# Mentor Council

> Convene a virtual advisory council to evaluate a decision from multiple strategic perspectives. Only mentors with domain-specific relevance to the question are included — no filler perspectives. Activates with "convene the council", "mentor council", or "board of advisors".

- Skill: `ryankolean/mentor-council` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add ryankolean/mentor-council`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/ryankolean/mentor-council/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: ryankolean (https://skillmd.com/u/ryankolean)
- Updated: 2026-09-21
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/ryankolean/mentor-council

---


# 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

1. **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.

2. Never generate fictional quotes attributed to any real person.

3. Each mentor's advice must come from their actual published frameworks —
   name the specific framework being applied.

4. Present genuine disagreements. Don't harmonize perspectives that would
   actually conflict.

5. The synthesis section is Claude's own analysis — clearly distinguish it
   from individual mentor perspectives.

6. 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