Mentorship to me is defining the question and to seek mentors to help shape my thoughts, provide some guidance and support.
There are multiple sources for seeking mentorship. Look around you. Anyone can be a mentor. Your colleague, friend, spouse, books, may be even your kids and most importantly the ubiquitous internet!!
What you need to know before seeking a mentor?
Before seeking mentorship you need to know what your questions are. No mentor is going to read your mind and identify the questions and solve all your problems. The role of good mentor is to help you find your own answers through self-exploration.
The four mentors of my life
Mentor 1. My ex-colleague/ex-manager.
My ex-manager is an amazing scientist and has a lot of experience in my field. He had so many qualities I wished I had. At that time I was struggling with questions like
- How to effectively read a journal article?
- How to organize articles
- How to think big picture
- How to deal with failures in the lab etc
I reached out to him and asked if I could meet him regularly. I started off with some questions and he helped me to build on it. As a result of this exercise, I got some nice set of tools to work on my problems. It helped me organize my thoughts and projects. I try to meet him regularly or atleast send a note sometimes. Communicating progress/feedback with your mentor will help establish credibility and also shape future conversations.
Mentor 2: My husband is my career coach
Yes, it is hard to take spouses seriously. And I am no different but mentorship relationship with spouse is life long and ongoing.
During my PhD in molecular biology, I always thought postdoc is my next obvious step followed by setting up a lab. I used to complain about my lab failures all the time. But my husband helped me realize that post doc is not the only path. He helped me see that there are other options to pursue.
So during my last semester in PhD, I explored several alternative career paths including management consulting, patent law, science writer, data scientist, industry research, technology development. I ruled out one by one and figured out my love for problem solving and troubleshooting and learning new technologies. I ended up landing a research scientist job at technology innovation lab.
Networking, the dreaded word
Another very important aspect where my husband mentored me is in networking. I dont like networking but I attended every single networking event during my last year of phd. Everone tells you that networking is the key so I did it anyway.
Networking is a big term. If you break it up it means
- Meet people outside of your regular group
- Add people whom u meet on Linkedin
- Meet them if possible in other conferences
- Keep in touch via linkedin like congratulating them when they achieve something etc..
You cannot do this for every single person but you get my point. These rules are buried in my subconscious mind so I try to do them when I can. This is where the magic happened.
My second job is purely through networking. I was reaching out to potential people just for advice and to chat over coffee to help me think through next steps. One of them was the person who interviewed me 5 yr ago. I didnt get that job at that time for better or worse (I should say for better). I added her on my Linkedin and when I was looking for people to reach out, she was one of many in my list. She replied to me the next day about a job posting. I apparently made a strong impression in my interview and I met her once during a conference. Lucky me she remembered these when i reached out to her. I got the job and I should say it is exactly the kind I was looking for to grow in my career.
So mentorship may not solve your problems instantly. It helps in preparing you to be ready when a need/opportunity presents itself.
Mentor 3: My current manager’s manager
My current manager’s manager is an amazing mentor. Lucky me, I dont have to ask her a question. She gives me so much advice and she talks about the exact questions which I have on mind.
One of the advice she gave me was to learn well from my manager. She gave me that advice many times and I thought isn’t it obvious? But its not. Just like how we tend to overlook good qualities in spouses, we also overlook them in our bosses. May be because we interact with them everyday and take them for granted?
So I started to observe my manager and am trying to identify the skills that I can learn from him that are necessary for not only this job but in general for career growth. This is something im currently working on.
Mentor 4: Books
I love the saying “When u are ready to learn, the teacher appears”.
I’m amazed how many times I encountered a book when I m struggling with a problem. This example is more for personality development. Recently I came across the book ‘The Dance of Anger’.
I notice in me that there are some specific circumstances which ignite a pattern of emotions. They appear and reappear. I never stopped and looked at them but just kept on letting them bother me and eventually drain my energy. Dance of anger helped me. I really like the quote “Insanity is doing the same thing again and again but expecting different results each time”. This book taught me to pause and come up with a solution instead of going through the same set of emotions again and again. Im trying to put it to use and it is helping me to look at the problem from a different perspective.
Some myths to bust about mentorship
Lastly, here are some myths or misconceptions I wanted to break.
First, that there is only one mentor and he/she has solutions to all our problems. C’mon, everybody is busy with their own lives. We cannot expect one person to be there all the time to guide us and be invested in us.
Secondly, It is important to understand that mentorship is not a tool sought by unsuccessful people. But in fact, most successful people seek mentorship to become even more successful because they know the power of mentorship.
Thank you for reading. Now, go find a mentor!
About the author
This piece of article has a little bit of vulnerability, a little bit of humility and a lot of confidence.
Suma is a friend from the times of school! Her intelligence, perseverance, dedication and simplicity had blown my mind ever since I came to know her from close proximity. She made it to the IITs. And even before she finished her graduation, she was one of the 8 students selected to participate in research at UC Berkeley. As you can see, I cannot stop gushing about her!
Suma is a Genomics Research scientist (Bristol Myers Squibb). In her own words, she is striving to be more self-aware and to lead a happy and a healthy life.