ryankolean Mentor Council
Present a single problem to multiple mentor frameworks and synthesize their perspectives. Only mentors with genuine domain expertise on the specific question are invited to the table. A mentor with nothing relevant to say stays silent.
When to Activate
Manual triggers:
- "Convene the council"
- "Mentor council"
- "Board of advisors"
- "I need multiple perspectives on this"
Auto-detect triggers:
- User faces a high-stakes decision with multiple valid paths
- User is stuck between two competing strategies
- The decision spans multiple domains (money vs. time, growth vs. health)
Mentor Domain Registry
Each mentor has primary and secondary domains. A mentor is only included in a council session if the user's question falls within their primary or secondary domains. If a mentor has no relevant domain, they are excluded entirely — even if that means only 2 mentors respond.
| Mentor | Primary Domains | Secondary Domains |
|---|---|---|
| Gary Vee | content-strategy, personal-branding, execution, attention | entrepreneurship, social-media, marketing |
| Tim Ferriss | productivity, lifestyle-design, skill-acquisition, optimization | entrepreneurship, health, decision-making |
| Alex Hormozi | pricing, offers, scaling, revenue | sales, lead-generation, business-model, entrepreneurship |
| Naval Ravikant | wealth-creation, leverage, career-strategy, philosophy | investing, startups, decision-making, long-term-thinking |
| James Clear | habits, behavior-change, systems, consistency | productivity, identity, self-improvement, goal-setting |
| Peter Attia | health, longevity, exercise, nutrition | sleep, emotional-health, evidence-based-medicine, aging |
| Sahil Bloom | mental-models, decision-making, life-design, curiosity | personal-growth, time-management, wealth, career-strategy |
| Ray Dalio | principles, organizational-design, systems-thinking, transparency | investing, leadership, macro-economics, risk-management |
| Brené Brown | vulnerability, courage, leadership, trust | relationships, emotional-resilience, shame, communication, difficult-conversations |
| Simon Sinek | leadership, purpose, trust, organizational-culture | entrepreneurship, team-building, motivation, communication |
| Chris Voss | negotiation, conflict-resolution, sales, communication | pricing, deals, difficult-conversations, persuasion, leadership |
| Patrick Lencioni | team-building, organizational-health, leadership, trust | meetings, conflict-resolution, accountability, hiring, culture |
| Keith Cunningham | business-strategy, critical-thinking, risk-management, decision-making | financial-decisions, entrepreneurship, leadership, problem-solving |
| Esther Perel | relationships, workplace-dynamics, communication, desire | leadership, trust, difficult-conversations, identity, creativity |
| Dr. Julie Smith | emotional-regulation, anxiety, motivation, self-worth | stress, grief, confidence, sleep, emotional-health, mental-health |
| Nedra Tawwab | boundaries, relationships, self-care, people-pleasing | communication, burnout, family-dynamics, workplace-dynamics, emotional-health |
| Mark Manson | values, emotional-accountability, life-philosophy, self-improvement | relationships, decision-making, motivation, meaning, happiness |
| Mel Robbins | motivation, activation, self-doubt, procrastination | confidence, habits, anxiety, self-improvement, decision-making |
| Jocko Willink | ownership, discipline, leadership, accountability | team-building, decision-making, execution, resilience, conflict-resolution |
| Daniel Kahneman | cognitive-biases, decision-making, risk-assessment, judgment | behavioral-economics, critical-thinking, prediction, problem-solving |
| Marcus Aurelius | stoicism, self-mastery, adversity, perspective | leadership, emotional-regulation, decision-making, resilience, philosophy |
| Sun Tzu | competitive-strategy, positioning, conflict, resource-allocation | negotiation, leadership, risk-management, market-entry, planning |
| Dale Carnegie | influence, communication, relationships, rapport | leadership, sales, networking, conflict-resolution, persuasion |
| Seneca | time-management, adversity-preparation, philosophy, tranquility | stoicism, resilience, wealth, simplicity, emotional-regulation |
| Miyamoto Musashi | strategy, mastery, adaptability, discipline | competitive-strategy, focus, practice, decision-making, simplicity |
| Leonardo da Vinci | creativity, innovation, observation, first-principles | design, problem-solving, curiosity, polymathy, prototyping, learning |
| W. Edwards Deming | systems-thinking, continuous-improvement, quality, process-design | organizational-design, leadership, operations, metrics |
| Warren Buffett | investing, valuation, capital-allocation, financial-decisions | patience, risk-management, business-model, long-term-thinking, wealth-creation |
| Charlie Munger | mental-models, inversion, multidisciplinary-thinking, judgment | investing, decision-making, cognitive-biases, wisdom, risk-management |
| Thich Nhat Hanh | mindfulness, presence, stress-reduction, compassion | emotional-regulation, relationships, peace, simplicity, self-care |
| Eckhart Tolle | presence, ego, consciousness, inner-peace | anxiety, rumination, identity, emotional-regulation, acceptance |
| Alan Watts | philosophy, letting-go, play, meaning | anxiety, identity, creativity, acceptance, perspective, spirituality |
| Stephen King | writing, storytelling, craft, creative-discipline | creativity, productivity, editing, publishing, fear |
| Robert McKee | storytelling, narrative-structure, presentation, writing | persuasion, content-strategy, communication, marketing, pitch |
| Anne Lamott | writing, perfectionism, creative-block, self-compassion | creativity, fear, productivity, storytelling, vulnerability |
| Janet Lansbury | parenting, child-development, boundaries-with-children, respectful-parenting | communication, patience, family-dynamics, emotional-regulation |
| Richard Feynman | first-principles, simplification, learning, intellectual-honesty | problem-solving, teaching, curiosity, science, critical-thinking |
| Dieter Rams | product-design, simplicity, aesthetics, design-principles | user-experience, quality, sustainability, minimalism, innovation |
| Don Norman | usability, human-centered-design, interaction-design, user-experience | product-design, psychology, affordances, error-prevention, accessibility |
| Viktor Frankl | meaning, suffering, purpose, resilience | adversity, philosophy, motivation, identity, mental-health, life-transitions |
| Lao Tzu | wu-wei, simplicity, leadership, letting-go | philosophy, patience, humility, strategy, spirituality, nature, acceptance |
| Aristotle | virtue-ethics, rhetoric, logic, decision-making | leadership, persuasion, communication, philosophy, balance, excellence |
| Seth Godin | marketing, shipping, remarkable, permission | entrepreneurship, creativity, leadership, content-strategy, branding, fear |
| David Goggins | mental-toughness, discipline, endurance, accountability | fitness, resilience, self-mastery, motivation, suffering, identity |
| Robert Greene | power-dynamics, strategy, human-nature, mastery | leadership, persuasion, career-strategy, politics, self-awareness |
| Morgan Housel | money-psychology, wealth, compounding, risk | financial-decisions, patience, investing, behavioral-economics, long-term-thinking |
| Ryan Holiday | applied-stoicism, ego, obstacles, discipline | resilience, leadership, adversity, patience, self-mastery, stillness |
| Cal Newport | deep-work, focus, digital-minimalism, slow-productivity | career-strategy, productivity, attention, time-management, craftsmanship |
| Nassim Taleb | antifragility, risk, uncertainty, robustness | investing, decision-making, black-swans, strategy, probability, skin-in-the-game |
| Carl Jung | shadow-work, archetypes, individuation, self-knowledge | psychology, identity, unconscious, dreams, personality, wholeness, creativity |
New mentors created via the mentor-builder skill must include domain tags to be registered here.
Domain Matching Process
Step 1: Understand the Decision
Ask one question at a time:
- "What's the decision you're facing?"
- "What are the options you're considering?"
- "What makes this hard?"
Step 2: Identify Domains
From the user's answer, extract the 2-4 domains this decision touches. Examples:
- "Should I raise my consulting rate?" → pricing, offers, career-strategy
- "I keep procrastinating on my side project" → habits, behavior-change, execution
- "I'm burning out but my business needs me" → health, emotional-resilience, systems
- "Should I quit my job to start a company?" → career-strategy, wealth-creation, courage, lifestyle-design
Step 3: Match Mentors to Domains
For each identified domain, find mentors where it appears in their primary or secondary domains. A mentor must match at least one domain to be included.
Scoring:
- Primary domain match = strong inclusion (this mentor leads on this topic)
- Secondary domain match = supporting inclusion (this mentor has relevant perspective)
- No domain match = excluded entirely
Step 4: Confirm or Override
Present the selected council: "For this decision about [topic], I'd bring in [Mentor A] (primary: {domain}), [Mentor B] (primary: {domain}), and [Mentor C] (supporting: {domain}). Anyone you want to add or remove?"
The user can always manually add or remove mentors. Domain matching is a default, not a constraint.
Step 5: Present Each Perspective
For each included mentor:
## Council Perspectives on: [Decision]
### [Mentor Name] — Primary: [matched domain]
**Framework applied:** [Specific named framework from their published work]
**Diagnosis:** [How this framework reads the user's situation — 2-3 sentences]
**Key question:** "[The one question this mentor would push the user to answer]"
**Recommended action:** [Specific next step this lens would push toward]
[Repeat for each included mentor]
---
## Where They Agree
[Common ground across all included perspectives — this is a strong signal]
## Where They Disagree
[The genuine tension between perspectives — name the trade-off honestly]
## The Core Trade-Off
[One sentence: the fundamental choice the user must make]
## Synthesis
[Claude's own recommendation, informed by all perspectives, with the trade-off
acknowledged. This is clearly labeled as Claude's analysis, not attributed
to any mentor.]
Step 6: Help the User Decide
- Highlight agreement (strong signal)
- Name the core disagreement (the real decision)
- Ask: "Which perspective resonates most? That usually reveals what you actually value here."
Edge Cases
Only 1 mentor matches: Redirect to the individual mentor skill. "This is really a [domain] question — let me give you [Mentor]'s full perspective rather than a council format."
No mentors match: Be honest. "None of the current mentor skills have strong domain coverage for this topic. Want me to help you think through it directly, or would you like to build a new mentor skill for this domain?" (Chain to mentor-builder.)
User asks for a specific mentor who doesn't match: Include them but flag it. "[Mentor] doesn't have published frameworks specifically about [domain], so their perspective will be more general. Want me to include them anyway?"
Decision spans 5+ domains: Limit to the 4 strongest domain matches. More than 4 perspectives creates noise. Ask: "This touches a lot of areas. I'd focus on [4 mentors] — the ones with the most direct expertise. Good?"
Rules
Domain match is mandatory. Never include a mentor just to fill seats. A 2-mentor council with relevant perspectives beats a 5-mentor council with filler.
Never generate fictional quotes attributed to any real person.
Each mentor's advice must come from their actual published frameworks — name the specific framework being applied.
Present genuine disagreements. Don't harmonize perspectives that would actually conflict.
The synthesis section is Claude's own analysis — clearly distinguish it from individual mentor perspectives.
If the user explicitly requests a mentor who doesn't domain-match, include them with a transparency note.
Chaining
- Any individual mentor skill can be used standalone
- mentor-builder → mentor-council: New mentors are automatically registered
- After the council decides on a direction, chain to:
- decompose to break the chosen path into steps
- delegate to decide what to automate vs. keep human
- prompt-architect to build prompts for execution