Speaker #0Hi, welcome to The Pulse, the podcast where we explore the heartbeat of life and work. I'm Julie, your host, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this journey. Every two weeks, I will bring you a regular dose of inspiration, practical tips, and regular stories about personal development, wellness, and career growth. Whether you're looking for motivation, fresh perspective or just a reminder that you're not alone, you are in the right place. So welcome and let's dive in. Hi, welcome to The Pulse. I hope you are doing well. I hope your month of January is going well. And today we are going to do an episode about mentoring, about what type of mentoring there is, but also about the process. the benefits of mentoring. And I want to talk with you about the different type of mentoring, because I've gone through different types and I see a lot of value in each of them in a different way. So I would definitely like to do this today. I hope the sound is good. I have to say that I've had quite some trouble. I already recorded part of these episodes last week, and then I had an issue with my microphone. As you can see, I have a different one. You might see it in one of the snippets that I put on social media, but it's been quite tricky. I now even use a different app for recording because my regular recording setup for some reason is not recognizing my mic. So yeah, I hope it's going better than it has been going previously. Bear with me. I hope I can get something good enough for today and for this week episode. And yeah, let's Diving overall into the topic of mentoring. So from my perspective, I want to start with what really mentoring is because I sometimes feel people confuse mentors, coach, advocate, and then even potential like top management that can be helping you in your career path, in your next role, etc. And the role of a mentor is... is not to coach you through a problem, it's not to also help you with the answer, it's not to help sponsor you for the next position. The role of a mentor is to work with you through a set of problems that you have, but not by coaching you, but more by exchanging with you. It's a mutual benefits relationship, it's not one-sided and it's also more someone that will exchange and share their knowledge with you. And it's more about they will also share their experience, etc. about it. And based on that, you will be able to make up your mind or work through a certain topic. I know it's a bit similar to coach, but coach is going to be more asking you questions and just over and over. And like refine your actual problematic and work with you through the problem. But more in the sense of less asking you or working with you to find the answers. where a mentor might use techniques such as sharing their own experience with you to help you better understand certain concepts, certain situations, etc. Then when it comes to mentoring, even because so far I've talked about a mentor, but I've had in the past also cases where we had group mentoring and I even set up a group mentoring and I'll talk in a minute about it, but I do believe that there is not also one way to do mentoring. And you can also benefit a lot from group mentoring and what that can help you with. I also want to mention that a mentor doesn't mean automatically someone of a higher rank than you or someone that is potentially older in age than you. You can learn from everybody and you can be mentored by everybody depending on what you need mentoring for. And I give you an example, potentially you lack knowledge in a certain area. And by working with a mentor who potentially has more knowledge in a specific topic, even if that person is, I don't know, let's say you're a manager, this person is an analyst. If the person is more knowledgeable and can share their experience in regards to a topic and mentor you, then this can happen. And you should also take that opportunity if that comes up because I've seen some great... mentoring relationship also where it was two-sided and the mentor was potentially in a very different field, in a very different line or career path than the mentee, but that relationship was good. And I won't go into details into the type of relationship I've seen, but I would consider, for example, you can be mentored potentially in some ways for technology at some point. I mean, you should, of course, do online training or do different courses, but maybe at some point working with a mentor on more specific with that, learn more about their experiences on a certain topic. And from mentoring you, they're gaining also a certain leadership, a certain experience into growth, into mentoring and helping others. And as I said, for leadership overall. So I think there is opportunities on both sides. And I have to say even I have had different mentors at different parts of my career. And at some point even had a mentor who was at the same level as me. in the same field as me, but she had more experience than me in the topic. And so we spent a lot of time exchanging and I would bring her situations and I would tell her this is how I think I should handle it or this is how I think this would be the best to manage. And we were exchanging and she would sometimes say, well, I had this case scenarios and this happened when I did this and this happened when I did that. And based on that, I could make up my mind. But she was basically sharing her experience. That was kind of like a two-way street relationship because then I was also giving her some cases that she had never thought of. So there was opportunity for both of us to learn from it, both of us to gain from it. And this is really what a mentoring relationship is. And I think so to go back to what I said earlier when what's the difference with a coach is also usually the coaches. There is a financial behind like someone is paid to coach you in usually most mentoring relationship. It's unpaid coaching. Sometimes this is a specific program from a specific company. So, this might be some payment involved, but usually it's not an automatic payment or transaction. So, now I want to talk a little bit about group mentoring. Back when I was in one of my previous roles, previous company, I helped, I was part of the women's network and part of this I helped develop the women's network mentoring circle program and I helped scale that program to I think at the end we were it was about 20 circle and about even like 24 leaders if I'm correct and usually each group was having about 10 to 15 women and there would be one leader, one top management so we're looking at SVP, VP. female leader within the organization first who would lead that group and lead that mentoring circle. And they would meet on a regular basis and exchange, but the power of that group is that while one of the objectives was to help alleviate women or like help them see an exchange with the top management woman leader and understand each other and converse and have this opportunity to learn from each other, there was also the fact that they were learning within the group even sometimes without the leader automatically being there. And there was a lot of value. I've joined myself in one of the groups, and I even sometimes went to other groups to see how it was going as I was leading the program. And I saw a lot of powerful women in that case exchanging with each other and supporting each other and helping and then chatting and giving advice. Sometimes it was about a specific topic, so they were teaching each other one thing on specific topics. So they would present and then the other ones would ask questions. But sometimes it was also just about, really, I have this current problem that I'm facing or I have an issue there. How can you help me? Or I don't know which way to go. What do you think? This is my current dilemma. And all those things were creating that, yes, the leader was involved in organizing and giving their opinion, but also other... woman within the circle would help and it would be really a conversation with each other. The opportunity with such circle was that the person at the end who needed advice, who needed follow-ups, who needed opinion had multiple and was able based on that to potentially feel more confident, feel like they had had multiple opinions. Sometimes we would have pros and cons and they would be discussing so it would be almost like this task force that would be there, the support system, the support group that will be there to help that one person without one problem and they would feel like almost... having this powerful group supporting. And that was quite nice to see and highly valuable. And I saw quite a lot of people gaining knowledge and gaining opportunities with that program itself. And one other piece I also want to say is that, as I mentioned, you know, there is usually from mentoring, there is opportunity for both. And on one end, the women's leader that were there, it of course, visibility around it. But there was also the opportunity to hear from the women that were currently within the organization and to hear what they felt, how they felt toward the organization and potentially those women leaders could support into pushing further programs or further opportunities for women within the organization. And the last piece I did actually a bit before I left is that we even introduced to have male leaders involved joining those circles. And I had also some amazing feedback where some of them said, I now better understand women's perspective of how they feel. And that has also helped me in how I talk to the women within my organization and to better understand where they're coming from. So there was really a lot of value and a lot of growth within that program. And actually, it still exists today. I'm very happy for it. But what I wanted to say is not about... promoting this program, but to say sometime view potentially group mentoring as an opportunity to have that visibility, that exchange, this opportunity to work with a lot of people and learn from a lot of people within that program. And of course, you can end up being one small person within a big group and feel like you're lost in it. But if you take the right opportunity to listen, but also speak up when you need to and really to exchange. And I have to say also every single group that I went in and to see it really all the people in there really felt safe to talk with each other. And that is critical in such a thing is to feel like you can trust each. It's to feel like it's a safe place to be able to exchange that there will be no judgment and everyone really to keep at heart to make decisions. this happen in that way. And that was really beautiful to see. And I even myself would love today, I think sometime to find another woman's network. And actually when I left this company, you might know about Lean In and there is also the opportunity to create mentoring circle or group of women that gets together within a certain logistic area, usually or a specific topic and you can create Lean In groups. And I did this as well when I was living in Berlin and I, Well, it didn't pick up in the same way, unfortunately, because I think the ladies and the people involved were quite different. But I would love to recreate this and to find a way to recreate something similar of a program where people feel safe to talk and to bring a topic, bring an issue they are facing and be let's talk together. Let's exchange together. Let's find a solution together. Because I really thought this was brilliant how this was working. And it was really alleviating. everyone. So if you have the opportunity to join a mentoring circle or mentoring group of some sorts, think about it. But this could be a great opportunity for you to get mentored and to help others at the same time. Okay, so I've talked about, you know, the fact that you can have one mentor and the fact that the mentor can be at the same level or even a lower level than you, but also, of course, you will have some mentors that will be at a different and potentially in a more leadership position. But no matter where the person is or what the person does, it's important to understand, like when you join and when you start having a mentor, you just cannot just say, I want a mentor. You need to be very clear on what you want to work with that mentor with because it will impact how how you pick your mentors, it would impact the relationship you will have with them and it will impact how this will help you. And at the end of the day, you want to get something out of it. So it's not about just saying, I want a mentor, let's pick whomever I think I would love to have. It's about, okay, what can that person bring to me? What can I bring to the person? How can we exchange? How can we work together? Let's ensure that this is valuable for everybody. And if you don't do that, I think you're never going to have really the true benefits of a mentorship in the way it should be. And in the past, sometimes while I've had some amazing mentors and I'm very grateful for each of them that I had, sometime I was... potentially not in the right place to get a mentor, or I was not in the right setup within that goal. And I've seen it even now, you know, I'm currently working with a mentor and actually we had to really rephrase my goal because my goal was, is kind of like the next goal. And there is something else to set up first before I can do what I wanted to do with that mentor. Luckily that person is also capable of doing the other topic before. but we kind of really went back and this person challenged me and really helped me understand and I much appreciate the support that person gives me. And it's really important that we set up really what are the objectives? What do I really want to get out of that time that we have in this mentoring relationship? Because if not, it's not going to work. It's not going to end up being the right thing. And I think also you have to be aware that you have to check out if the relationship works before you really fully commit. You have to get out and also understand, even if it's in the middle, it's like potentially not the right time, not the right place. Do you need someone on site? Do you need someone online? Do you need someone who's going to meet with you every week? Do you need someone that's going to meet with you every month? Do you want to text a person? Do you want to be on calls with a person? what fits in and this has to work as well for the both of you. So always think about this, right? Whenever you do this and set up a mentoring, if you are also a mentor, if someone is reaching out to be a mentee, you have to also ask this question to the mentee. It's a two way street relationship, and it has to work for both of you. And I think that's so important to get the right benefits out of it. What are the benefits? Because that was one of the goals, right? To talk about the benefits of mentoring. And the first one is very simple, is that with the exchange that you have with that person, you are able, no matter if it's actually mentor or mentee, this is really a benefit for both, you are able to learn from the experience of each other. There is some case scenarios that are going to pop up that the person will share with you and that that potentially you've never faced, you've never lived. And with that, you're able to learn from them. And that is an opportunity really to enlarge your knowledge, to enlarge your mindset and enlarge your perspective. So always take it, always listen, always try to ensure that you remember some of the key message or potentially even if the person say, oh, I did this and it didn't work out. Potentially that's a learning for you to be aware of. Potentially this doesn't work. Potentially you think, okay, I'm aware of the risk. but I will still take it knowing already where the person lives. So I will try to avoid it. However, this works, but you are learning from that person's experience. So take that opportunity. And as I said, it's both ways because you can also learn from experience with your, from your mentee and what they're facing. The second benefit is the fact that you are able, and if it's set up right, usually if it's a, mentoring program when it comes to individual mentoring, you're going to have a certain timeframe. And by boxing this, this will help you to really answer certain questions or fix a goal or ensure that you tick a box of some sort by the end. And that is a way to keep on a certain short time. It can be six months. It can be one year. But you have a certain timeframe that can help you really be super focused with that mentor toward that problem. And that person is almost your accountability partner. And sometimes it's hard to have accountability. I've even seen, you know, I'm studying German and it's so far so good, but I need the accountability. So I'm working also with a friend and I'm accountable to her and I report and that's good. And she'll do the same. able in a way to mentor each other into ensuring that we do the job that we wanted to do. And it's a bit of different one, but in a way it's similar. And I think it's something that you have to also take as an advantage is that if you want to fix or if you want to answer questions or if you want to have a certain goal with your mentor that you want to work toward by having this time frame that helps you to ensure that you work on it under this timing and this person being accountable, for me the way it works actually with most of my mentors, I chat with them on either emails or WhatsApp or whatever on a regular basis and then we try to meet once a month. And by having this there is this double accountability where I can tell them this is what's going on, this is how I'm improving, this is what I'm working on and therefore that create that momentum of constantly having it on my mind and not pushing it to the side of pushing it to last but really putting a high focus on it. So I think that's... the second piece of having a mentor. The third is more for group mentoring in that case, but it's really the opportunity to learn from each other and learn from a group and grow together and get inspired from the others. I've seen so many cases when I've heard women, in the case of the Women's Mentoring Circle program, where I learned what each person was doing, where they were going through, and it was such a beautiful thing that every single time I would leave a meeting I would be even more inspired to do more and to grow more and to think about what can I do or how can I apply what I've learned today into my day-to-day. And that was really nice to hear from all those amazing women to learn and grow together. Also, I think I saw some women going from like one position to another one. Some women came and within the they moved position, they moved job, they moved to different teams. And then they got pregnant and then something else. And you saw during a long period of time, their life going through. And that was one way some groups really wanted to keep going together and really be with each other the whole time. I had some of the group that at some point were like, oh, I would love to join another group and rotate and see other people because I think we've learned enough from each other. But however it was, it was beautiful to really work together as a group and to feel like really supportive of each other. And therefore, you know, It would end up that even in meetings, you would see each other and you would get really motivated or you would almost have the feeling that if you were to present in front of a group. If you had that person that you knew from the circle, even though they were not directly within your department, you will have that buddy, that person that you knew you could look at and would be like cheering you on. And that is super powerful to have those people, to have that network. And it's really network building in that case. And that's. mentoring program was great. And I think this is where I would finish up with the advantage of mentoring if some of your mentoring relationship might last beyond a certain program because you really built that relationship with that person and it's the advantage of a mentoring relationship, right? It's not someone who's going to do a one-off and support you and sponsor you for one time thing. It's not someone that you're going to pay for a coaching program for six months, three months, whatever time, and it's going to be okay. We've done the goal. Bye. Even though, don't get me wrong, I think there are some amazing coaches and I also advise you and we can do another episode of coaching and what that can bring you. But in the case of mentoring, you keep that relationship most often and you have this continuity, even potentially it's not that often, it's not the same relationship, it's not the same growth, but there is a certain way that you can really build and connect with that person. And I think this is something that I really appreciated with all my mentors. And I really want to use the opportunity also to thank all of them because they've really brought me a lot forward and I'm super appreciative of each of those relationships. I want to also give them a shout out because they were amazing people that helped me grow. And I don't want to like, as I said, coaches have been great. I've had the sponsors that have been amazing, but... but they have a different role. And I just want to spend a bit of time acknowledging, also mentoring today in this episode. I think this would be the end. I hope it made sense and I hope that helped you better understand why you should consider having a mentor and what that can help you. And by the way, here I talked a little bit more about business, about work. But I think sometimes when there is a topic you're passionate about that potentially is not directly related to your role, but that can bring value in some way. And you feel like I need a mentor. I need someone that has the mastery, the experience to walk me through it. Don't ask them automatically to teach you everything because that's a different job as well. And you should, of course, learn from yourself. But sometime having a mentor that works with you through a topic, it's quite interesting and it can go beyond. just your day-to-day work. So take the opportunity if you have, and if you don't try to build that opportunity in some ways within your network, within groups, as I said, there is online websites, there is companies that do also mentoring programs. I think there is a way to find mentors and really thank them for the support and I hope you find those amazing relationships as I've had. Yeah, so we'll close here. again as I said. I hope the episode is going well, I hope the recording was okay, I hope the mic did not disappoint I will return home very soon where I will have my regular mic but here I was away for a couple of weeks and I didn't want to take my big microphone, I wanted to take a tiny one. And I thought it was working better, but I will have to see what's happening with all my technical issues. But anyway, I really hope you enjoyed today's episodes. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. I'm looking forward to more episodes in 2026 in regards to growth, but also I'm currently deep diving into how to use some topics to help you with other topics. So there is a lot of lateral opportunities across the world across the fields and I definitely also want to touch on that. I have also guest episodes coming soon, which I have to edit but a lot of fun things so please subscribe and everything I think there will be a little bit at the outro is coming up, but I really appreciate all of your support and feel free to share with everyone you know and give me a shout out, give me a like, I would love to hear what topic you would like. And also if you appreciate this podcast, because I really have a lot of fun, even when the technical don't go so well. I have a lot of fun doing this podcast every two weeks. So yeah, have a nice evening or a nice day and bye. And that's a wrap for today's episodes of The Pulse. If something resonated with you, I would love to hear about it. So drop me a message on Instagram, LinkedIn, or leave a review wherever you're listening. Your feedback fuels this community and I much appreciate it. Make sure to follow The Pulse on your favorite podcast platforms and on social media so you never miss an episode. And if you're craving for more, check out the show notes for links, resources, and ways to connect. Until next time, keep trusting your journey because growth happens one step at a time. See you soon. Bye.
