WEBVTT - You Don’t Really Need a Mentor 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.000 When you start out in your career, you get one 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.920 big piece of advice, got yourself a mentor, And yeah, 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:11.560 that sounds great, but how do you find a career guide? 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:26.200 And what if you never do? This is game plan. Hi. 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:29.520 I'm Rebecca Greenfield and I'm Francesco Levy, and this week 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.680 we're talking about the elusive mentor that we're all supposed 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.000 to have, this career guru that guides us through our 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.720 professional lives and if we have one, will have the 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:41.879 best professional development and achieve all of our goals. And 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.400 really it's just another thing to feel insecure about if 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.559 you are an ambitious career type and you don't have 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:51.280 a mentor because you didn't get that memo or you 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.440 miss class that day where they teach you how to 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:55.960 get a mentor, and it just feels so awkward and 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:59.840 unnatural to be like you person, will you be my 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:04.839 intour please now? And that doesn't that's not real, so awkward. Yeah, 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.360 what you really want is, you know, you and your 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.679 mentor lock eyes across a crowded room and you have 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.600 a great personal connection, but you also happen to really 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.600 admire them professionally, and they are willing to give up 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:20.959 a fair amount of their time to help teach you 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:23.400 how to become a professional like them, and it all 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.880 just comes together so beautifully. Yeah, it's like a meat 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.240 cute in a movie. Yeah. Why can't mentorships just be 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:32.800 like the first fifteen minutes of a romantic comedy because 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.759 our lives are movies real. So yeah, was that your experience, 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.200 Frantistico though, with your mentorship mentors that you've had, No, 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.559 it hasn't. And I've definitely had people in my life 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.759 who I treated as mentors, are considered mentors or looked 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.920 up to be. They editors I really admired early in 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:54.920 my career, or even professors of mine at journalism school. Um. 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.520 But and I think that when I was earlier in 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:59.360 my career, it made sense to check in with them 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.320 occasionally and just drop them a line saying what I 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:04.279 was up to or ask them for advice on something. 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:08.079 But because those relationships were informal and sort of organic, 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:12.239 they faded away, as organic relationships do. And I think 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:14.560 it would be a little weird for me to to 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.520 drop a line to an old j school professor asking 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:21.040 them for advice. Yeah, the people who I consider mentors, 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.840 I don't think they even know that they're my mentor. 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.840 So if I said, hey, mentor, let's do some mentoring today, 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:33.239 they I thought we were friends. Yeah, I'm like, no, 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:34.919 you're a little bit older than me and I look 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.240 up to you. I don't know. Yeah, we're obviously both 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.680 trying to play it cool with our mentors. I don't mean. 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.440 There are companies that do have formalized programs, but it's 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:48.679 pretty rare. UM. The Society of Human Resource Management does 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.400 the Benefits every year and they found that twenty one 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:55.240 percent of organizations have a formal program where they pair 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:57.880 up employees young and old so that they can have 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.960 these mentor relationships. Which does it sounds nice? So if 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.160 you're a new employee, you get handed the name of 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:06.919 somebody who's been there for a while and can show 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.160 you the ropes. Yeah, when you put it like that, 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.400 maybe it sounds a little forced. Again, well yeah, but 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:14.320 it's it's also the total opposite of what we did, 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.120 and maybe there's some advantages to it, Like, you know, 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:22.200 we have informal mentorships and those people haven't actually made 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:24.120 any commitment to spend a lot of time with us 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.280 throughout our career. This at least puts that relationship in 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.080 place formally. Yeah, although I found some other research that 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:35.280 said you still have to have a relationship with the 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:39.320 person or else. It's basically just like not having a 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:41.240 mentor at all. So if the mentor and the mentor 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.200 you don't have um like a personal relationship, then it 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.720 doesn't work. So it's like you can force them together 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:49.600 in a room once a week, but if they don't 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.920 make that connection, then it doesn't work. It's a catch 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.080 twenty two because the relationship that you want to have 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:57.880 is the one that's going to help you. That relationship 0:03:57.880 --> 0:03:59.880 that's organic where you do get along well with some 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.000 but it's really hard to sustain that relationship if you 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.480 don't do the formalized mentor program thing. And so you 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.360 do set up a mentorship relationship that works. There are 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.720 people that say mentorships don't actually go far enough. So 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.480 it's all well and good to have somebody handing you 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:18.680 career advice that you can do whatever you want with, 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.000 but what you really need is something called a sponsor, 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.440 and that's somebody who might also be your mentor, but 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:29.560 more importantly, they have the power to actually advocate for 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.360 you and fight for you in places that you can't 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:34.240 do on your own. So they're in that meeting with 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.600 top executives that you don't get to go to saying, hey, 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:39.520 you haven't noticed this person, but you should give them 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.479 a chance on this big project. Oh good. Another relationship 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.200 for me in distress about not having I don't think 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.240 I have a sponsor. Uh. And another thing that I 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.040 was thinking about with my own mentor experiences is that 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.440 it's very hard for me to find someone who has 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:55.839 gone through what I've gone through and is doing something 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.320 that I might be doing in ten, fifteen, twenty years 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:00.839 down the line. Um just be because of the changing 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.440 nature of our industry, but a lot of industries have 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.159 changed and are going to continue changing. So when I 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.800 do talk to people who I look up to, they 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:10.840 don't really know how what to say to me. They 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.120 don't they didn't go through what I'm going through, and 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.239 they have no idea what's to come. So I find 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.920 that also frustrating. But maybe we need to be thinking 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.440 about mentorships differently. Maybe we need to approach them differently 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.400 and be looking for them in different places. And that's 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:32.760 what our guests didn't phyllis quirky is the executive editor 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.119 of Hooked, a storytelling app. She's also a former editor 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.000 at The New York Times. When she was seeking out 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.320 a mentor, instead of looking for somebody older and more experienced, 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:52.119 she went in a different direction. I think we should 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:57.400 start with what is your definition of mentorship. I would 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:01.640 say it's one person sen in a work setting who 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:07.800 has special knowledge that they can share with another worker. 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.560 It's as simple as that. I think some people get 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:12.760 caught up in the idea I have to have a 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.919 mentor and define it as that. But in reality, I 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.320 think most people, if they're lucky, but I think most 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.359 people have this at some point in their career, have 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.920 somebody who teaches them something. And even if they don't 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:28.920 call themselves a mentor, consider themselves a mentor, that's an 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.240 effect what they are. I think a lot of us 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:33.440 struggle with the idea of, oh, I need to find 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:35.520 a mentor. I'm going to seek out this older person. 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:37.880 And it kind of can feel like an inorganic Yes, 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.560 it feels very unnatural, artificial and like you're trying to get. 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:43.160 Like you were saying before, it's it feels like I 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.119 want to get I need this to get ahead, and 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:50.359 it becomes kind of stressful and pressurized. Is that not 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:53.040 how your mentorships developed or is that what they were 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:56.080 like initially? I never had, like I know some people 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:00.480 in my early career they actually participated in mentorship program ams. 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.200 I never did. I just had people. And I'm still 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.279 friends with one woman and she's like fifteen years older 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:08.719 than me, and she really helped me in my career. 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.320 But we never called it that per se, but it 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.840 was just something that that happened. We liked each other. 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.200 You know, should be someone you like and it shouldn't 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.640 be this very transactional kind of thing where I give 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:21.440 you this and you get ahead and then you do 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:23.280 this for me. I don't. I don't like quid pro 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.200 q rols in general in career kind of things. I 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:31.480 think things should be organic and um, you know it's um. 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.280 I think if it happens naturally, that's better. But if 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.559 you you can ask someone, I mean, if you feel 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:38.920 a bond with someone at work, it's certainly fine to 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.840 ask someone will you be my mentor? So we talked 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.600 about age a lot and now year later in your career, 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.720 at that point, did you switch from being the mentee 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:53.120 to the mentor. Well, I guess I would have. I'm 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.560 fifty seven now. I guess maybe it started to be 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.280 in my mid forties that I started to realize I 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.960 was older. I'm not sure that I have been a mentor. 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.480 Maybe I have. Maybe people would say that I have been, 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.000 and I just haven't thought of myself that way. I 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.520 think that's actually probably true. People would say that I 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:12.880 was a mentor, but I never, you know, defined it 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.200 that way. But I think I was entering in a 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.920 period of journalism where I think youth started to be 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.840 very much idealized and glamorized, and so I don't think 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:27.400 that I felt anyway that older people were perhaps not 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:29.720 quite as valued. Maybe that was just me, but that 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:31.520 was a feeling I had. Yeah, I can tell you 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.640 as a younger journalist, I would you know, I definitely 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:39.160 am always looking for older Yeah. I don't think that 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.400 that relationship should be discounted, A should be discounted, but 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.560 I tend to discount things in general, So that's something 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:47.400 I kind of de fault too, So that's probably I'm 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.040 sure that's true. I mean, I think it's usually the 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.480 people who I've um sought out as mentors there they 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:55.800 tend to be not that much older than me, because 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.520 I think with the changing demographics of journalism, there just 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:04.240 aren't many older journalists in many news organizations I know, 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:08.720 and that's very sad, and that is partly because of 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.920 the idealization of youth, I think in a way. You know. 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:15.760 But so about a year ago, you decided to seek 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:21.040 out an unconventional mentor yes, I thought I really wanted 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:25.839 to learn Snapchat, and the idea of it terrified me. 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:27.640 And I had gone on there and I thought, I 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:31.400 have no idea how to do this. And Snapchat was 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.520 all the rage and and you know, people were saying 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:36.720 that it was an important thing to know about, and 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:39.160 I thought, this is an important part of our culture, 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.120 and people were doing journalism and The Times was starting 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:47.760 to do journalism on Snapchat, and so, you know, I 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.640 couldn't get very far trying to learn it on my own. 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:55.720 And it just so happened that there was a fellow 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.120 employee sitting just a few rolls down for me named 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.440 Holly Minsburg, who was in charge of our snapchat coverage 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:06.880 and social media coverage, and so I thought, I'm just 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:08.640 going to go over and see if she will be 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.040 my snapchat mentor and she's she was like twenty six 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.400 years old. What was her reaction to that? Oh? She 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:17.679 was just all for it. She was meeting like yeah, well, yeah, 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.640 I loved her. She's just this really like positive, go 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.280 get her kind of Uh, you know, a person who's 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:25.920 always up for some new challenge. Do you think she 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:30.280 saw it as a mentorship? I specifically asked her, I said, 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:31.920 I said, will you do? I want it? Well, I 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.040 came at it with the idea of doing a story 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.079 about it, because I covered workplace issues and wrote about 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:39.960 them for The Times, and so I really came into 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.080 it thinking that I would write about it for others. 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:45.200 And can you tell me what the relationship was like. 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.400 Were there any awkward moments of having someone who's so 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.280 much younger than you be the authority figure? Yes, I 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.440 would say so. I mean I felt a little embarrassed. 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.760 I would say that I didn't know something or I 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:00.640 didn't know a lot about this, because, especially from what 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.120 I learned to talk talking with some experts, is that people, 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.280 especially in my generation, the baby boomer generation, they were raised, 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.040 they are used to more hierarchical work structures where the 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:14.040 older people are supposed to be have higher positions and 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.360 they're supposed to know more, and it's a little bit 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.040 it is awkward and embarrassing to have to admit that 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.800 you don't know how to do something and to have to, 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:26.760 you know, learn something brand new. Yeah, and do you 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.280 think that she had the skills to to be the 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:33.280 one who was the mentor? Absolutely? She was great. She 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:35.200 was the perfect person. Well, for one thing, she knows 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.360 all about everything about snapchat and what She made me 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.520 feel better right away by saying, oh, yeah, my fifteen 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.680 year old cousin had to teach me how to do it. 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:45.880 I felt old when I was learning it, so you know, 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.160 it's a teenage thing or started out that way still 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:54.320 someone is. And so that was she really reashared me 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.880 right away with that, and so and then just her 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.880 very positive encouraging to two two was great. I think 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.600 we often hope to get more out of mentorship than 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.920 just learning skills. You know, it's a relationship. Do you 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.480 think you were going to get that out of your mentorship. 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.400 I'll tell you, Uh yeah, I could tell because I 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.520 just knew her personality. And then we found out that 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.040 we're both from Minnesota, so that was kind of fun. 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.800 We had that in common, and you know, we we 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.160 just you know, I feel like I'm going to stay 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.200 in touch with her, and we have, you know, stayed 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:29.040 in touch. And Yeah, it was definitely more than just 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.000 learning snapchat skills. It was it was way more than that. 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:34.160 It was just more you know, it was a great 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.960 relationship and plus I was learning how to learn. Yeah, 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.640 did you mentor her? You think in the end a 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:42.440 little bit like was it hard to kind of resist 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:46.480 that more traditional relationship? I didn't. I don't think I did, 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.120 And that was something. And when I wrote the story 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.280 and talked to some experts about it, they were saying 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:55.080 that which might have been a way to um improve 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.800 the experiences if I had mentored her, and you know, 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:00.920 maybe I did, maybe something rubbed off on her that 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.040 I'm not aware of. Hopefully it did, but I didn't 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:06.120 consciously go into it. It was kind of one way. 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:08.800 Since hearing from the experts that you could have reversed 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.800 mentor her. Have you done that since writing the story 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.400 about it? Well, I have a new job now at 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.920 a tech startup where I am by far the oldest person, 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:22.480 and I'm really trying to think about how I can 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.959 perhaps be a mentor to these younger people. I mean, 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.600 I think that's partly why they hired me. So I've 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.600 only been doing it for, you know, a little under 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:34.560 four months, so I still have to find my way, 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:39.080 but I hope that I will perform that service for 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:43.360 my new colleagues. Yes, certainly, working with Talia, you learned 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:47.560 more than just how to use snapchat um. It maybe 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:49.320 was like a way of relating to the world in 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:51.680 a way that younger people relate to it um. And 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:53.280 now it sounds like you're working with a lot of 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.880 younger people. So has that helped you in your current job. Definitely. 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.720 I realized, like, I've got a colleague who's in her twenties, 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:05.080 and I realized from the start she has so much knowledge, 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.560 and I realized I can learn from her. And I 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.280 think if I hadn't had this mentorship experience, I might 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.840 have been a little more resistant to that idea and 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.160 I would have thought, Oh, I'm you know, as the 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.040 older person, I'm the one who has to you know everything, 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:22.080 while there's so there's so much I don't know, and 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.960 just admitting that is so important. Do you find that 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.920 people your age you told about your unconventional mentorship that 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.440 they were resistant to it. You know that they felt like, no, no, 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:37.280 we're the ones who know things. I know. I think 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:42.520 everyone understood, especially a lot of people my age are uh, 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.480 not everyone. I don't want to stereotype everyone my age 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.320 is this way, but we are. It's hard for us 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:54.200 to pick up new technology, and I think it's an 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:57.760 obstacle for us to in our careers. And I think 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.800 there's a widespread recognition of that out and so I 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.840 think everyone I told about that was really supportive because 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:06.720 it's so much better to have a one on one 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.040 um learning experience of these new technologies and just try 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:12.200 to pick them up on your own. This is I 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.880 highly recommend anyone who wants to learn some new technology 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:19.440 at work to try this. So, given your experiences, do 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.040 you think that we might need to rethink the idea 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.680 of what a mentor is in today's workplace? Oh? Definitely, 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.720 I mean we should. We should think of I think 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.160 it would be great of HR departments or managers thought 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:36.040 of really tried to create two way mentorship programs. And 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.800 you know that especially the two way part, which I 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.000 didn't really do as well as I You know, I 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.360 wanted to, but just to feel like there's things there's 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:48.200 in both directions, there's things that that workers can give 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.720 to each other. Yeah, how would that help older employees 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.040 advance in their careers? I guess is that something we 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.360 need to be thinking about now. Oh yeah, absolutely, I 0:15:56.360 --> 0:16:00.880 mean I think that's one thing. One reason maybe that 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.760 there aren't as many older workers or older workers do 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.120 phase out of some careers is these tech skills that 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.960 they don't have, and those are very much valued and 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.160 justifiably so. But if there were training programs and one 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.200 on one mentorship programs, say these older workers have those 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.280 skills plus you know, then then they have the then 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.960 they give the institutional knowledge of if they've been an 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.640 organization for a while, and the experiences that they've had, 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.480 they can provide those to the younger workers because as 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.480 you said about this glamorization of the young, it does 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.000 maybe discount some of the actual skills, like use that 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.800 institutional knowledge that these older workers do have to offer. Yes, 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:45.000 the wisdom factor, as you mentioned, older workers have a 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:49.160 harder time learning technology and your piece you talk about 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:52.320 that that's not just an age thing there, there's like 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:57.520 neuroscience behind the Yeah, there's actually neuroscience that shows that 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:02.800 it is physiologically harder for older people to learn things. 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.920 There are these extensions of neurons called dendrites. They're kind 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:13.280 of the antenna that past information between the neurons that 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.320 was actually shrink as you get older, which I found 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:18.840 so depressing when I talked to the neuroscientists about that. 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:23.280 But the good news is that if you practice learning, uh, 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:28.240 you can um you know, uh, you know, reduce the 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.920 effect of that. And that's what something like this does. 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.639 It really strengthens your brain. You if you practice learning, 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.360 you strengthen you know, the workings of your brain. Yeah. 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.080 I think that's the theory behind those learning apps that 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:45.360 have been mostly proven to be animosity. Um, are there 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:47.520 things that happened to your brain as you get older 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:52.480 that are beneficial to the work place? Yes. Um. What's 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:56.399 really what older people have that younger people don't have 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.320 is have less of is pattern recognition and the ability 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.840 to put things into categories. And so this is very 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:07.080 useful when you encounter a new situation and an older 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:11.520 worker might be able to see from past experience and 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:13.800 just the way their brain is organized from being able 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.720 to see certain things you know, they can call up 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.520 these these past um events and be able to tell 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.920 and predict what might happen based on this new idea. Yeah, 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.959 so it sounds like these are verse mentorship programs are 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.320 a good idea because there are things in our brains 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.119 that we see differently that we might be able to 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:36.960 help people of different ages understand better. Exactly. Well, Well, 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.479 thank you so much for coming and talking to us, Um, 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:41.560 it was really a pleasure. Okay, I hope some more 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:49.120 people do reverse mentorships because of this. What Phillis did 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.840 specifically might not work for everybody, but it just goes 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.240 to show you that people are kind of blowing up 0:18:55.400 --> 0:19:00.280 the mentorship model. Like the traditional approach, just find somebody 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:02.480 who will teach you and stick with you throughout your 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.520 career who's older than you and more experienced, isn't really 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.960 working that well for everybody, or even for most people. Yeah, 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.440 most people under forty can't say that they've had a mentor. 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:14.960 And that's not to say they haven't had people in 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:17.320 their lives like the people we're talking about, but they 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:21.520 definitely don't have these formalized relationships. It just makes you 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.360 wonder if we're even thinking about this in the right way, 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:26.920 Like should we even be talking about mentorships or should 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.280 we be calling it something else? Like are we looking 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:32.639 for a different kind of relationship or a lot of 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.280 different kinds of relationships? Yeah, that sounds like a good 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.000 model for someone like me, who I'm not going to 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.879 find the one person, but maybe there's a buffet of 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.400 people I can collect, you pick and choose. It's all 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.040 a cart This person has experience in your industry. That 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:51.439 person is just a kind of wise sage lead type. 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:56.879 This other person, um knows how to do snapchat. That 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:00.879 sounds like a delicious um this Oh my god, the 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:06.160 salad model we just coined it. Yeah, the salad mentor Yeah, well, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.439 I love the idea of a salad mentor. Um. It 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:11.760 is a lot of work, though, to go out and 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.240 find all the people with all the specific skills you need, 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.000 also when you don't even know what those skills are 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.320 sometimes because who knows what the world will be like 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.160 in fifteen years. I think that that puts a lot 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.280 on the employee. Yeah, but the more we've talked about it, 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:27.800 the more I feel like I'm coming down on the 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:32.080 side of actually doing the work and having the awkward conversations, 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.480 like you can only get so far if you're trying 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:39.920 to be laid back about finding career guidance. So you're 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:43.480 gonna have to send some awkward emails and you're going 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.359 to have to look around and do a deep inventory 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:48.400 of what skills you think you need and who has 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:49.879 those skills that you might want to talk to, and 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.439 you're probably going to have to get some rejection. I 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.000 feel like with everything that helps you in your career, 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:59.000 there's an element of it that's just not cool, like networking, 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:01.960 mentor ships. It's like you can't be cool about it. 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:03.280 You have to be sort of a door and say 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:05.160 I need your help, and I'm going to send you 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.240 a politely worded email explaining exactly what I need from you. 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.520 This is why I'm all about LinkedIn everyone once again, 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:16.639 Once again, we are not sponsored by linked And now 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:23.239 it's time for half big takes, happy fake takes. You 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:25.600 can call in with your very own half big take 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:29.200 at two and two six one seven zero one six 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:31.320 six And this week we have a listener half big 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:35.640 take about saying goodbye. This is Meg from New York. 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:41.240 My half big take is about saying goodbye at the elevators. 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.320 We just shouldn't do it. So someone comes to your 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.560