This month’s breakfast meeting featured a well recognized guest speaker to accompany Il Forniao’s wonderful pastries and delicious coffee.  Jason Ma is Founder, CEO and Chief Mentor for ThreeEQ, Inc., a premier provider of personalized, 1-on-1, top-tier college counseling, personal development, and career success coaching services for the motivated millennials, teens, and tweens of select high-net-worth parents worldwide. ThreeEQ also provides high-powered global business growth and human capital success consulting services for multinational corporations and institutions. Jason is listed as one of the world’s top experts, an elite college and career success coach and mentor for high achievers, and a sought-after speaker and thought leader on education and business.

Originally from Hong Kong, Jason began his talk by outlining the colorful aspects of his past career with multinational firms and startups in the U.S. and China. Coming from a tech business background and having traveled over 2 million miles worldwide, he described the re-invention of his career to mentor and counsel our “Next-Gen Leaders”. This led him on a 2,000-hour team journey to research, plan, write, and publish his book Young Leaders 3.0, which was released late 2014 and in which he shares part of his teachings to “unleash the full potential of next-generation leaders”.

Jason Ma is also a member of the B20 Employment Taskforce, one of the five B20 task forces that lead engaging and recommending policies to the G20, the premier forum for international economic cooperation led by the Presidents and Prime Ministers of the world’s 20 largest economies. He’s also been a Forbes contributor on elite college prep and admissions, unconventional education, leadership, and entrepreneurship.

Some of the questions that the CEO attendees asked during Mr. Ma’s discussion:

• “What is the best way to unlock the potential and cure ‘millennials’ disease’ among employees?”
• “When mentoring young leaders, what are the key traits that you’re looking to instill?”
• “How important are mentors in the lives of successful leaders?”
• “Regarding relationships with next-gen leaders, are the traits of trust, credibility, and authenticity critical?”

Mr. Ma’s advice for next-gen leaders:

• Increase learning capacity and continuously learn: Information is now accessible at the touch of a button… focus on expanding your learning and processing capabilities.
• A jar can’t read its own label: Seek mentors who can help guide your decisions and actions and provide feedback. Find a quality coach/mentor for different aspects of your work and personal lives.
• On authenticity and purpose: Work towards goals with a greater purpose and keep your messaging and branding authentic and honest.

Many thanks to Jason Ma for generating a wonderful discussion and addressing a topic many business leaders struggle with today.