interesthings #3 - Mentors

Hi! Welcome to another issue of Interesthings. This week I talk about the use of having a mentor, and why you should too. This week at work we had a Yearly Review and Planning of our work, which I facilitated. It is so good to plan ahead and set up goals for the long term with my team.

I hope this issue helps you! Let me know if it did and subscribe if you want to read more about the things that keep me busy 😁.

- Mark

Thoughts - Surround yourself with mentors (or AI)

In this time and age, everything that you do has already been done by someone else. This age is also called as the Age of Knowledge. Everything you want to know is available within a second.

Want to learn how to design with Photoshop? Use Youtube. Want to impress someone with a dinner? Use BonAppetit. Want to learn how to invest? Read a book about it in your local bookstore.

The potential for growth and learning is immeasurable. But most knowledge is also constricted to general situations. Learning design with Photoshop assumes that you have a Photoshop. Learning to invest assumes that you have the financial means to invest.

Sometimes these knowledge sources are not enough for your growth. That is where mentors come in. Since I started working at Maatwerk Online, I have surrounded myself with mentors. This has helped me immensely in my ability to learn and understand my own value at work.

What is a mentor?

As Cambridge states it:

So a mentor is someone that will help you grow and hands over their knowledge to help you grow. This could be a teacher at school, but also a colleague at work.

Why should you have a mentor?

Having a mentor is someone that acts as a feedback tool for your ideas and work. A mentor has the experience to nudge you into the right direction and make most of your work.

My mentors

I have several mentors, including my father who has a lot of experience in leadership and working with clients. Talking with him provides me with valuable insights on how to handle certain situations and grow my team.

Another mentor I have is Daniel Schürr, a freelance Agile and Scrum coach who has worked with companies such as Lightyear and Alphacomm. He has a wealth of experience in guiding and coaching teams, and every meeting we have, I take note of insights that have a direct impact on my team.

I also consider ChatGPT as a mentor. While it may seem unusual for an AI to be a mentor, ChatGPT has a vast amount of information on management, leadership, and business. By asking it questions such as "How should a Yearly Review with a team be structured," I can quickly access relevant information based on years of knowledge, books, and articles on the subject.

After consulting with ChatGPT, I process the information and adapt it to fit my own team's needs. This saves me a lot of time in terms of thinking about structures, processes, and guidelines for meetings and documents

How do you find a mentor?

Finding a mentor can be challenging. It's important to find a mentor who has the right characteristics and that you're willing to be open and vulnerable with.

Consider the following characteristics when looking for a mentor:

• Willingness to share failures and learnings

• More experience than you in your field of work or study

• Trustworthiness and confidentiality

• Active listening

• Ability to challenge you by asking thought-provoking questions

• Not being your direct boss or responsible for promotion

Keep in mind that it's rare for a mentor to possess all of these characteristics, but it's important that they possess most of them.

Before starting a mentorship, clearly communicate your needs and areas of growth to a potential mentor, and ensure that they align with their strengths and expertise.

You have found a mentor. What now?

• Schedule regular, structured meetings with your mentor. For example, meet at least once every two weeks to discuss progress and set new goals.

• Create and maintain a document of your goals. This helps keep you accountable and allows you to track your progress.

• Regularly check-in on the status of the mentorship. This is a relationship, so it's important to discuss how it's going and address any concerns or issues that may arise. Be open and honest about the relationship, and make sure it's meeting your needs.

I hope that this mini-guide helps you to find a mentor and grow in your job, study or personal life. Do you need some help about finding a mentor? Feel free to get in touch!

InteresThings

• This video of a Lego tuna fish being prepared is so satisfying.

• This week I started playing Pokémon GO with some of my colleagues. The last time I used this was 2016. It’s addicting to catch Pokémons. Maybe this will be an app I remove because it consumes my time.

• Going to sleep with my phone has been the standard for a long time. Since last week I tried to put my phone in another room when going to bed. I have noticed that my mind has so much to process before I go to sleep and my dreams are much better. Try it out.

• Last week I saw the movie Triangle of Success with two of my friends, Elian and Gerben (they insisted to be named 😅). Triangle of Success is one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time. The movie is a parody about capitalism and the inequality between the rich and poor. My recommendation is to go to the movie without watching the trailer. But if you want to, here it is:

Songs -

Ever watched the movie Cars? Then you do not need an introduction of this song. Life is a Highway is the perfect roadtrip song. Listen to it on Spotify and Apple Music.

Thanks for reading this issue of Interesthings. I hope you have a wonderful week and do not forget to subscribe!