I would like to find a mentor.
My wish in life has been to try and build a business with my brother. For reasons we have been denied the opportunity for the last 20 years.
I was hoping to find advise and inspiration on how to proceed. Not sure this is something g anyone is interested in conversing on.

Thanks for your time.

You found woodweb, tell us some more about what and why ?

Search for an organization called "The Alternative Board" and see if there is anyone in your area.

I've been a part of this for several years and it has been very helpful.

A mentor would be great but consider the fact that you have 4000 years of written history to tap into. Even with a mentor you will be greatly encouraged by reading or now, these days, listening to audio books. You can listen to them while you drive and as you go to sleep at night. I think it's really great that you could be in business with your brother. I have a couple of friends who are in business as general contractors, they are brothers. It's funny to watch them finish each others sentences.
I applaud you for seeing the value in finding a mentor.

Steve,

Does the Alternative board physically meet? I just finished perusing their website and was suprised I couldn't find any section on local chapters, only webinars.

To be more specific.. my brother and I couldn't have been married to more different women. My relationship with my brother had always been important to me and my wife. When my wife and I met at 17 my brother was 12. She was highly competitive and controlling. She was the powerhouse bread winner and spender in their relationship. She was not fond of my accomplishments in life and my interest and talk of forming some form of business with my brother. In hindsight I am so grateful that we never did.
He's ben divorced for two years after a 5 year divorce case.
Long and short, he has had a home repair and remodeling business for 10 years. He has good happy customer base and a very good reputation. He wishes that I could become involved. I am still employed in my trade, non construction related, but have a natural talent as does my brother. Oh another thing I'm 54 and he's 50.

Well, I don't know what to specifically ask, though that conversing with you members would help me to formulate and verbalize.

Thanks again, sorry of this seems like a lot of babble, but I'm hoping it will evolve into more.

Gary, I'm in the Philly area and there are a few groups. We meet monthly (about 6-8 owners) and also have a monthly one-on-one with the organizer. In my area, the group leaders are highly qualified, experienced, and successful business people that find joy in helping others be successful. I was in another organization before this and it seemed that anyone who could pull a group together was allowed to start one up. That seemed more like the blind leading the blind. If you want to shoot me an email, I can put you in touch with the local guy. They do network together so he might have a referral to someone in your area.

Sorry if I missed some rules...
Is there a limit to how much to type in a thread?

No limit on word count per post, no limit on the number of replies. Sometimes it gets out of hand.

It's easier for the group to chime in on specific questions. So if you can break the enormous task of company formation down to smaller tasks, you'll get better advice. You might also want to work on a rough draft of your question and read it to yourself before you post. I'm still not clear on whose wife was against starting the business, yours or your brother's.

And look back through the archives - there's an enormous amount of advice here. All for free!

Paul,

I see why your recommending the draft, I mixed things up a bit. It was my brothers wife that didn't want me involved in any way shape or form of my brother life.

I will look into the archives and see what is available.