Squiggly sprint 24: Day 12 - Mentoring

Day 12 of the SquigglySprint, the topic is Mentoring. (It’s actually quite a bit after day 12, but my team has been visiting this week, and I am being a #SquigglyStacker this weekend and catching up on my writing, So expect some out of order posts this week)

The thing that I liked about this podcast was the focus on those people that aren’t formal mentors that you. There is often a mindset around mentorship that it needs to be a big and dramatic thing, and I know of people that have found a mentor through what almost seems like an interview process.

Conversely, you can get advice from different people at different times, and it might just be in that moment where you need help with a specific problem. Rather than a long standing relationship, that might be just a coffee with someone that you met at a networking event a while ago. I have certainly had plenty of these occasions, for example when doing work in a new area and wanting to bounce ideas off someone that has done it for a long time.

It was also nice to hear the idea of summarizing the conversation for someone after. People often don’t realize how much they have helped you. Explaining it back to them can help them understand that some of the quick and obvious things that they said are not things that everyone knows.

I’ve commented in this series of posts that people don’t know what their superpower is, as it is so easy and obvious for them that they don’t realize that they are so good at it. The same goes for the little nuggets of wisdom you can get from someone. It may not occur to them that these are gold dust for you. 

https://youtu.be/67MZ7Bme1Ak