mentor-council

name	mentor-council
description	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".

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