fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Entrepreneuring pg140
By: Mernie Buchanan
Tags: Books, Writing Challenge, Mentorship, The Incompetent Psychic, Artist Memoir

Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic

Truckee River Studios poster c1985

I returned the computer manual the next day and asked if I could experiment with a title page.

“Okay.” Larry powered up the keyboard and monitor, and went into his kitchen office. Half an hour later he wandered back in to look.

“Wow. That’s great.. Can you redo all the titles to look like that?”

“I’d be happy to. I want to learn how to use all this video equipment, too, and of course I can draw all the illustrations you need.”

Larry thought for a few beats and said he was also looking for an editor. “You can have both jobs. I’ll teach you to edit and be a production assistant if you’re willing to work full time and be my office assistant as well. Are you free to travel?”

I calmly assented, and assured him that travel was no problem. But I was so giddy thrilled I neglected to ask about remuneration, or get anything in writing. Because I didn’t ask about money meant he wasn’t obligated to pay me was his theory. Like a total ditz, I just trusted he would. — From Chapter 7

Condensing sixty years of an adventurous life into three hundred pages is a formidable task. Making it amusing and suspenseful enough for a reader to keep turning the pages was pretty easy, and more fun than I expected. Finding lessons and universal truths while not getting all preachy was the big challenge. For those parts I resorted to fiction… inspired by random clues that could only come from some kind of supernatural assistance. Angels with issues? Spirit guides with a sick sense of humor? A celestial dimension where they are headquartered? I made all that up to tried to answer a question we all ask from time to time…What The Fuck?

I polished off my 20s with a semi-paid internship working with the incorrigible Lawrence Beldon. His two-person corporation was my graduate course on how to (and how not to) have a vocation as a sole proprietor. Larry is dead now, and has been for some time. I could write a book about that expensive, six-year education. I gave it five pages and moved on… to better (and worse) WtFs. During this passage with Truckee River Studios I did get to eat pizza with naked ballplayers in the Oakland A’s locker room. Every girl in her 20s should do that once.

A signed copy of Mernie’s memoir is available at www.etsy.com/listing/839838936

Unsigned copies can be ordered wherever books are sold.
Who Has Helped You Grow?
By: Tim Shapiro
Tags: Change, Mentorship, Character, Psychology, Growth

Trail markers along the journey

Photo by Shapiro

Below are trail markers of human development. How have you experienced relationships supporting your development in these aspects of character? In your past or in the present has there been a group of people or an individual who related to you in a way that prompted growth in one of the trail markers below?

Attachment: The ability to have healthy relationships in which you are your best and truest self. Through positive relationships you are able to get essential needs like safety, truth-telling, forgiveness, trust and more met. Your growth is enhanced through life in community.

Emotional Regulation: The capacity to experience, name, express and act in the midst of positive and painful emotions in a way over which you have agency. You have emotions, the emotions don’t have you. Likewise, you can be in tune with the emotions of others, hold those emotions without being swept away.

Self-differentiation: The ability to experience oneself as separate from others, or “differentiate” oneself, with personal values, thoughts, feelings and choices, while at the same time remaining in relationship with those who are in any number of ways distinct from you.

Initiative: The ability to be resourceful in relationship to the challenges and opportunities faced in life. One is not passive but uses creativity and talents to accomplish goals and help others to be proactive as well.

Transcendence: The realization that life is larger than one’s self; that one is part of a reality greater than the self. The experience of finding and contributing to meaning, purpose and an ultimate concerns beyond one’s self.

Photo by Shapiro

Competence: Competence has to do with identifying and developing one’s skills and gifts. Such ability applies to numerous life arenas including school, households, vocation, civic life, and family. Competency involves learning how to do certain activities and how to think strategically about situations and systems.

Authority: This is the experience of seeing others as equal and mutual, especially authority figures. It involves the being able to “own” one’s power and acknowledge the authority of others in ways that doesn’t diminish one’s self.

Integration: The experience of reconciling negative aspects of life, such as losses, imperfection, sin and pain, along with the positive, such as love, success and accomplishment.

Above are the “what.” Trail markers along the journey. More important is “who.” Who has helped you become the best you?
Why we need a mentor in Data science
Tags: Learning, Data Science, Mentorship, Machine Learning

Why we need a mentor in Data science

As data science is everywhere due to the evolution of tools, computation power, speed, connectivity, storage systems and algorithms there is no way of getting out of working with it. Due to the pandemic the digitization accelerated furthermore and changed complete Eco system of all the domains. Therefore whatever domain you work for you need provide data driven solutions which serves the customer at his personal level with some kind of smartness around it

With this reality already people started working towards it and preparing themselves ready but on the process they need a mentor who can direct them in proper direction with the below reasons.

1) As mentioned above we are in the era of the data explosion , we have plethora of content freely available on data science process, procedures & deployment –etc ,and most of the times people are also getting confused with this content , we really need a mentor who can give connect the content with some kind of context through his real time experience and knowledge

2) As there is saying that instead of reading some bad books, one good book gives more knowledge in the same lines Good mentor can easily access your capabilities based on that they suggests the related content/areas which you can easily explore

3) When you are working domain specific projects they always put their real time experience and specific domain experience in your products and makes your more familiar with the domain that will help you to increase your data literacy skills as well as critical thinking.

4) With his Experience and exposure he will always ensures that you are not deviating from the specific problem and makes you focus on output of the problem you are working for

5) If your mentor is a practitioner, they can offer a internship project which can give you some real time exposure as well as culture , if not they can find the same in their connections or network

Therefore here finally, what I am suggesting, whatever way you are learning data science alongside please try to find a mentor with the above qualities by that you will get some kind of direction, prospective as well as discipline in your learning through which you can easily succeed your target.
Episode 09: The “Mentor”
By: Joe Pascavage
Tags: Leadership, Management, Mentorship, Design, Design Leadership

👩‍💻 Projects

Joe Pascavage ✍🏼

What kind of projects have you been working on recently?

Brandy

Recently I’ve been shifting to a higher level leadership role at Vox Media. We are going through some organizational change management after the merger of Vox Media and New York Magazine, combining our design, engineering, and product teams. My role is now at the center of a lot of those changes, working closely with product and engineering to articulate vision and change management. We are also preparing for some robust 2021 business goals and ensuring our teams are prepared to tackle that work for our family of editorial brands.

We are also excited about investing more in our audiences at Vox Media through our platform work. We have some ambitious goals for our reader experiences, and a lot of our 2021 work will focus on holistic enhancements and platform capabilities. These enormous projects require that everyone leverage their leadership skills to ensure solid communication and collaboration.

Joe Pascavage ✍🏼

How is your background playing a pivotal role in the success of these projects?

Brandy

Through building brands and experiences for B to C’s, I’ve developed a rich understanding of the indirect, yet strong benefit of brand affinity. When users love the brand and experiences you’ve made, the entire business grows.

Witnessing the effectiveness of empowering others, I’ve built a set of behaviors that I pull out on every project. Teaching leadership skills to others, coaching quality, and prioritizing clarity are the secret sauce to high-performing teams.

I’ve seen designers, often women, experience a certain kind of burnout, where they aren’t given psychological safety or trust. That can deflate their confidence, leading to underperformance. But when we as leaders protect that confidence, keep feedback loops tight, and share explicitly what success looks like, those designers often blossom, turning into strong leaders themselves and scaling our capabilities as a result.

Joe Pascavage ✍🏼

What is the most interesting or exciting project you’ve worked on?

Brandy

In recent history, the Mailchimp brand redesign stands out as a bright spot. I joined Mailchimp to lead the brand and marketing design teams. Within three months of starting, I was leading a full brand redesign with partner agency COLLINS, a full marketing site redesign and ad campaign with partner agency R/GA, and a design system evolution with my internal product partners. To usher the beloved brand into a new era was a privilege. I got to work with some of the smartest, most talented people and we pulled off an *enormous* feat filled with risks that paid off.
The first anime arc: Azhar starts a blog
By: Azhar Ali
Tags: Computer Science, Software Engineering, Software Development, Mentorship, Trinidad And Tobago

Hello World! My name’s Azhar and I’m a 3rd-year CS + Math Student @ FIU! I’m the current Lead for Google DSC @ FIU & I was the previous Director of MentorFIU. I was an FBU Engineering Intern at Facebook this past summer and I’ll be returning as a Software Engineering Intern for this upcoming Summer 2021.

By reading this blog, you’ll be joining me on my journey through life; I hope the lessons + experiences I relay to you through this blog write will help you out in some way. It’s also gonna be a space for me to express and be myself. Thanks for joining, and you’ll be seeing content from me soon!
Everyone need Mentors ; Do you have ?
By: Saleman Hussain
Tags: Careers, Mentorship, Career Advice

Everyone need Mentors ; Do you have ?

As a student in Pakistan we face many difficulties to choose a career

I never find any institute in Pakistan from where I got proper career advice, I always look advice for my career to my friends, peers and teacher. But Never got a mentor in that field to whom life experience I can learn.

Then one day I got an idea why not I start an organization from where students get proper advice for their career and life.

I am working with my friends on this project. It’s name is Mentor Me Pakistan.

Before going to discuss idea here is something that I learn from Amal.

Don’t wait until you make your first million to make a difference in somebody’s life. If you have something to give, give it now.

Be a mentor.

Not every day is going to offer us a chance to save somebody’s life, but every day offers us an opportunity to affect one.

No one man can change the whole world, but each can change a small portion of events, and it is in the sum of all these events that history is transformed.(JN’s ted talk)

Now long story short

Mentor Me Pakistan

what is mentor me pakistan ?

it’s a organization that provide counselling to every student despite he/her is in school, college or university.

Why is mentor me pakistan ?

Because in Pakistan we don’t have any organization who provide Mentor.

who is Mentor ?

Mentor are those who are expert in their field. We connect Mentor to the student that they can direct learn from their life experience.

Independent Organization.

Personally I admire Akhuwat foundation they are not getting donation they take loans and provide it to lower society without interest.

how we can self dependent or sustainable.

1st option is sponsorship.

2nd option is we are going to launch our courses that will organization and course teacher too.

3rd option is if someone want to solo career guidance then he have to pay.
Scholarships:Your dream to pursue education
By: Mohsin Raza
Tags: Scholarship, Mentorship, Scholarships For Students, Amal Academy

World Education Services in 2020 reported that only 6% of Pakistani students continue their studies after 12th Grade. There are so many reasons for this alarming situation i.e. lack of fundamental facilities in educational institutions, the under-qualified teaching staff and high tuition fees. Moreover, Pakistan spent only 2.9% of its GDP on education in 2017. Factors like poor economy, budget shortfall and inflation, severely affect the education sector and other sectors of the country as well.

However, the good news is that there are many scholarships for the students both at national level and international level. Funding agencies love to support the needy and talented students financially. Government of Pakistan has also initiated many programs in collaboration with Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) i.e. Ehsaas scholarship program, Aghaz e haqooq Baluchistan, faculty development program, overseas scholarship program and many more. Financial assistance is a necessity for many students, particularly those planning careers that require many years of education beyond the undergraduate level. Scholarships have unique benefits and are the most desirable form of financial aid. But without proper guidance and insufficient information we cannot get the scholarship. Recently, Pakistan has been excluded from Commonwealth Masters Scholarships, United Kingdom and Orange Knowledge Program, Netherlands. The funding agencies said that it is due to Covid-19 situation and lack of funds. Whatever the reason is, I believe if our students and youth are guided properly they are capable of doing wonders. For example, in 2020 Pakistan was the top country in terms of number of applicants and remained 3rd in the world for number of scholarships awarded. This was possible because of proper mentor-ship and guidance by the seniors.

Pakistan was 3rd in the World for number of scholarships awarded.

During one of my sessions, I asked my students about the challenges they’re facing while applying for scholarships. Most of them mentioned that the biggest challenge they’re facing is preparing the documents and other prerequisites of scholarships. There’s a lack of information. No one is guiding the youth. They have no idea from where they should start. For example some of them were unable to write their personal statement, some were facing issues while contacting the university professors while others found it difficult to write essays as a part of their scholarship application.

Student has all the information but has no idea about the initial step.

This interaction with students helped me to get closer to my goal (mentoring the students and youth). Discussing with them helped me to identify more problems and challenges faced by the students. I started collecting more and more information about the scholarships. And I am in a good position to convince my group members for starting this project as our mega project. Although its a tiresome but essential job and I’m up for this challenge.
Lessons from talking to young entrepreneurs
By: Jonathan Mills Patrick
Tags: Mentor, Mentorship, Entrepreneurship, Startup

I love working young entrepreneurs. They tend to have so much enthusiasm for their ideas. Plus, they tend to teach you as much as you teach them. This week I was fortunate to spend a little bit of time with two young entrepreneurs from Nepal. They had found my Youtube channel and reached out to see if I could spend some time with them talking about their idea.

I was only able to spend about fifteen minutes with them. But we had a good discussion about what they were trying to accomplish. There are a few things that I personally took away from the discussion and a reminder of the biggest mistake I think young entrepreneur make.

We live in a global economy.

I have known this for some time but I was reminded of how modern technology has enabled entrepreneurs like me to run global businesses. This wasn’t the first time that I have worked with entrepreneurs, young entrepreneurs or experienced ones, from another country. In fact, a fair amount of the people I work with come from outside the United States.

I was also reminded that…

Content marketing is a great way to expand the reach of your business.

People have problems that they are looking for answers to. If you produce the type of content that answers those questions, consistently, then content marketing can be a great way to attract new clients. In this case, these young entrepreneurs, from half way around the world, had found a video of mine and had decided to reach out to me. That is the magic of a global economy and using content marketing to build a brand.

But the biggest lesson I took away was that these entrepreneurs were missing a step in the process.

These young entrepreneurs had not done enough research.

Like a lot of entrepreneurs, even experienced ones, they had an idea they were excited about and they were anxious to get started. That is the kind of enthusiasm that I love to see. But, that is also the kind of thing that leads to mistakes.

Rushing head first into your business is a mistake. I’m not pointing fingers. In fact, I’ve done the same thing in the past myself. Instead you need to be spending a lot of time on research.

That includes researching things like:

who are the key competitors in the space?

what do they do well?

what don’t they do well?

There are a lot of other questions you need to consider. Yet, even just answering those three will improve your chances of success.

In the case of the Nepalese entrepreneurs they were looking to offer a service that is quite common around the world. Particularly in those countries and cities that are already use to supporting startups. Still, I encouraged them to keep pressing forward. But only after they had done enough research.

Going fast has its place. Especially for startups that know they have their product or service dialed in. But jumping too far ahead is a recipe for failure.
Book Review: What They Taught Me
By: Michelle Renee Kidwell
Tags: Guidance, Mentorship, Book Review, Women

What They Taught Me

Recognizing the Mentors Who Will Take You from Dream to Done

by Kelsey Chapman

Harvest House Publishers

Christian | Self-Help

Pub Date 09 Feb 2021

I am reviewing a copy of What they Taught Me through Harvest House Publishers and Netgalley:

Kelsey Graham Isaiah entrepreneur and podcast host who thanks God for the wonderful mentors who stepped into her life to give her the wisdom, inspiration, and support she needed in each season. In What They Taught Me, she’ll show you how to find a mentor who will help you reach your dreams — and how you can become that person for someone else.

In What they Taught Me reminds us that true mentors lean in, even when it hurts, even when things get awkward. They don’t back away from our pain, they lean in helping us through it. We are reminded too that mentors are in for the long game.

Kelsey Chapman points out that risk comes with any type of relationship, but when you allow someone to speak into your life, it’s especially important to be mindful of the risk you’re taking. You’re allowing someone to not only listen to you but to offer you wisdom and input, and a high level of discernment is necessary. Some mentors will not be the best fit for you. That’s why trial and error is part of the quest for mentors. Another words not everyone is meant to be our mentor.

Mentors need to be able to get comfortable with pain. In What they Taught Me Kelsey Chapman passes the expert guidance that enriched her perspective, helped her live out her passions, and kept her hopeful and optimistic about the process. This book can help you identify your goals along with the steps needed to achieve thempartner with women who have already walked the road before youencourage others by sharing the insights you’ve gained from your own experience God uses an entire community to shape you into the person He made you to be.

What they Taught Me is a celebration of mentorship between women, and the impact these mentors can have in our lives.

I give What they Taught Me five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!
4 Tips for Creating a Mentorship Program That Works
By: Reynaldo Perez
Tags: Mentorship, Business

Creating a mentorship program within your organization can benefit you in the long run by reducing turnaround and poor performance. For your employees, it will help them grow into their positions at a faster pace without leaving them feeling lost or rushed through an onboarding process. However, none of these benefits can be experienced if your mentorship program isn’t designed to succeed. These tips can help you create a more effective program.

Match Goals and Passion

You can’t force all of your employees into a mentorship program and expect it to succeed. Those involved in the program should be participating because they support the program. Additionally, try to match people who have good chemistry together. This will help keep passion and energy levels at an all-time high. Keeping your employees invested in the program will also encourage others to participate as they see how the program benefits those involved.

Be Goal-Oriented

Keeping the mentoring relationships productive will also involve creating a program that meets each individual’s goals. Whether the individual being mentored wants to learn a new skill or pursue a path to management, their mentorship program should be customized to fulfill those needs. This will help keep your employees motivated by showing them that you care about their goals.

Encourage Communication

Especially as you start your mentoring program, your mentors may not know how to help those their mentoring. This can result in a breakdown of communication unless you take steps to help them get involved in the relationship. You can email them topics to discuss with those their mentoring once a week to ensure each team is communicating and developing a positive relationship. Over time, this will also help develop experienced mentors who are more effective in their leadership roles.

Encourage Follow-Through

The mentoring relationship shouldn’t be one-sided. Instead, you should also develop a strategy for encouraging those being mentored to communicate with their mentors. They should be encouraged to thank their mentors for their insights and bring new challenges to their mentors. When the individual being mentored is more proactive, they will get many more benefits out of the relationship.

Your mentorship program won’t be ideal in the beginning. However, if you take the time to tweak the program and mold mentors into better leaders, you’ll eventually end up with a more effective program. In time, those you mentor will advance in your organization, meet their personal career goals, and may even rejoin your program to mentor others.

Originally Published: https://reynaldoperezdc.net/4-tips-for-creating-a-mentorship-program-that-works/
small is beautiful
By: Mishti, Vidushi Sharma
Tags: Change, Mentorship, Politics

When I first landed in Bombay to move in with uncle and aunty, I was cresting high on academic adrenaline, set to help research and write India’s national education policy. I knew nothing about them besides the fact that they were respected business leaders willing to house their daughter’s college classmate. Wheeling my suitcase to their thirty-fifth floor apartment, I expected a sterile flat but arrived instead to chaos and children’s laughter.

On a wide floor scattered with toys ran four siblings, ranging in age from toddler to teen. Uncle cracked pistachios with the youngest in his lap, bouncing to Ranvir Kapoor songs on the iPad. Aunty flitted around with pages of homework while the kids’ mother, the housekeeper Surekha, cooked breakfast. The happy commotion of toddlers’ English, Bollywood songs, and nursery rhymes became my daily ritual.

Each afternoon, uncle returned from work and sat with me at the glass dining table over a homemade Tamil Brahmin lunch. That first day, over parboiled rice and sambar, I told him about my project, with a head full of ideas about scale and impact. I wanted to make changes as deeply and quickly as possible. He conveyed little in response besides a trademark quiet smile, and I wondered if he was disillusioned. That night, I received several brief email introductions from uncle to educators, simply titled you need to meet.

I spent the next few weeks reading piles of reports on Indian education that frayed my assumptions about top-down change. Roundtables discussed the same problems that had been rehashed in decades of forgotten documents. Different experts pushed their own idiosyncratic pet projects, despite the fact that most middle schoolers lacked basic literacy and numeracy. Subject committees of six wrote the textbooks used by thousands of slum children like Surekha’s daughters. The Maharashtran board decided on a curriculum of Tennyson poems and lessons on volcanism, written in clipped British English for schools full of students who spoke only Marathi.

In contrast, the people that uncle introduced me to reimagined their world from the bottom up. They invested in communities without superimposing their ideas of success. At a Montessori school run by the Sriramachandran Trust in Chennai, I met educators who believed deeply in nurturing children as individuals. In the most cooperative classroom I have ever seen, students of all ages helped each other add sums, solve puzzles, and do chores. At home, uncle was always a steward and never an owner. He was careful not to let the kids’ schooling come at the expense of their local relationships. I assumed that each child would attend college, but he wanted to support them through their own visions of success, whether that meant someday learning a trade or getting a degree.

Behind uncle’s silence at our first lunch together, I realized, was never disillusionment. It was a deep belief in the beauty of helping individuals find their personal calling.
Getting A Mentor Like A Tinder Date
By: Ian Golightly
Tags: Skills, Advice, Mentorship, Development, Growth

I believe people can accomplish anything they want in life if they have the right resources to get them to their destination. It is easy to flip through social media platforms to find ‘successful’ and convince yourself they are the right one to get advice from.

The question is, is it right for you? Maybe it is, and may it isn’t. I believe it will work out for a small percentage of people, and for the majority, it will not.

I genuinely believe the best accurate advice you can receive are from the relationships you have built.

Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash

Having a mentor is essential for advice

When we have this vision of doing something and have never done it before, we will most likely suck at it. It’s okay, and you shouldn’t be hard on yourself.

I “suck” at tons of things.

When I decided to quit my sociology major my senior in college and jump the pre-med route, I failed my first chemistry and biology class. During the traditional work week, I don’t get the recommended 8 hours of sleep, so I make tons of mistakes. I don’t feel comfortable with public speaking, and I stutter when I trip on my words.

On top of that, I make tons of mistakes daily. I make mistakes every day at my professional job.

The only way you will reduce your mistakes is by going through the process of learning and gaining experience.

Having a mentor is the perfect way to learn. I still remember my first mentor when I was still an undergrad at Illinois State University. I actually worked in his research lab for a few years, which led me to my first scientific publish article. The thing is, Mentors can teach you a lot more than you think. During my years in his lab, I learned the importance of being organized, writing precise notes, and how time management was essential. I still use all those learning experiences as the foundation of my work ethic.

Photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash

Stop looking for advice in the wrong places

This is a big reason why I see so many people going in circles. With just a few clicks, it is easy to find a super ‘guru.’ For me, I wouldn’t go this route on the get-go. I would find someone within your network first to see if they can help or ask someone within your network if they know anyone who can help. The only reason why I say this is because you have established a connection with the people within your network that will vet you legitimate resources.

Another mistake that I see that is far too common is they are asking the wrong people. From my observations, I have seen people ask questions about publishing a book to a digital marketer that has never published a book before. That is remarkably like asking my plumber for advice about health issues. The bottom line is that it is vital to ask the right people for advice who can provide you value, so you can make the right decisions now and in the future.

I hope this article helps you realize how important it is to seek the right resources for advice.
My Five-Step Process for Writing a Striking Resume
By: Sameeh Shkeer
Tags: Software Development, Resume, Mentorship, Work, Writing

Each modern resume should consist of the following parts:

Contact — The obvious part. Profile — The part where you should shine. Skills (hard/soft)— The first part your employer might inspect. Work Experience — The part where you should impress. Education — The part where you prove you're worth it. Volunteer work — The part where you socialize.

During this process, you will assemble your resume part by part, and hopefully, by the end of the process, you will have the perfect resume.

1. Prepare a draft.

When you begin working on your resume, the very first thing you should do is write up a draft of all the bullet points you would like your employer to see, e.g., projects, achievements, courses, volunteer work, etc.; this step is a freestyle step, so feel free to elaborate as much as you want on any of the topics you’ve picked, you can think of it as a brain-storming stage.

But first, beware. Your employer does not care if you like Beethoven or you don’t, but might be interested in a volunteering project you have joined in Engineers Without Borders-International to help with the engineering of a water cleaning device.

So, be cautious and pick the right topics to write about. To add some clarity, the best way is to limit yourself by sticking to the skeleton, particularly parts 4, 5, and 6:

4. Work Experience — The part where you should impress.

5. Education — The part where you prove you’re worth it.

6. Volunteer work — The part where you socialize.

For example, a relevant work experience bullet point draft would be:

“I have worked to solve performance problems of the video editor, during the investigations done by the scrum master, it was found that the software had thousands of calls to storage devices per minute, which caused some latency, and using a C++ caching level that prevents unnecessary calls to storage devices the problem was solved, which I did in a very clever way using C++ features like boost’s variant and optional that served to produce a clean design, I worked closely with my QA colleagues to help achieve a fast delivery.”
Make it Official: Serving as a Mentor
By: Miyishia Slay
Tags: Tech, Mentorship, Career Advice, Startup, First Round Capital

Mentorship is one thing professionals need for career growth but becomes elusive when one tries to obtain a mentor. Majority of the mentors who helped shape my career development came from formal programs such as the Nehemiah Emerging Leadership and AdWeek CMO Executive Mentorship. Recently, I was able to participate as a mentor for First Round Fast Track, a formal mentorship program for startup employees.

I was particularly interested in Fast Track this year because of the commitment to provide mentorship to Black and Latinx founders and operators outside of the First Round portfolio. As a black woman who has worked at both large-tech organizations and startups and who struggled to find mentorship early on in my tech career, I understand the importance of removing barriers by making securing a mentor less elusive.
What if no one opens the door for you?
By: Stuart Robinson
Tags: New Business, Mentorship, Startup, Entrepreneurship, Motivation

Photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash

If you’re trying to achieve something, who are several experts that could help you do it?

It doesn’t even come into our minds that we can find their contact information and send them a message.

We often think that we need someone else to open the door for us to get an introduction when we can actually open the door ourselves with a direct message.

It’s not to say that they will reply, but what do you stand to lose by asking?
深夜小報 陸號刊
By: Bevis Ciou
Tags: UX Design, UX, User Experience, Mentorship, Portfolio

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
How to Find People Who Care for You
By: Cody Mcgraw
Tags: Toxic Relationships, Mentor, Mentorship, Family, Leaders

How to Identify People Who Will Guide You to Your Best Self

1. “You’re dripping in destiny.”

Has anyone ever said this to you? Hearing these words can be quite confusing.

I have a good friend who I’ve been talking with once a month for over four years now. His name is Jerry. At the beginning of our relationship, I was in a tight spot. The start-up I created and raised a lot of money for was about to bust. After countless mistakes and doing my best, it was time to throw in the towel.

Sharing this news with Jerry wasn’t my proudest moment. He and his wife Heather were also investors. But without skipping a beat, Jerry said:

“Cody, you’re dripping in destiny!”

(Side note– just to be clear that’s not how an investor typically responds when they hear someone they invested in is moving on.)

“Dripping in what?” I thought to myself.

He explained that with me leaving my start-up, I was getting closer to my true calling. I was dripping in destiny.

At the time, this comment made no sense. I went from making fast-paced start-up decisions to wondering if I was going to use the rest of my money on Chipotle. And here’s this person telling me he’s excited for my future.

Confusing.

But the truth is there are people who look at you and see you for who you are. They know when you’re being honest with yourself, or when you’re playing games.

These special people see you for you. And if you’re not being you they’re going to call you out.

There’s a name for people who do this. Author David Foster Wallace defines it here:

“Leaders can somehow get us to do certain things that deep down we think are good and want to be able to do but usually can’t get ourselves to do on our own.”

People like this help us lean into our fuller selves.

This article is about knowing how to identify people like this.

Because the truth is these people may not be from the family you were raised in. Actually, your family may be the last people who want you to lean into your fuller self. They may have a plan for you. Or, a version of who you are supposed to be. They could even be toxic.

If this is the case, you may actually suck at identifying people who are here to help guide you to your fuller selves. That’s okay. Just know there’s someone like Jerry or Helen out there for you. (You’ll hear about Helen below.)

But before I go any further, I have a confession to make. I don’t care for the label leader. For some reason, I think of an older white man referencing a Mel Gibson character. Nothing against William Wallace or Benjamin Martin–if you don’t know either of those references– GOOD.

The word leader is overused and outdated.

So I’m going to use a different label for the person who “somehow gets us to do certain things that deep down we think are good and want to be able to do but usually can’t get ourselves to do on our own.”

This is worth knowing because these people care for you. They are ready to love and accept you. You just need to know what you’re looking for.
Looking Beyond the Obvious Successes
By: Jon Santee
Tags: Leadership, Personal Development, Team Building, Mentorship, Success

As technical managers we often measure our success and value with traditional, tangible metrics.

Do these sound familiar?

- Improved datacenter uptime from 95% to 99.5%

- Reduced equipment procurement costs 14%

- Completed six infrastructure projects, each with a $500K or higher budget

- Support team achieved 95% positive feedback from users

- Released 92% of code updates on schedule

Those metrics are easy and often appear at or near the top of resumes and LinkedIn profiles. You know what, there’s nothing at all wrong with that fact. However, I want to pose a question to you all who fit into technical leadership roles.

What is your greatest non-technical career achievement? What thing that is not at all a part of the technical nuts and bolts of your job can you stand back and nod in approval for your work?

I’ll lead off the discussion with a pair of mine that share equal space at the top of my list.

First, I’ve never lost a single employee who I interviewed and hired to join my team. Not one. I’ve had many move up via promotion and new opportunity within the company, but for me that is a win as they progress within the environment I sold them on joining. That does not mean I’ve never let anyone go for performance/HR/downsizing reasons, but none were people I brought into the company. For me that signals my interview techniques and people instincts are to be trusted in bringing in the talent my teams and the company needs.

Second, I’ve left two positions where a member of my team was not only ready, but it seemed eager, to step into my role. Both in fact did step into my position once I left and are both still in those roles today. It is easy as you get caught up in the day to day actions to keep the lights on to forget we as leaders must also be mentors. It is our responsibility to identify both the desire and the talent in our teams and work to give them the new opportunities they deserve via training, coaching, and the chance to succeed or fail on their own. The fact I’ve done so twice to date is a great accomplishment for me.

So let’s hear it, those of you in the techie leadership chairs, what outside the “nerd stuff” are you most proud?
The Cost of a Mentor Friendship
By: Georges Hanna
Tags: Mentor, Mentorship, Human Experience, Irresistible Offer, Mentoring

Photo created by Arthur Hidden — freepik.com

Get a mentor…

Get a coach…

Get an advisor…

You may heard those advices before, and you may now have a mentor or a coach… or you may not…

But, in any case, what are the pros and cons of having a friendship with your mentor or your coach?

No matter what you do in life or in biz, you always need to talk to someone who you trust and who can redirect you on your path.

Our first mentors in life were our parents, then our teachers… until we started our companies and we started finding mentors who are at the desired situation that we wanted to be at.

You should get a mentor, who has done what you are planning to achieve. No question asked.

Mentors and coaches are two types:

1- Free: good, but they will not dedicate their times all the time for you. You will give you advice on the go… but nothing concrete unless they really spend time with you (which rarely is the case).

2- Highly paid: because they have achieved what you are dreaming to achieve. They will walk you through their method step by step. They will do everything they can to help you become successful. Because When they do, they also become more successful. They also achieve more on their milestone.

But, Have you ever thought what is the cost of a free friendship with your dream mentor or coach on Linkedin or Facebook?

I did an experiment lately, where I sent friendship requests to my dream mentors (or to the ones I like to learn from them). I sent over a hundred request in few weeks.

I thought why also not to get connected to their students in case my dream mentors don’t accept my request. I can still learn from their students.

The astonishing results came where most of my dream mentors and their students accepted my friendship request.

That was a shocking fact to me…

But, then a pattern started to happen…

My messenger got bombarded with an intimate business discussion about my biz challenges, my goals, my revenue target, my desire to hit 7 or 8 figures… you name them.

I said there is something to learn from that 😳

Started to respond to their request, and all of them ended up asking to setup a calendar meeting for a Zoom call 😁

The same happened on Zoom where everybody tried to sell me their stuffs.

The wisdom of what I’m sharing is that you have to pay for a mentor or a coach to get their attention and to get their full help.

There is no free friendship in biz.

Mentors are selective and can only work with few dedicated clients at a time.

Your relationship has a price that you have to pay: either to get to a better place in biz and in life; OR you are going to pay for in pain and struggle.

Paying money gets you faster results and get you faster out of your own pain or problem.

Free, cooks you slowly in your pain…

Choose wisely 🙏🏻

To Your Exponential Growth!

Georges Hanna
We all had mentors before we had a name for it
By: Camille Mc Millan Rambharat
Tags: Workplace Harassment, Mentorship, Caribbean, Gender Equality, Women

Photo by Leighann Blackwood on Unsplash

Mentorship is an important part of my life and every day I am reminded that parents are our first mentors. We mirror their every word and action which sometimes can be a good or bad thing. As women, we are seen as everyone’s mother, especially Caribbean women. We have a natural instinct to love and care, consciously or unconsciously.

Growing up in Trinidad and Tobago, we all had mentors before we had a name for it. For me, aunties, by blood and by friendships, a couple teachers, and most importantly my father. Today, young people entering the workplace should all have mentors. Females in particular need advice and guidance to get through issues like sexual harassment, gender inequality, barriers to opportunities and other aspects of gender discrimination in the workplace.

At age 17, having a mentor at my first job helped with my own situation. A grab of my tender leg was all it took. After sharing what happened the following morning with my dad — he quickly said ‘don’t return to that place’ and left my room. I never returned. My dad mentored me to be strong, confident, help others and not ‘let your right hand know what your left hand is doing’. He never once said that I should or shouldn’t do something because I’m a girl.

Throughout my career and personal life, I’ve always sought out mentors — both male and female. Outside of my family and relatives, Brenda De La Rosa became one of my early mentors to the point that without deliberately doing it, I even started dressing like her. Mentoring has also included our own children throughout their life’s journey, with my dad alongside me as he scolded me for being ‘too strict with the children’. ‘Leave them alone.’ he said to me. Now I say to our children: “can’t wait to pay you guys back by spoiling my grandchildren.”

I knew I needed to move from always the mentee to becoming a mentor, especially to young people and I’ve been doing that for the over 20 years. In fact, that led me to professionally creating and managing mentorship relationships as part of my work. We all need to hand our experiences and teachings up to this generation and hopefully be around to do the same for the generation after them.

“It takes a village to raise a child” is an African Proverb that is really about mentorship, so let’s do better for our young women and men. It’s for us to understand them and not the other way around. This is not about telling mothers to let their daughters dress better or for mothers to tell their sons not to harass our girls. As mentors, let’s go beyond the blame, find better solutions and lobby for better laws. Let’s be that village mentoring and raising our children.
Setting your first goal.
By: Euan Harkness
Tags: Business Strategy, Mentorship, Startup, Goals, Goal Setting

Welcome to Bubble — the central dashboard for business owners and managers to set, track and monitor their goals across multiple platforms simultaneously.

We are delighted to welcome you to our platform and can’t wait to celebrate your successes!

As a certain Leonardo da Vinci said ‘simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’ and who are we to argue with him?

That’s why Bubble lets you set goals across the most popular platforms in just 3 steps — here’s how it works…

1. Choose a platform

2. Select the metric that you would like to track

3. Set a realistic target

And you’re all set!

Keep yourself motivated and accountable by sharing your goal with your supportive peers in the Bubble community, within your accountability groups and (if you’re feeling adventurous!) across your social media channels too!

We will take care of everything from here, with live updates available 24/7.

Now you can concentrate on achieving your goals, but remember…

‘A goal without a plan is merely a wish’ ;)

Best of luck,

Euan & Nikhil
Blockchain Series-1
By: Archi S Academy
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Traineeships, Software Development, Mentorship

Getting started

We are shopping, going online, researching, and most importantly, investing our time and money on things constantly, and as a result, the process of interaction among the world, for both liquids and real properties has increased immensely in the last decade!

While doing all our monetary operations, we are also facing many challenges both face to face and online. In this fast-paced environment, wouldn’t that be easier to do all of these without physical or “virtual boundaries” while keeping your wallet safe? Those virtual boundaries are the ones such as currency rates and transactions that keep us from shopping online in specific cases and that’s exactly where the blockchain technologies come into the picture.

In simplest terms, blockchain technology is a virtual boxing system designed to store your transaction data while letting everyone else -meaning all the other servers in the network- see your entries almost simultaneously. All the entries are encrypted in a “virtual ledger”. So what is a virtual ledger?

Virtual ledgers can be seen as account books that do not need an accountant to record the operations or keep them safe. This distributed ledger system and transparency make blockchain systems highly reliable along with complex encryption algorithms. In this system, all the transactions you make are subject to a peer to peer agreement on the operation without letting any centralized institution have control over it.

With blockchain technologies, you can avoid having technical issues with your bank, and also, you can transfer your money without daily or monthly limitations.

This was just a start. Do you want to learn more about how blockchain technologies are going to change your business? Follow our blogs on Archi’s Academy and keep posted weekly!