I had the distinct pleasure of participating in my first ever Clubhouse panel discussion, thanks to the lovely invitation I received by Sophia Ruffolo, CEO of Femmebought. I was a bit nervous going on the panel since I did not have an official speaking opportunity since last March, when I participated as master of ceremony for #IWD2020 Fredericton Women Techmakers Conference. I quickly called two of my peers to get their opinion and advice on my approach to this and was able to quickly pull together some rough notes for the evening event. It turned out, I had nothing to be really nervous about because Clubhouse is similar to podcasting – only with podcasting its one-way audio and on this platform I was able to interact with the audience – super cool!
Some key golden nuggets on mentorship I prepared:
Why is meaningful mentorship important?
- In business it is important to fill the gaps in our knowledge. We don’t know what we don’t know and having outside expertise come in to provide strategic advice at different stages of the life cycle of a business is very important.
- It is important to work with your strengths and the strengths of your team members. For any Chief Executive Officer, having sound mentors for different growth stages of the business is critical to success. It is always good to tap into the Founders who made mistakes, experienced failure and learnt from them. It is not say that you will not make your own, but hopefully with that knowledge you can avoid the ones they made along the way.
- To go beyond the initial coffee chat with a mentor, I believe it is important to have synergy. You have to connect with your mentor on a personal level especially if it is an organized mentorship opportunity and not an organic one. Take the initiative and schedule times to meet; respect each others’ time and have a good agreement in place. Also note, it is ok for you to decide which advice you implement. Think of your mentor(s) as an experienced sounding board, your personal Board of Directors who give you different avenues (Plan A, B, C, D etc.) to help you grow and scale your business.
- Be strategic with the mentor that you choose and remember it is ok to shake things up and change mentors to assist you with the different pain points as you grow and scale your business.
Why is it important to have diversity in mentorship?
Mentorship becomes meaningful when there is synergy between the two parties. I think, it is important to genuinely care for each other and to be really interested in every aspect of each others lives. In life, we can have mentors for many different areas in our lives to create greater diversity in our perspectives. A mentor can be younger or older; male or female; from different socio-cultural background/status to name a few. For me, personally, I think it is important to have mentors in five key areas of my life whether it be for spirituality, parenting, self-care, career and finance. I believe tapping into peer mentors are also so beneficial. Many of my close mentors are my peers and I love that we can share our life journeys together especially as it relates to balancing parenting and career life.
Having a diversity of perspectives is so critical in life because with time, we can be elevated to do more and go further than we ever imagined when we choose to take the advice which is in alignment with our beliefs and principles and take action.
Now that you know what I think about why it is important to have meaningful mentorship and a diversity of mentors, I look forward to hearing about your mentorship experience. I would love to hear your perspective and get your feedback on this topic. In addition, we are always looking for great guests for our podcast, feel free to send us your suggestions or nominate yourself. With a quick discovery call and we can determine if we go forward with an interview or not. Click here to book your call.
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