A few things we’re great at
See everything that we doPresent yourself Better
Do you dread speaking in public? Do you hate facing a big audience?
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Think More Clearly – Plan A, Plan B
Once we face our pressures we can deal with them. Look them in the eye and they are not terrifying at all.
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Rediscover your Purpose
Sooner or later in everyone’s life they ask themselves the big question ‘What’s it all for?’
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What Really Matters
Finding it hard to locate the source of a problem at work or in your life?
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Arouse your Creativity
Can you, then, sit in front of a blank piece of paper and ‘create’?
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Thought-provoking nuggets from our mentors on life, work and everything else that makes the world go round
The Daily Dollar Auction and Persistent Inflation
They couldn’t call it The Daily Paradox because Terrific Mentors International has already established the name – but they might have done so to better effect, at least for most[…]
Read moreUncle Kenneth’s bathtub
My Uncle Kenneth, father of cousin Jackie, with whom I spent a lot of time when I was growing up, was the oldest of my grandparents’ children. His aspirations were[…]
Read moreNeed for Strategy
Torsten Bell, Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation, began his powerful Financial Times article on 13Mar23 by saying: “The UK has lost the habit of thinking strategically”. I do not[…]
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Who we are
Founded more than 25 years ago by Mentor, CEO, Author John Bittleston and Senior Management Coach and Trainer Eliza Quek, Terrific Mentors International is a group of highly skilled mentors, coaches and trainers comprising an eclectic combination of experience, intellect, wisdom and a strong passion for reviving human spirits and balance sheets; the two often go together.
Our history
The business started in Singapore in 1991 and was later incorporated as Terrific Mentors International Pte Ltd. Over the last nearly thirty years we have served more than 20,000 clients, all over the world.
Our Licensed Mentors have been carefully selected for their skills, integrity and temperament, and put through a rigorous Terrific Mentors International Training Programme. We are now ten highly effective, very experienced Mentors, Coaches and Trainers.
Our Philosophy
We are Socratic Mentors, Coaches and Trainers. We believe everyone who comes to us has tremendous potential to be released. We help them release it.
Our work is done largely by questioning and is totally practical. We use exercises and customised roleplays to make our work as realistic as possible. Clients have said that our roleplays are so spot-on that the events we write into them often actually happen.Life is a journey. A journey needs a destination.
Knowing what you want is not easy. Wealth, health, beauty, success are all generic descriptions of what we mostly see as desirable. They have to be earned. The long-distance runner doesn’t succeed unless he is focused and disciplined.
The same is true of a career. About 85% of people can discover what they really want to do. Some 15% cannot. But they can still set up their aim. Once they see the tree on the other side of the field, they will discover that life is about the journey but the journey is only possible if there is a realistic, visible destination. And destinations change. If you are not clear about where you’re heading, read the story below. It could change your life. It will surely change your view of how to live it.
The Tree on the other side of the Field
At the age of thirteen I was taught to plough a field by a Polish Exile of War, Dick Sompolenski, who worked his ‘captivity’ on a farm in England. I had watched him ploughing many times and had walked alongside the heavy Shire horses and the massive two-furrow plough quietly churning the topsoil to create a new bed for the next season’s crop seed.
And then, one day, he told me I was going to plough the field. It wasn’t a big field, perhaps a couple of acres – two days work for an experienced ploughman if the ground was reasonably dry and the going wasn’t too heavy. I was not confident of my ability to do the job. Just holding the plough steady was hard work. Controlling the horses and guiding the machinery at the same time seemed more daunting from the handles of the plough than it had ever seemed when I was walking alongside, chatting to Dick. He watched me struggle to maneuver the equipment and order the horses at the same time. After a few yards I was exhausted. Dick stopped me and came over to where I was standing. “Now,” he said kindly, “you’ve got a wonderful team of horses and one of the best designed bits of farm machinery in the land. Let them do the work for you. You have only one job. Find a tree on the other side of the field. Fix your eye on it. Do not look away to see if the horses or plough are doing the right thing. Trust them, they are. Just keep on looking at that tree until you reach it. Then you will have ploughed a straight furrow and all the rest of the ploughing you do will follow that straight line.” Dick’s advice was right. Not just for ploughing a field but for everything I did in life. As long as I kept my eye on The Tree on the other side of the Field, I ploughed a straight furrow. Sometimes the tree changed, of course, as life developed. Occasionally I forgot to keep my eye on the tree and got distracted by other matters. But as long as I kept my target in view I worked my way towards it. I remember Dick’s advice every day, and thank him for it. John BittlestonOur Mentors
Take a look at our team below to learn more about our Terrific Mentors, they are a highly talented group with extensive experience in all walks of life, as well as a wide variety of industries.
John Bittleston
Founder Mentor & Executive Chairman
Businessman, author and columnist , John’s career spans 50 years of Marketing, Advertising, Public Relations and International Management.
Business Mentor and Career Coach to over 7,500 Clients
Eliza Quek
International HR and Org. Development Consultant
Eliza brings with her a wealth of Transformational Leadership experience in both private MNCs, SMEs and the public sector.
Her experience with different corporate cultures enables deep understanding of cross cultural challenges in communications, values and behaviours and decision making.
Deepa Shahi
Terrific Mentor
Deepa has over 24 years of varied work experience including banking, executive search, freelance business consulting and coaching/mentoring. Drawing on the skills learned through years of experience and rigorous accreditation, she has helped clients become more effective, improve their career prospects, find jobs or discover their life’s purpose.
Bob Gattie
Terrific Mentor
Bob is a pioneer of financing of private sector SMEs based in Abidjan and working through the Development Banks of five West African countries.
He recently helped to incubate a specialised sports recruitment company, which has quickly become a global leader in the recruitment and management of talent for the sports industry.
Dr Tan Chi Chiu
Terrific Mentor
Dr Tan Chi Chiu’s coaching and mentoring expertise has been honed through youth training on community service expeditions, organizing and leading numerous international humanitarian disaster relief projects, appointments to organizational management and board leadership positions in the public, private, military and non-profit sectors, and as a volunteer coach and mentor.
Renyung Ho
Terrific Mentor
Continually involved in a series of new initiatives, Renyung is passionate about collaborations, co-creation and building enabling platforms. Her strong belief in experiential education and the learning that comes from resonance and mentoring has led her to seek a life defined by diversity and discovery.
Mike Langton
Terrific Mentor
Mike Langton has founded and led 5 companies from start-up to market leadership. He has turned around others when they had stumbled. In the process he has worked with the top echelon of local and multinational companies in the Asia-Pacific region, as clients and as listed company managers he reported to.
Denise Pang
Terrific Mentor
Denise combines coaching competencies and inter-disciplinary skills with corporate experience to coach and mentor over 200 individuals in mid to senior management levels in both public and private sector organizations.
Sandy Oh
Terrific Mentor
Sandy has a multi-faceted history of working in large, international organizations and starting and running her own businesses. She has succeeded in key sales and leadership positions at HSBC, JP Morgan, Dresdner, ING and Jefferies, and has been voted as a top salesperson in Asia for Fixed Income sales.
ChengBee Lim
Associate Mentor
Cheng Bee is an Associate Mentor, learning the ropes of mentoring and coaching from the Terrific Mentors at TMI
When she is not doing that, she trains educators and students on the use of technology in the classroom and gets to work on projects that help SMEs to effectively deploy technology at the workplace.Honorary Mentors
We are privileged to call the following Honorary Terrific Mentors by virtue of their dedication to helping the young become next-gen mentors themselves
Dr Liz Nelson
Co-founder of TNS, Chairman Archive of Market and Social Research, and a fellow of the Market Research Society.
Marketing in consumer, financial, health, governmental, public and voluntary sectors. Non-executive director of the Royal Bank of Scotland plc for 9 years.
Hugh Mason
CEO
Entrepreneur, Author, and Founder and CEO at JFDI.Asia, the first business accelerator in SE Asia. He has co-founded, mentored or invested in more than 70 startup companies, and supported thousands of others through innovation communities and outreach programs. He is also currently an Adjunct Associate Professor at National University of Singapore.
Eddie Chau
Serial Entrepreneur
Eddie is a leading visionary in IT. He is passionate about turning raw IPs/ideas into business opportunities and has founded several leading IT companies in Singapore.
He is also using his rich experience and success in founding – startup to exit – to mentor and help IT companies grow.
Ivan Heng
Impresario, Producer, Director, Actor, Playwright, Designer, Mentor, Star.
Ivan Heng is the Founding Artistic Director of W!ld Rice. He has directed many award winning plays that have appeared in festivals and theatres across more than twenty cities. The company opened its own theatre, W!ld [email protected], in 2019 to continue championing local productions and home grown talent for the performing arts.
He is an advocate of respect for diversity and freedom of expression.
Francesca Tiffin
Francesca Tiffin has had experience in the voluntary sector, business and in the Hong Kong Civil Service, which has given her a broad perspective.
Francesca believes that we all need Mentors from time to time in our lives. She has benefitted from the wisdom of others and would like to help in her turn.
What Our Clients Say
All our work is confidential. Feedback provided here is with permission, with requested identifiers redacted.
“I learned what it means to treat people well and the loyalty that results. I learned to trust my senior people and expect the most from them. I find, like John, that people live up to their expectations.”
Trainer
Management CONSULTANCY
“You not only spared us your time and ear, but you have showered us with a fatherly care and advice when talking to us since the first time we met. We sincerely appreciate this; words cannot express our heartfelt appreciation..”
Chairman
Transport Industry SME
“I would not have landed this role without the tremendous help of John & Terrific Mentors. He gave me a new lease of corporate life and I will always be grateful.”
Trainer
Royal Navy
Say Hello
If you would like to be contacted by one of our Terrific Mentors, mail to mentors@terrificmentors.com
or just fill out the form below and one of our team will be in touch shortly!