Speaker 1: Hey works for me. Listeners, A quick note before we
Speaker 1: start the show, we would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: What work problems do you have? Have you tried any
Speaker 1: of our productivity hacks to fix them? Leave us a
Speaker 1: voicemail at two on two six month seven zero one
Speaker 1: six six and we might play it on the show. Hey,
Speaker 1: it's Becca. Recently I went to a podcasting conference and
Speaker 1: I had a question, do you have a mentor? Mentor?
Speaker 1: I've had a number of mentors that boss is probably
Speaker 1: the closest thing to my mentor, that I go to
Speaker 1: them for advice, like a couple of times a week.
Speaker 1: Can I use them more for life purposes than I
Speaker 1: do for audio purposes? Because I wish I had more
Speaker 1: of a life mentor. My advice would just be to like,
Speaker 1: only reach out to the people who like really get
Speaker 1: you excited, and do you think you could learn from
Speaker 1: someone who's doing something that you're in just did in So,
Speaker 1: I met my first mentor. I had gone to a
Speaker 1: radio conference. We just met and she scared me a lot.
Speaker 1: And she was also the first like women of color
Speaker 1: that I met in audio. So I contacted her, say, Hi,
Speaker 1: I am I don't know, is it it's just weird,
Speaker 1: but could you give a mentor? Her response was like
Speaker 1: she was overjoyed. It was like I was just waiting
Speaker 1: for you to ask me this whole weekend that he
Speaker 1: would be like, I would look at your mentor. I
Speaker 1: think she just felt flattered and I'm very lucky to
Speaker 1: have her as my mentor. Just asking around it seems
Speaker 1: like everybody has a mentor, everyone except for me. This
Speaker 1: week on Works for Me, I go mentor hunting. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Works for Me, to show where we try
Speaker 1: out solutions to our productivity problems to see if they
Speaker 1: will work for you. I'm Francesca Leaf and I'm beca Greenfield.
Speaker 1: This week, it's Becca's turn to take something that's going
Speaker 1: wrong at work and attempt to fix it with an experiment. Becca,
Speaker 1: what is your issue of the week. Basically, I've gone
Speaker 1: through my whole career without much guidance. I have people
Speaker 1: I can talk to when big things come up, like
Speaker 1: job changes, but I don't have a dedicated person like
Speaker 1: a mentor I can go to when any other work
Speaker 1: related issues or anxieties come up. Do you have someone
Speaker 1: like that in your life? Do you have a mentor?
Speaker 1: I don't I don't have anybody like that, and I
Speaker 1: totally understand the desire for one. I think the closest
Speaker 1: I've ever come to that was when I was in
Speaker 1: graduate school and I had professors who helped me get
Speaker 1: into the industry and help me get jobs. And I
Speaker 1: kept in touch with some of them for a little
Speaker 1: while after grad school, but those relationships have fallen off.
Speaker 1: In fact, I saw somebody recently at an event who
Speaker 1: I at one time I would have considered her mentor,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure she didn't remember who I was. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's one problem, is that these relationships
Speaker 1: don't really stick where we feel like we're supposed to
Speaker 1: have them, but there's not really a designated forum. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are workplaces that do give people mentors, and I've
Speaker 1: talked to some people and they say, usually those aren't
Speaker 1: the people who end up being your mentors. It just
Speaker 1: seems like this elusive, magical thing we're supposed to have
Speaker 1: and I don't really know how to find it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You hear a lot about about the value of mentor,
Speaker 1: like in the kind of productivity circles that we run
Speaker 1: in and the kind of productivity articles that we read. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that stuff pops up all the time about
Speaker 1: the importance of a mentor and how there are mentors
Speaker 1: and there are sponsors, a sponsors like a mentor like
Speaker 1: plus somebody who who's not who won't just give you advice,
Speaker 1: but they'll advocate for you at work. So you hear
Speaker 1: constantly about the value of a mentor, you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: hear about like how to get one. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: that's what I want to do. So your problem then,
Speaker 1: really is that you don't have a mentor and you
Speaker 1: want one. What is your plan to find one? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we don't get a training manual for this. So
Speaker 1: I went out and found someone who's very good at
Speaker 1: finding mentors. I have two core traditional mentors that I've
Speaker 1: had for over twenty years, and then as I've taken
Speaker 1: on different roles personally and professionally, I've added mentors. So
Speaker 1: maybe I have like at any given time, maybe five
Speaker 1: to seven that I'm actively talking with and connecting with.
Speaker 1: This is Ellen Nsher. She's a professor at Loyola Marymount
Speaker 1: University in Los Angeles, and she's the co author of
Speaker 1: a book called Power Mentoring. She has spent decades researching
Speaker 1: mentors and is a pro at finding them and keeping them.
Speaker 1: Ellen is what I would call a mentor enthusiast, and
Speaker 1: the reason she's so enthusiastic is because decades of research
Speaker 1: has found the benefit of having one. There's a whole
Speaker 1: body of research that we've been doing for thirty years
Speaker 1: that shows definitively that people who have mentors actually make
Speaker 1: more money, get promoted more rapidly, are more satisfied and
Speaker 1: happier with their jobs. Life and work is hard enough,
Speaker 1: and you don't always have to do everything the hard way.
Speaker 1: You can learn from other people's experiences. I asked Ellen
Speaker 1: how I could find a mentor, and she said, it's
Speaker 1: as easy as following the four urs. Oh yeah, reading, writing, arithmetic,
Speaker 1: different different ours. What are the four ours? So the
Speaker 1: first R is to reflect. Surprisingly, the whole how to
Speaker 1: find a mentor starts with yourself. So you need to
Speaker 1: take a moment and think about who you are and
Speaker 1: what you want. After reflecting, step number two is research.
Speaker 1: Once you figured out what you want out of a mentor,
Speaker 1: Ellen says, research the go to people in your industry
Speaker 1: and find the people that they mentor. She suggests an
Speaker 1: all out internet deep dive, find as much information on
Speaker 1: potential mentors as possible. Then the third are is to
Speaker 1: reach out. At this point, you've narrowed down a list
Speaker 1: of people who you want as mentors. Now you have
Speaker 1: to email them or call them and ask if they
Speaker 1: will talk to you or meet with you. And the
Speaker 1: last R is to reflect again. This happens after you've
Speaker 1: already met up with them, and it's important for making
Speaker 1: the relationships stick past the initial meeting. Reflect again and
Speaker 1: ask yourself what is it I can do from my
Speaker 1: mentor and how can I show appreciation? Because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times the reason that mentoring relationships don't
Speaker 1: get off the ground or have an early fail is
Speaker 1: because the protege go in has a meeting, sucks up
Speaker 1: some time, the mentor makes a bunch of recommendations, and
Speaker 1: then the protege gets busy doesn't follow up. So to summarize,
Speaker 1: the four ours, not reading, writing, arithmetic are reflect, research,
Speaker 1: reach out, and reflect again. So reflect is in there
Speaker 1: twice feels a little bit like a cheap, But now
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like that is there's nothing in
Speaker 1: there that is so surprising, But I actually think it's
Speaker 1: nice to have a roadmap, like just that there's somebody
Speaker 1: out there who spent the time to think about what
Speaker 1: the plan is for going out and finding a mentor, because,
Speaker 1: like we said, you don't. It's just not something we're taught.
Speaker 1: We're taught about the value of a mentor, but not
Speaker 1: how to get one. So it's nice that she's giving
Speaker 1: you steps. Yeah, I was. It's encouraging that there are
Speaker 1: steps one can take instead of just waiting around to
Speaker 1: be a perfect person. So I'm assuming that doing the
Speaker 1: four hours is going to be your experiment this week.
Speaker 1: That's correct. I'm going to do the four ours and
Speaker 1: see if I can land me a mentor. How will
Speaker 1: you know if you succeeded at fighting a mentor? One
Speaker 1: of them are challenging aspects about a mentor relationship is
Speaker 1: making it stick past that first meeting. But Ellen assured
Speaker 1: me that within a month I should be able to
Speaker 1: meet up with at least one mentor potential and if
Speaker 1: it goes well, set up another meeting with them. Okay,
Speaker 1: So if you can get a meeting and then get
Speaker 1: a follow up meeting, that's your definition of six sens
Speaker 1: that's right. Okay, So I need to reflect this is
Speaker 1: step one of mentoring, I need to reflect on who
Speaker 1: I am, what I offer to someone else, my growing edges.
Speaker 1: So here I was reflecting in my apart mint. I
Speaker 1: enlisted my boyfriend Danny, so I wasn't just talking to
Speaker 1: myself about myself all alone. Ellen said a good way
Speaker 1: to figure out what you want and a mentor is
Speaker 1: to identify your strengths and what she calls a growing edge,
Speaker 1: which is a euphemism for something you're not very good
Speaker 1: at but you want to get better at. I'm becca,
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist. Damn it. My editor tells me my
Speaker 1: strengths are I'm fast and I'm smart. I agree with that.
Speaker 1: My growing areas I would like to be be better at,
Speaker 1: like thinking of bigger story ideas and be better at
Speaker 1: coming up with, you know, ideas for things I want
Speaker 1: to pursue. I feel like I really I get in
Speaker 1: my head about that. I found this part challenging. It
Speaker 1: sounds like it's hard to talk about yourself, and it's
Speaker 1: especially hard to say nice things about yourself. Or I
Speaker 1: find it hard, and I think many people can relate
Speaker 1: to that. But after some reflection, I had just sided
Speaker 1: I wanted a mentor who could push me on my
Speaker 1: story ideas. Ellen also said that during this step, you're
Speaker 1: supposed to think of something that you can offer your
Speaker 1: mentor so that the relationship isn't completely parasitic. I'm happy
Speaker 1: to read things or give opinion on things. I'm also
Speaker 1: really good at writing emails, so if they need like
Speaker 1: an email editor, I feel like you can attest to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're pretty good. I mean, yes, I I am also
Speaker 1: someone who thinks they are a good email comes out No,
Speaker 1: I just don't want to be recorded as saying someone
Speaker 1: who like constantly need to help with their emails because
Speaker 1: constantly struggle your emails. I am always helping my sad,
Speaker 1: sad poor boyfriend craft emails. So what do you think
Speaker 1: is so great about your emails? That's what I want
Speaker 1: to know. I mean, your emails are your emails are great.
Speaker 1: But I'm just wondering why you list this as a skill,
Speaker 1: because I think people come to me and asked me
Speaker 1: to edit their emails often, and I enjoy it, and
Speaker 1: I think I do a good job, and I think
Speaker 1: that's a skill that I can offer a potential mentor. Okay,
Speaker 1: after my reflecting period, I had arrived at step two research.
Speaker 1: I had identified what I wanted in a mentor somebody
Speaker 1: to push me on my story ideas. It was time
Speaker 1: to find the right person to help me with this
Speaker 1: growing edge. Ellen suggested thinking of some superstars in my
Speaker 1: field and using LinkedIn to find people related to them.
Speaker 1: I sat down with Toefort, our producer, and we researched together. Well,
Speaker 1: so one idea that I think I'm gonna do is
Speaker 1: Susan Arlene, which is someone who's like such a reach
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even think to reach out to her, but like,
Speaker 1: she's cool and she has a podcast, cry Babies. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if Susan relians on LinkedIn, so she
Speaker 1: is on LinkedIn that she clearly does not use this website.
Speaker 1: I mean it is not filled out at all. It
Speaker 1: says experience writer and there is a blank photo that's
Speaker 1: supposed to be filled in, and it just says the
Speaker 1: last forty years she's been doing that and that's the
Speaker 1: whole thing. She's been very consistent. It doesn't even say
Speaker 1: what publications she's a dead end. So it was not
Speaker 1: just Susan Orlean. A lot of people in our industry
Speaker 1: are not big users of LinkedIn and it became almost
Speaker 1: immediately clear that that was not going to be a
Speaker 1: fruitful path for me. So I decided to do my
Speaker 1: own version of internet research, and Tofer suggested that we
Speaker 1: look for people who have been interviewed on the long
Speaker 1: Form podcast for inspiration. Are you familiar with that show?
Speaker 1: I am. I'm a subscriber actually, for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: long Form is a podcast where each week the hosts
Speaker 1: interview writers, editors, and journalists about their careers. So I
Speaker 1: went through the roster of guests over the years to
Speaker 1: try to find some potential candidates. After twenty minutes, Tob
Speaker 1: and I had a solid list of ten people. It
Speaker 1: was a nice representation of people who do the different
Speaker 1: things that I do from my job. It was writers, reporters, podcasters.
Speaker 1: I felt good about it, and once I had my names,
Speaker 1: it was time for the third are reach out, which
Speaker 1: is where things got scary. We'll see how that went
Speaker 1: for me. After the right I had arrived at step three,
Speaker 1: which is reach out. This, I think is the most
Speaker 1: intimidating step. You have to email complete strangers, tell them
Speaker 1: how much you like them, and then asked them for
Speaker 1: their time. It took me a while to build up
Speaker 1: to this step. About a week after I did my research,
Speaker 1: I finally got the courage to contact my potential future mentors.
Speaker 1: I sat down with my list of ten names and
Speaker 1: their contact information, which was readily available online, and I
Speaker 1: started writing an email to the first potential mentor on
Speaker 1: my list, Susan or Lean. Hi, Susan, my name is
Speaker 1: Becka Greenfield. I'm reporter, writer, podcaster. I currently work at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg and have worked at various other outlets since I
Speaker 1: started working eight years ago. I guess I say work
Speaker 1: a lot um. It took me at least four drafts
Speaker 1: to write what I considered a decent email, and as
Speaker 1: we know, you have very high email standards, so that
Speaker 1: must have been an amazing email by the time you
Speaker 1: were done with it. Yes, I was using my special skill.
Speaker 1: I wanted to personalize it to Susan, but I also
Speaker 1: didn't want to sound too neat. It's a very delicate balance.
Speaker 1: And then I had to do the hardest part, which
Speaker 1: was sending. Ellen said a lot of people get stressed
Speaker 1: about this step, understandably, so she has a trick for
Speaker 1: getting over it. I really recommend that people come up
Speaker 1: with some kind of courage ritual. So it might be
Speaker 1: a poem, it might be a song, it might be
Speaker 1: a quote. So a lot of people run into this trouble,
Speaker 1: like reaching out to strangers as a problem, But it
Speaker 1: never occurred to me to like have a little thing
Speaker 1: that you always fall back on that makes you feel braver. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she sings a song. She sings the song, so I
Speaker 1: like amps you up. So yeah, she she sings a song,
Speaker 1: and she suggests that you just do something to make
Speaker 1: yourself feel confident in the moment. What did you decide
Speaker 1: to do for your courage rid rule, I picked a
Speaker 1: song that always lifts my spirits. And also bonus is
Speaker 1: a metaphor for my current tap. I Ain't no mountain
Speaker 1: high enough by Marvin Gay and Tammy Terrell. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the metaphor, how is it a mountain email? The email
Speaker 1: is a tall mountain. That's right, my stress climates. There's
Speaker 1: lots of metaphors. The email itself, this moment is a
Speaker 1: mountain that it's not too high for me to climb over.
Speaker 1: I can do it, you can do it. Also finding
Speaker 1: a mentor, it's the scary amount and the song goes
Speaker 1: to keep me from getting to you. So that's the mentor.
Speaker 1: The mentors on the other side of the mountain. The
Speaker 1: emails not too tall for you to climb over and
Speaker 1: didn't get to your mentor. That's great, thank you perfect.
Speaker 1: I thought about it now, So after reading through my
Speaker 1: email one last time just in case, I was ready
Speaker 1: to send it, I'm pretty nervous to send it. But
Speaker 1: first email, here we go pressing send. He Okay, it's
Speaker 1: gotta scary. Onto the next one. I found it surprisingly
Speaker 1: exhausting to write and send that email. It took a
Speaker 1: lot of emotional energy, and then I had to do
Speaker 1: it in nine more times. Hi Eran Hayman Niche. Hi, Rebecca.
Speaker 1: My name is Becca green My name is Becca Greenfield.
Speaker 1: I'm a reporter. I'm on the race class and gender
Speaker 1: in the right place team here and I admire I
Speaker 1: feel crazy. I'm looking for some guidance on how to
Speaker 1: go as a writer, reporter and idea generator. So respectable,
Speaker 1: Marvin Gay, you inspire me submit. Sending the emails was
Speaker 1: so exhausting that I only ended up emailing eight out
Speaker 1: of the ten people on my list. I just stopped.
Speaker 1: Then it was out of my hands. I had to
Speaker 1: wait for responses, and then right there, right then, I
Speaker 1: got one and it was a rejection, a really nice rejection,
Speaker 1: but a rejection. So I waited even longer. I refreshed
Speaker 1: my inbox, waited more days, pasted. It felt like an eternity,
Speaker 1: and then finally people responded, and they were more rejections.
Speaker 1: People were very nice and sent me some incredibly thoughtful emails.
Speaker 1: Some of them had specific advice in them for me,
Speaker 1: but they were for legitimate reasons, too busy to meet up.
Speaker 1: I think if you're reaching out to people you admire,
Speaker 1: there is a very real possibility that they're going to
Speaker 1: be too busy putting time and energy into their own
Speaker 1: careers to meet up with you. I think that's true.
Speaker 1: But I think that you might be underestimating how big
Speaker 1: a deal is that people responded at all. Like I
Speaker 1: think that they could have just ignored your email altogether.
Speaker 1: After all, you were a stranger, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: some of them gave you real advice or thought through
Speaker 1: what you had written to them. So clearly the fact
Speaker 1: that you put a lot of thought into your email
Speaker 1: resulted in them putting some thought in their responses, And
Speaker 1: I think that's it's kind of a win, like you're
Speaker 1: on their radar. Now, all I'm hearing is that I
Speaker 1: sent a really good email. Yes correct, I know, iratulations
Speaker 1: on your amazing email. Thank you. I was genuinely delighted
Speaker 1: to hear from people and very touched. Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: didn't help me get closer to my goal. It didn't
Speaker 1: get you exactly what you wanted. But I think it's
Speaker 1: a nice lesson the next time you're scared of something
Speaker 1: like that, because I think the assumption is these people
Speaker 1: are going to be like, what the heck is this?
Speaker 1: Totally ignore it, And actually you can get a lot
Speaker 1: more out of people than you realize. People will give
Speaker 1: you more of their time than you might expect. Dare.
Speaker 1: I say, ain't no mountain high enough you, dare. So
Speaker 1: I had to keep waiting. The holidays came, they went,
Speaker 1: and then on January two, I got an email from
Speaker 1: Manus Samaradi. Manusha is an accomplished journalist. She used to
Speaker 1: host a popular radio show called Note to Self. Last
Speaker 1: year she left to start her own podcast company called
Speaker 1: Stable Genius Productions, where, among other things, she hosts their
Speaker 1: flagship show zig Zag. She was the perfect person to
Speaker 1: help me with my growing edge. She had to put
Speaker 1: out hundreds of episodes of her show, and she seemingly
Speaker 1: does not have a problem coming up with good ideas.
Speaker 1: I responded immediately and set up a meeting with her
Speaker 1: a week later. Hi. Hello. We met up in her
Speaker 1: coworking space on a chilly morning for coffee. I sat down,
Speaker 1: put my recorder between us, and right then and there
Speaker 1: she gave me my first tip of the morning, how
Speaker 1: to hold a microphone like a pro something. This is
Speaker 1: gonna just gonna bug me, but I really think you
Speaker 1: should talk like this. And then he hand it to you.
Speaker 1: One minute in and I had already learned something. Plus
Speaker 1: Minush had put me at ease. She made me feel
Speaker 1: okay asking her some of my other career questions. After
Speaker 1: talking for a few more minutes, I brought up my
Speaker 1: growing edge, and I asked her how I can get
Speaker 1: better at coming up with story ideas. You can't do
Speaker 1: this in a vacuum. Ideas are iterative, right, Like, it's
Speaker 1: not the chances of you coming up with something that's
Speaker 1: fully formed and totally baked an amazing are pretty darn slim,
Speaker 1: Like what is the IRA glasses? Like your ideas want
Speaker 1: to be bad. It's a team sport journalism. Yes, there
Speaker 1: are people who just like put out amazing things all
Speaker 1: on their own, but I don't think it's like being
Speaker 1: an artist to paint something and has a vision in
Speaker 1: their mind. I think I have ideas of where I
Speaker 1: want to go, but there never they're never what we
Speaker 1: end up doing. The news made me realize that I
Speaker 1: was maybe putting too much pressure on my own ideas,
Speaker 1: and that I should seek out other people to brainstorm with.
Speaker 1: We spent an hour talking about stuff like this and
Speaker 1: remembering what Ellen said. I tried not to just suck
Speaker 1: up her time, and I answered some of her questions. Sadly,
Speaker 1: she did not request my email writing services. Maybe you
Speaker 1: consider another email and she'll just be so wowed by
Speaker 1: the quality that she'll ask for more help. One can dream. Then,
Speaker 1: as we were wrapping up, I had yet another challenge.
Speaker 1: Ellen said after the first meeting, if things went well,
Speaker 1: I should try to get on my mentors calendar again
Speaker 1: in the next month or so to try and make
Speaker 1: the relationships stick. I asked manus when she thought it
Speaker 1: would be reasonable for us to meet up again. Look,
Speaker 1: I have two kids, I run my own business. I
Speaker 1: host multiple podcasts, I traveled, giving a lot of talks.
Speaker 1: Time is not is the one thing right now in
Speaker 1: my life I do not have, but I do believe
Speaker 1: in Like, like, this session was extremely productive and fruitful
Speaker 1: and wonderful, and if I don't see you for another
Speaker 1: six months to a year, I really feel like we'll
Speaker 1: just pick up right where we were because it was
Speaker 1: I hate this word speaking of words authentic, but like
Speaker 1: we didn't both, do you know what I mean? We
Speaker 1: just got to it, And like I have a lot
Speaker 1: of time for people who I feel like I can
Speaker 1: meet them right where we need to be without the
Speaker 1: lead up to get there. Minusia had already given me
Speaker 1: so much of her time to ask her to commit
Speaker 1: to another meeting in the next month or two felt selfish.
Speaker 1: She's busy, and I agree with her. We got a
Speaker 1: lot out of our session. I couldn't bring myself to
Speaker 1: ask for more, so I left without scheduling another meeting.
Speaker 1: I love how skillfully she kind of rejected you in
Speaker 1: a way, like when you asked her about meeting up.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you gently broached meeting up again without
Speaker 1: being direct about it, and then she just had this
Speaker 1: way of like making it a compliment to you that
Speaker 1: she wasn't gonna probably see you for six months to
Speaker 1: a year. I she's like, that's high quality mental material
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, I didn't even think of it as
Speaker 1: a rejection. That's the first time I'm thinking of it
Speaker 1: as right. Sorry, Well you didn't give yourself the chance
Speaker 1: to be rejected because you didn't. Actually, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: a little meta about it. I was like, I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to do this thing, what do you think? But she's
Speaker 1: obviously probably wisely protective of her time. Yes, I told yes,
Speaker 1: that's the correct answer, and no, say no to mean.
Speaker 1: But that's she made me feel like she did the
Speaker 1: right thing. But you probably got scared. You probably got
Speaker 1: you got scared away by her saying she didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of time, and then you didn't push it
Speaker 1: further because it's just like that email situation. You just
Speaker 1: assumed that as someone who doesn't have a lot of time,
Speaker 1: she wasn't going to give you this. You know, she
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna give you this specific thing. But maybe what
Speaker 1: you could have used is a courage with rule. Oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, yes, just excuse me, I need to play
Speaker 1: a song right now, So I can ask you another
Speaker 1: question put on you just be like, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: put on my earbuds for like thirty seconds next time.
Speaker 1: But just because we hadn't set up another meeting right
Speaker 1: there didn't mean I had completely failed at making the
Speaker 1: relationship stick. It was time for a step four reflect again.
Speaker 1: Ellen said, I should reflect on what I can do
Speaker 1: for my mentor after the meeting to keep the relationship going.
Speaker 1: MENU should ask me to send her an episode of
Speaker 1: this show that we're working on right now. So I
Speaker 1: sent her an email thanking her for a time, with
Speaker 1: a link to our podcast. And that was the end
Speaker 1: of my mentoring journey. So, Becca, was your mentoring experiment
Speaker 1: a success? Technically, no, I failed. Yeah, I knew that.
Speaker 1: I knew the answer because you didn't get a follow
Speaker 1: up meeting. That's right. I didn't set up another meeting
Speaker 1: with Manus, which was the goal. And I don't think
Speaker 1: I got the kind of mentor relationship I had been
Speaker 1: fantasizing about. I was thinking of having someone I could
Speaker 1: meet up with regularly to talk about career stuff. But
Speaker 1: I don't know that I will ever have an explicit,
Speaker 1: ongoing relationship like that. And maybe I just need to
Speaker 1: come to terms with that. I don't think you should
Speaker 1: give up so easily on having that kind of relationship.
Speaker 1: I think maybe that the like intensive in person I
Speaker 1: r L meetups might be hard, But some of the
Speaker 1: advice she gave you, it sounds like it was kind
Speaker 1: of a way of helping you help yourself. Like she
Speaker 1: was saying, reach out to the people around you, collaborate
Speaker 1: more with the people that you work with, and so
Speaker 1: she was almost like teaching you how to fish instead
Speaker 1: of giving you a fish like she You know, if
Speaker 1: you had even an email relationship with her um or
Speaker 1: just a really occasional relationship that wasn't as regular as
Speaker 1: you might like, she could keep kind of feeding you
Speaker 1: that stuff that would help you be better in your
Speaker 1: day to day life. So it's interesting that you brought
Speaker 1: up this email relationship because I called Ellen back up
Speaker 1: after my experiment and I asked her how I could
Speaker 1: have done things a little better, and that was one
Speaker 1: of her suggestions. She was like, you should keep trying
Speaker 1: to build this relationship with the news. You can email
Speaker 1: her things and not like here's a question I'm having
Speaker 1: about my life, and we're like, oh, this is something
Speaker 1: we talked about. It reminded me of you. Like, remember,
Speaker 1: I'm a person I'm very like post date. It is
Speaker 1: a lot the mentor finding experiences very much like you
Speaker 1: should make her. Yeah, I'll make heir of Spotify playlist.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think you're right. I should not give
Speaker 1: up on my goal. So in the end, do you
Speaker 1: feel like Ellen's for ours we're helpful? I do. I'm
Speaker 1: the kind of person who likes to have an actionable
Speaker 1: plan to follow in small increments to reach a larger goal,
Speaker 1: and it forced me to go on this path of
Speaker 1: finding a mentor. I think it also forced me to
Speaker 1: reach out to people I assumed were inaccessible and unattainable.
Speaker 1: And everybody I emailed, people who I am scared of
Speaker 1: and an of and who do awesome work. They were
Speaker 1: happy to hear from me, and I think they wanted
Speaker 1: to help, or they pretended to want to help even
Speaker 1: if they couldn't. I don't think before ours consider how
Speaker 1: busy people are, especially the women that I reached out to,
Speaker 1: a lot of them are also working parents, and they
Speaker 1: I know they execute at high levels at their jobs,
Speaker 1: so it's reasonable to me that they don't have time
Speaker 1: to meet up with a complete stranger. Did you bring
Speaker 1: that up with Ellen when you called her back, Like,
Speaker 1: did she have any advice about people being really busy?
Speaker 1: She did? She was like, yes, when people say can
Speaker 1: you meet for coffee, they think, oh gosh, no, Like
Speaker 1: I don't have time for that. She said, to phrase
Speaker 1: my asks in smaller increments and say, do you have
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes to get on the phone to talk about
Speaker 1: X Y Z thing? Which I I don't know if
Speaker 1: I could do that, but it does. Why not? I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's just someone really gonna get on the
Speaker 1: phone talk to me for fifteen minutes. Well, I think
Speaker 1: it's more about this asking for the specific thing, because
Speaker 1: I can totally see people being overwhelmed by hearing somebody
Speaker 1: who sounds like they really look up to them saying
Speaker 1: I would like you to help me with my whole life,
Speaker 1: because you know, just like you had fears about being
Speaker 1: important enough to email, these people like they might have
Speaker 1: some kind of imposter syndrome too, just because they happen
Speaker 1: to be really accomplished. They might think, who am I
Speaker 1: to help this person figure out their whole career, and
Speaker 1: they might feel like it's easier to take on something smaller.
Speaker 1: It's that's a very good point. They might have needed
Speaker 1: a courage ritual to respond to your email, as to
Speaker 1: be included in my email asks, do you have fifteen minutes?
Speaker 1: I was here worried about responding to this email. If
Speaker 1: you're scared to respond, here's the ritual. Um. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: actually was listening to a podcast recently where somebody said
Speaker 1: she asked other writers to walk her through their stories,
Speaker 1: which again is a very specific ask. I could have
Speaker 1: done that and said, you know, journalist X, I loved
Speaker 1: this thing you out. Can you tell me about it?
Speaker 1: And they might be more receptive. So I learned that
Speaker 1: manus is not going to solve or help me solve
Speaker 1: all of my career anxieties and problems, and that's not
Speaker 1: really any one person's job. But I did learn some
Speaker 1: useful tools and tips for learning how to find more
Speaker 1: people to help me do that. And I guess that
Speaker 1: just involves sending more emails. Oh my god, you're so
Speaker 1: good at emails. I just find more ways to send
Speaker 1: more emails. It's actually perfect for you. M Next week
Speaker 1: on works for me, Francesca and I go to couples therapy.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you about some things that have been
Speaker 1: challenges between the two of you, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: let either of you start. I can start. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to another episode Works for Me. If you like
Speaker 1: the show, please head on over at to Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or ever you listen to, rate, review, and subscribe. You
Speaker 1: can also find all of our episodes and more things
Speaker 1: like articles Rewrite It about our detailed experiments, plus very
Speaker 1: cool illustrations done by Jordan's Spear at Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: Slash Works for Me. Have any workplace problems that you
Speaker 1: want to solve, we'd love to hear from you. Give
Speaker 1: us a call at two on to six seven zero
Speaker 1: one six and we might play your voicemail on the show,
Speaker 1: or you can tweet at us I'm at ours Greenfield
Speaker 1: and I'm at Francesca Today. This show was reported and
Speaker 1: hosted by Me at the Greenfield and Me Francesca Leavy.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by tofur Forehs Francesca leav Is,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg pet of podcasts. Do You Next Week? Him