You Need a Mentor or Mentee [ #15 #Mentorship #Mentor #Leadership #Mentee #LeadByExample ]

Welcome to the Own It Podcast with me, Nicole Hollar, where we're going to talk about stuff to help you get out of your way, take charge of your life, and, well, other stuff too. Hey guys, it's Nicole Hollar. Welcome back to another episode of the Own It Podcast. Today I want to talk about mentoring. I was having a really great discussion with a few people in the past weeks, really. We were talking about role modeling and mentoring, and I had a friend tell me how When she was working at a company, somebody approached her and was like, "Hey, I want to mentor you," and she wasn't really at the I'm going to say place in her life to be open to receiving a mentor. And she was like, "No, we're good," because they were they had been working for the same company for around the same amount of time. They were around the same age, and my friend was like, "I do not think that I'm going to get anything of value from you," and also. I'm kind of offended that you even asked to be my mentor, as if to say you are more knowledgeable than me. So I kind of laughed because mentoring is an amazing opportunity to be a mentor, to be a mentee. It is an opportunity for growth for both parties. But the thing is, just like when I'm coaching clients, I can't force someone to do it. And you can't really, if you're working with a coach or a trainer or anything of any form, ask them to be bigger and different than out of their box, if that makes sense. So when you want to approach a mentorship, first of all, it's an excellent opportunity as a mentor because you might have somebody who's asking you for guidance, which means that they look up to you. In Feeling Stuck and 10 at 9, I talk about modeling. You are a role model whether you decide to be or not. People are observing us all the time. And in fact, my wife and I, as a sidebar, we were at dinner the other day and I was like, I wonder how many people look at us and they're like, so what do you think their deal is? Are they friends? Are they more? What do you think they talk about? Because we all have eyes, we make up stories, we're all observers of the world. So if somebody has asked you to be their mentor, that means they must see that you have values and qualities that they admire, and that's pretty awesome. So the first way we become a mentor is somebody asks us, and the next way is, of course, that you ask somebody else if they would like you to be a mentor, to provide them with guidance or feedback. Because maybe you see somebody who needs that, or you see potential in that person, and you want to help foster their growth, which is really awesome because in the confines of any type of growth experience, we need people who are going to give us a little push, give us a little pull, and want to lift us. But like I already said, if you approach the wrong person or at the wrong time, they may not receive that Appropriately. So there's a little bit of timing when it comes down to asking somebody if you can be in a mentor role for them. So someone's going to ask you, or you're going to ask them. Likewise, to have a mentee, you are going to ask someone. And if you do that, be sure it's somebody who has displayed their openness and willingness to provide you with some help or support, or at least other people. And who you truly admire for their knowledge, their skills, their abilities, their experience, their possibility in seeing the bigger picture. You might also be asked if you become a mentee, right? Somebody may ask you to become a mentee, and instead of becoming offended by it, maybe you want to inquire what it is that makes them decide that they would like to support and encourage you. Because they might see potential in you which you didn't realize existed, which is the thing that may have made you so defensive by rejecting the possibility of having a mentor. And either way, it's an opportunity for growth. I mean, sometimes it's even just a fluid and informal thing. A lot of relationships do become that. You guys may have heard me mention back in the day when I first came out of college, the first real job I had out of college, my boss Elaine, who was the vice president of the company, became sort of an informal mentor to me because I admired and I respected her. I respected her knowledge, her skills, her confidence, the way she moved around the place. Definitely displayed a level and an aura of capability, which I truly admired. I laughed because, of course, at that time, I was younger than I am today. What I also liked with respect to her relationship with me is that I was a young, very early 20s, out of college, and she gave me the opportunity to tell her, I want to learn as much as I can. She said, okay. Gave me some boundaries and parameters, but also gave me the opportunity to own where I screwed up and how I was going to fix it. I remember walking into her office one day. I mean, like, hey, Elaine, I really effed this up. And she looked at me and goes, great, how are you fixing it? And I told her I was doing X, Y, and Z. And she said, okay, don't do that again. And that was really the conversation. But I think she respected the fact that I was willing to come to her and go, I made a real big boo-boo, and that I had already had plans in motion to fix it. But I had a safe space that I could do that. And outside of that, she always provided me with good guidance and feedback and really encouraged me to learn and grow as much as I wanted. So if you decide that you want to be a mentor, keep a few things in mind. One of the best ways to learn more is to teach, and that allows us to sharpen our skills and our knowledge. And it also improves our communication skills because you have to be able to observe and listen and communicate back in the way that your mentee needs you in order to help them grow. And it is also a reminder of the growth process when, you know, when we are helping people. I know in my career, one of the things that helps me grow more and more are my clients. Like, they are probably the number one thing that helps me to grow in both my profession and as a person. So being a mentor can really enhance who you are as a person because it also gives you new perspectives and helps you see challenges In a different way that maybe you're going to be able to appreciate because you didn't before, right? Because you've been at this place for so long that you forgot what it might have looked like when you were younger, less skilled, less experienced. It's a little sometimes like being a tutor and trying to figure out the best way to create that path from, like if you're a math tutor, from X to Y. You're like, well, I just know how to do it. So when we got to scale back and see the different approaches and challenges, you go, oh, that's right. Let me be a little bit more empathetic to the person and the position they might be in. And that's going to, again, enhance our own knowledge and our growth. Plus, it's building confidence for you because you realize that you still have the skills to help other people and to lift other people up in a way that you may not have been doing for a while. And let's be fair, on a more self-focused standpoint, it does demonstrate your own leadership and can help you boost your career because you are demonstrating that you are capable of leading an individual and helping lift them. One of the most rewarding things in my experience, in fitness especially, is that when I can get people to be better than I am, which I think is pretty fantastic. You also have a feeling of purpose. And again, being a mentor, a coach, whatever you want to call it, it is a very purposeful feeling. It allows you to see the bigger picture and recognize that you have a lot more value than just how you connect and do your job because you are actually helping to expand And create the knowledge base for the whole company and the goal. And it just keeps you more engaged. It keeps you more engaged because you have somebody else that you're committed to. Plus, you get to navigate how to push somebody and pull them back a little. Sometimes people are a little bit too eager without enough knowledge, and some people have a little bit too much fear, but they have the knowledge. So this is going to give you the opportunity to help push and pull people a little. And it's also going to expand your network and create some long-lasting relationships. And on the flip side, as a mentee, it's going to show that you are open to receiving advice, that you are coachable, that you want to learn more, that you're looking for a different perspective, often from somebody who is of a different generation than you even. So you have presumably a little bit different values and beliefs when it comes to even work ethic and perception. And it's going to give you a place to bounce ideas off in a safe place that may seem out of the box that you, you know, maybe you were going to say something in a meeting because you had this thing in your head. Now you've got somebody to bounce ideas off of and brainstorm, which is pretty awesome because now you have somebody who— Can give you constructive feedback, which you may not have felt you had the safe space to do outside of a, you know, a bonus or a review meeting before. And it's going to help you leverage another person's experience. Like I said, if you're a mentee, you've got somebody with a lot of experience. They're going to help you fill in the gaps but not do the job for you. And just like being a mentor, you are going to expand your network. And have long-lasting relationships, presuming of course that you guys really get along well, because being able to develop that relationship is going to create a really great future reference for you, whether it's within your own company for job promotions, or even if you choose to leave or they do outside of the company. And these are really important things because we want to have people who have our back and that believe in us. And that reflects on both of us as the mentor and the mentee. So whether you choose to be a mentor or a mentee or not, just remember you're being watched. So if you are the more seasoned person, what's the harm in truly mentoring somebody who could learn from your valuable experience? And if you are somebody who's newer and you have a lot of room for growth, you're still being watched too, right? So to look for a mentor to help to elevate you, like I said, is going to show that you want to grow, that you are coachable, and that you are looking to expand your knowledge and horizons. You know, when I was a newbie at my company, I kind of came in and just said what I wanted. I didn't really want to even work at the company, frankly. We came to this negotiation, if you will, that first job out of college. She's like, I want 3 years from you. I said, okay. And I said, I want to learn whatever I can, you know, that's reasonable. I didn't want to learn about finance because that really was no interest to me. But I worked in the production side of a record label and I wanted to be on the marketing side too. So I was allowed to sit in artist development meetings, marketing, things of that nature. And it created a lot of mutual respect between us. But I always understood where I was in the pecking order as well. So we want to make sure that there is respect in the relationship between the mentor and the mentee, but also make sure that you're creating a shared and trusting experience between the two, knowing that the goal is really to elevate you both. So if you don't have a mentor or you don't have a mentee, maybe now's the time to seek one out. Because remember too, you can be both a mentor and a mentee at any time. So here's to going out and finding your own mentee or becoming a mentor. I hope you have an awesome day, and I'm going to leave that for today as I always end it. Remember, you can find me on most social media platforms at Nicole Holler Coaching, and you can also check out my website to learn more about fitness and breakthrough coaching, as well as submit topic requests for podcasts, guests, and learn all about. new books that are coming out as well. I hope you have a great day, and remember, this is your time.