Metro

 

Mentorship

Mentors. Everybody talks about them, they’re essential to your success, and often important to your mental well being when you’re an entrepreneur.

A couple of years ago, I was having a conversation with a friend about mentors. I knew I should have on or two good ones, but that was about all I knew. I asked him questions like, “How did you find these mentors?”, “How often do you talk to them?”, “Did you formally ask them to be your mentor?”, “Would they consider themselves your mentor?” . And on and on. He patiently answered all my questions, but I still felt a little bewildered.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago, when I found myself on the other end of these questions, that I realized I had answered them for myself.

How did you find a mentor/mentors?

I didn’t consciously look for mentors, but I did make an effort to get in touch with people who were doing cool things or had a lot of experience in areas I was interested in. Even if I really had nothing to say, a simple “Hi, I’m Megan, and I think what you’re doing is really cool for reasons XY and Z,” either in person, or via email usually kicked off a conversation.

Did you formally ask them to be your mentors?

No. I started a conversation, and have continued that conversation, in some cases for years, in some cases, just for a couple of months. As long as I still have questions, and they don’t mind sorting them out with me, I’ll still be in a mentorship relationship.

How often do you talk to them?

If I don’t have a specific reason to connect (ie. Working on something I need advice on, a milestone to congratulate them on, etc.) I try to reconnect alteast once every 3 months with a “Hey! How are you? Here’s what I’ve been up to lately.” If I am looking for specific advice over a period of time, I’d probably meet face to face once a month. Your mentors will most likely become your friends (or friends become mentors), so it won’t be a chore to keep in touch. I also try to keep in mind that mentors are very busy people. I try to keep emails succinct, and will spend 30 minutes creating 2 powerpoint slides so a mentor can understand my project in 30 seconds, rather than trying to decipher a 300 word email.

Isn’t mentorship a two way street? What do you give back to the relationship?

Well, yes and no. I used to get very caught up with this question when I was looking for ‘the mentor’. I didn’t have expertise in anything, let alone in something interesting enough that I could significantly contribute to the knowledge of a mentor. Maybe it should be actual gifts? Wine? Chocolate? These were actual things going through my head.

Looking back, I didn’t approach any of my mentors with the mentality of ‘this is what I’m bringing to the table.’ Maybe this was wrong, but it seems to be working for me. I’ve approached mentor relationships with an extra amount of respect: Always be on time, work around their schedule, consider their advice thoughtfully (you don’t necessarily have to follow it), try to pay for the coffee/meal every once in a while, if they ask you for a favor, do it, be genuine, be honest, if I see an article that pertains to their work I send it over etc. etc.

I’ve also been lucky that the people I consider mentors are open, generous people who naturally try to develop others.

I try to think about how I feel mentoring others. I don’t care if they have expert knowledge on something, I’m not looking for what I can gain from the relationship, but I do appreciate respecting my time, and considering my advice when its asked for.

Would these people consider themselves mentors to you?

They may, or they may not. I’m sure they have a pretty good idea, but I’m not entirely sure. Either way, I’m incredibly grateful to them for their time and generosity over the years.

Oh – and if you’re one of those amazing people who has taken time out of your day to answer one of my incessant questions… thank you!

Your Umwelt

After starting ‘This Book Will Make You Smarter’ in a Toronto bookstore last week, I decided to keep going this beautiful Sunday morning. Each year, the Edge Foundation, founded by John Brockman, asks the world’s leading thinkers a question. 2010 annual questions was, “How is the internet changing the way you think?”, and the latest question in 2012 is, “What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation?”. The 2011 question, “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?”, seems to be attracting quite a bit of attention.

So far (there’s 165 responses, and I’m trying to follow Leo Widrich’s advice on reading more slowly), my favorite response is David Eagleman’s thoughts on ‘The Umwelt’. First introduced by Jakob von Uexküll in 1909, ‘The Umwelt’ is the idea that each organism living in a macro ecosystem only experiences the ecosystem through a number of means, and so the ecosystem only exists to them through those means. For example, take your front yard lawn. You experience it primarily through sight, seeing the green grass, and occasional yellow dandelion. Your pet dog may experience the lawn primarily through smell, noticing every animal that’s been through the lawn during the day, while a bacterium in the soil may experience it by chemical gradients. Does the bacterium miss the sense of sight? Do we miss the feeling of sodium levels guiding us to food? Nope, we accept the reality we’re presented with.

As Eagleman says,

“Similarly, until a child learns in school that honeybees enjoy ultraviolet signals and rattlesnakes employ infrared, it does not strike her that plenty of information is riding on channels to which we have no natural access. From my informal surveys, it is very uncommon knowledge that the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to us is less than a ten-trillionth of it. … The more science taps into these hidden channels, the more it becomes clear that our brains are tuned to detect a shockingly small fraction of the surrounding reality. Our sensorium is enough to get by in our ecosystem, but is does not approximate the larger picture.”

(One of the most genious ways of describing this, is by going to this page, and then reading the explanation and seeing the big picture here)

Similarly in every day life, we often forget to consider that we might not have the complete picture. This struck me as a great analogy of company culture. During my time with Impact Entrepreneurship Group, I loved the culture. As a group, we were daringly naieve resourceful go getters, overcoming any challenge, while making it look like everything was smooth sailing to those on the outside. We often had no idea what the ‘correct’ way to accomplish a goal was, so we would do it our own way, often more efficiently with better results. While reminiscing with people I had met through Impact, I realized that not everything was so hunky dory for others involved. Some felt the culture demanded too much, while others felt it gave too little personal freedom. Both valid complaints given the examples cited, but I had never saw them that way. We were all looking at the same organization, but given our experiences, and personalities, ideologies, etc. etc., had drawn very different memories from the organization. I’ve had similar experiences at other companies, and now, as I try to build my own company, it becomes acutely apparent.

It’s hard to draw any concrete lessons from this realization, other than to move forward being cognizant that I always always always have impartial information, and that communication is key, given my actions can be perceived as having a variety of motives. Could it be a good thing, having a culture that is viewed differently by everyone – a side effect of having a diverse team, with fewer blindspots in other areas of the business?  That is, assuming the culture is viewed as a positive one.