How to Find a Mentor Who Can Accelerate Your Career | Christine vs. Work

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0:56Christine:How to find a mentor. So everyone's saying that you should have a mentor. It's good for you. But I don't have one. I don't know how to feel about it. I'm kind of on the fence. I feel like I'm making this grand request for someone who is probably way more busy and got way more things on their plate. Am I too old to have a mentor at this point? Or who on earth would want to spend time with me? I have a ton of excuses, but I know it's important. I'm going to give it a shot. So in this video, we're going to figure out how to find a mentor and make sure we're getting all the benefits from that relationship.

1:38Christine:Stick around if you want to see me go through these tips step by step. I'm ready to start my mentorship journey. Let's go.

1:50Christine:Before we start, a brief word from our sponsor. We all want better ways to work. Confluence, the leading team collaboration software, keeps your whole company in sync. Confluence is one place where you can create, collaborate, and share work, so you can spend less time meeting and more time doing. Get it free today at Atlassian.com slash meetless. When you have somebody that has your back, somebody that cares about your success, it really has the opportunity to give you external perspective on how you can be happier at what you're doing. That's Leslie Camino. She's the Senior Director of Global Learning at Keysight Technologies.

2:30Christine:She manages leadership development, diversity and inclusion, and culture programs. For people like me, you know, I don't have a mentor. What would you say? Like, to people who are like, yeah, well, I'm good. I don't need one. Well, research shows that having a mentor increases your capability of promotions, particularly in women and women of color and people of color. You are able to increase your capability in certain areas of the job. We know the impact that it has on engagement, retention, employee growth. Okay, we're getting into mentor hunting mode. Let's lay out all the necessary steps. Okay, take a pause before you start sending out those mentor invitations.

3:14Christine:Just understand what are you trying to do? What's your goal? What do you need out of this person? Do you have a higher vision? Do you have a higher aspiration that you want to achieve? You're essentially going to sell that dream to that person to be able to say yes to investing their time, their energy, and their knowledge. Get very specific. For example, I want to become a better speaker. I want to become a better writer. I want to network with certain people. Get super specific so you don't have to do a lot of work with the mentor up front. Next, remember that this relationship... Hey, it's Christy from Lululemon.

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4:49Christine:Is two ways. So both parties should feel some value out of being in this relationship. So think about what you bring to the table and don't be shy about it. What is that special gift? What is that special knowledge that you bring? I've had CEOs that cannot wait to be mentors of emerging leaders. Why? Because CEOs are insulated and this gives them a glimpse lower in the organization. All right. You want to make a short list of people that you want to reach out to. I'm trying to figure out who to even consider. Somebody that listens, somebody that's able to share their story, somebody that doesn't mind being vulnerable, and somebody that you feel really comfortable with and has the time.

5:34Christine:If your top pick isn't available right now, that's fine. You made a connection. That's something. Now it's time to send your pitch. It's just a top line intro and your vision. Here's who I am, here's where I want to go, and would you be down to help me on that journey? And then set up some time for a one-on-one meeting. That first meeting has to be about checking that chemistry. It's like a first date, kind of. Totally, I didn't want to make that correlation, but it really is. Okay, let's say you make a connection. That is awesome. Now, this is the most important part. If you take away anything from this video, is that you are responsible for making this relationship work.

6:19Christine:This means running the logistics, setting up the meetings, figuring out the agenda, being really clear what you want to do during this time together because they're giving you a great gift of their time and knowledge and insight. They just need to roll up and just be in your hands, right? I'm so excited to give this a whirl. You have a lot to gain and really nothing to lose.

6:47Christine:I rode into Boston today. I'm going to meet up with one of my potential mentors, hopefully. I'm excited because she's a senior producer. She works in a lot of the similar platforms, and she works for a media company, but I'm hoping to trade notes. We're going to get some coffee. I'm really excited, and also it's a beautiful day, so let's go.

7:12Christine:All right, so I'm home now, but I think it was a win. We discussed, you know, we should do this again. We're tentatively doing like a bi-monthly call that we can kind of keep up to date and not like blank and have a year go by before talking again. I'm really excited that I went through everything. Thank you, Leslie. Hopefully this is a two-way win-win. I feel great. Okay. Peace out. If you're still watching, one, thank you. But two, I'm really curious. Like what do you want me to explore? Like what problems do you have at work? I love to solve them. Please leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

7:52Christine:And if you have any other ideas, throw them my way. All right. Peace out.