

Emotional 'literacy' implies an expanded responsibility for schools in helping to socialize children. This daunting task requires two major changes: that teachers go beyond their traditional mission and that people in the community become more involved with schools as both active participants in children's learning and as individual mentors.

The biggest difference is in the leadership. It was better for us. We had more coaches and mentors to help us. A lot of the younger players today suffer from a lack of direction.

Mentors provide professional networks, outlets for frustration, college and career counseling, general life advice, and most importantly, an extra voice telling a student they are smart enough and capable enough to cross the stage at graduation and land their first paycheck from a career pathway job.

I realized it's important to have love in your life, it's important to have friendship, it's very important to have mentors and family.

There would be no Mauro Ranallo in MMA, or maybe even period, to be truly honest with you... without Bas Rutten's friendship, mentorship, and just belief in my talents.

My family is mostly a chosen one. I've managed to invite some really amazing people into my life and they become family. Brothers, sisters, siblings, mentors, role models. And I like to live that way, where your family bleeds out into the larger community.

Gerald Wilson was one of my mentors: he was in his nineties before he passed and, literally, every time I saw him, he'd be like, 'Man, Kamasi, I've got this new thing! Nobody ever heard anything like this before!' It's amazing hanging out with somebody that was born in 1918.

Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature ? all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them and you'll find out how big a prize you've won.

I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment.

My success was due to good luck hard work and support and advice from friends and mentors. But most importantly it depended on me to keep trying after I had failed.

Emotional 'literacy' implies an expanded responsibility for schools in helping to socialize children. This daunting task requires two major changes: that teachers go beyond their traditional mission and that people in the community become more involved with schools as both active participants in children's learning and as individual mentors.