Fast-Track Your Career: How to Find and Leverage Mentors

In this episode of the Thrive Careers podcast, host Olajumoke Fatoki speaks with Dr. Deborah Heiser about the transformative power of mentorship. They discuss the inception of the Mentor Project, the importance of mentorship in personal and professional development, and the challenges faced in building the initiative. Dr. Heiser shares inspiring stories of mentorship across generations and emphasizes the need for belief in oneself to seek support. 

The conversation highlights the interconnectedness of individuals and the impact of mentorship on communities. In this conversation, Deborah Heiser and Olajumoke Fatoki explore the multifaceted nature of mentorship, emphasizing its importance in personal and professional development.

 They discuss how mentorship should be approached organically, the significance of trust, and the intrinsic motivation required for effective mentoring relationships. The dialogue also highlights practical steps for establishing meaningful mentorship connections and the profound impact mentorship can have on career growth and organizational culture.

Keywords

mentorship, personal development, career growth, intergenerational learning, mentor project, professional relationships, personal stories, challenges in mentorship, lateral mentoring, community impact, mentorship, career growth, trust, generational divide, cultural mentoring, intrinsic motivation, meaningful connections, professional development, 

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Transcript

All right. Welcome, welcome, welcome beautiful people to today's episode of the thrive careers podcast, where we explore the key elements that help professionals build thriving careers. Hi, I'm your host, Olajumoke Fatoki. And today we are diving into the incredible power of mentorship with a truly inspiring guest. Joining us is Dr. Deborah Haissa, an applied developmental psychologist, TEDx speaker.

consultant, author and founder of the MENTOR project. With her extensive expertise in psychology and mentorship, she has bridged generational divides, guiding professionals and leaders in their careers. She has also contributed to peer-reviewed research, co-edited spiritual assessment and intervention with older adults, and she has also been a sought-after expert across various platforms.

Today, we'll uncover the for the mentor human drive to mentor the impact of the mentor project and practical steps for building meaningful mentorship relationships. Dr. Haiza, welcome to the show and I hope I got your name correctly.


You did

get my name correctly. Thank you for having me on your show. I'm delighted to be here.

Absolutely. All right, to get us started, do you want to tell us, know, what informed or why you started the mentor project?


started the Mentor Project because it was really by accident. I was talking to people about why they mentor and so many people were saying, and these were like top people in their fields, were saying they didn't have anybody to connect with to mentor and they wanted to, they just didn't know how to connect with people. And I realized, wow, you know, it's true. There are so many people out there who

You know, it would be awkward to say, hey, can I mentor you to some stranger? You can't do that in a park with kids. You know, this is a real true problem. And here we are saying to so many people, hey, go find a mentor. And there are mentors saying, I'd love a mentee. And we I saw that disconnect. And so we started the mentor project with just a couple of people. And the real desire was to get Bill Cheswick, who was one of the

fathers of the firewall. He did all kinds of amazing innovations and he said I'm getting ready to retire from Bell Labs and I'm gonna move to a farm. I'm not gonna have any access to

students of any age. And this is making me feel like I'm going to be irrelevant and not very helpful and that all of my knowledge is going to go to waste. And I was thinking, my goodness, this is like burning down libraries every time, you know, somebody isn't able to mentor. So we got Bill into some schools.

And we thought, okay, well, this is it. This is fun. We're having a good time. And then we moved from 10 people to 60, to 80, to 100 in a year because so many people said, I want to mentor. They were saying, I want to give back. So we started the mentor project by accident, by really finding out that we're built to mentor.

Amazing, amazing. Thank you for sharing that beautiful story. I mean, I love that, you know, it's amazing when we, it's amazing when we start off something and we have no idea, you know, what it could grow into and yet we believe enough to start. So that's really impressive. Thank you for sharing that with us. So we have a tradition on the Thrive Careers podcast. We usually start with a, an icebreaker question to our guests.

And I'd like to, you know, have you take yours on to, you know, get on that. And the question is, if your career were to be a movie, what would the title be and why?

think it would be called...

we're all connected or we're not even six degrees from people. I guess it would be, you know, one degree away from your next best person, something like that. That would be what the movie would be about because truly we're all interconnected and every single thing we do affects somebody else and we're affected by all of our connections. So.

I think that the movie would be about how we connect and how that shapes our lives and our careers and our journeys.

And

I think that is really beautiful because indeed we are all connected. You know, it's amazing. You know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody that you know. You know, someone I know would always like to say that you're just one connection, four connections away from something that you need because you would, if you look within your network well enough, you would find somebody who knows somebody who would introduce you to somebody.


So true.


and then you have what you're looking for. So that's amazing. Thank you so much. I love that. I love it a lot. All right, thank you. So moving on, we're getting into our core conversations now. So how are you feeling right now?


I'm feeling great. I'm really energized and excited to be here and to talk with you about mentorship.

Amazing

energized as well because this topic

It's a very broad topic and I'm here to learn myself and I know that our listeners would benefit a lot from this conversation. let's talk about the power of mentorship itself, right? So what do you believe mentorship, why do you believe, pardon me, why do you believe mentorship is such a fundamental part of the human experience?

You know, I once didn't know that it was, and it wasn't that long ago. It wasn't until I really started to look at our development and started to think of mentorship from the perspective of the mentor. We're all built to give back. If we don't give back, we feel useless and irrelevant and we feel, you know, like our lives didn't matter. Why put a footprint on the earth?


Hmm.


There are so many movies that show this, know, like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, or It's a Wonderful Life. We see these played out in film and how important it is that we feel like we matter in the world. And mentorship is the way we do that. It's an actual developmental stage that we hit in midlife called generativity. And...

We're built to want to give back so that not just for a legacy, but so that we feel like we matter, that our values that we're putting out there are important and that they succeed us and that if we start something, someone else can finish it, that we can change a community based on this, we could change the world based on this. So we have a need as human beings, each one of us, to feel like we're here for a reason.

And mentorship is the way that we do that. And so that's really why I feel like this is a fundamental part of all of us, not just developmentally in terms of the life stage that we go through, but that we actually can use our connections to feel like we're the people that we're meant to be and doing what we're meant to be doing. And it sounds maybe like, wow, that's...

cliche or something like that, but it really isn't. Every single person I talk to who's a mentor can cry when they say, wow, I didn't know what an impact I made. It really hits them hard when they know that they've made a difference in the world.

Olajumoke Fatoki (08:31)
Hmm.

Amazing

and i'm just going to build on that right? So, you know just that last point you made because that's that's going to form my next question anyway like so in your experience and your work what mentor and mentee relationships transformative ones have you seen and because we love examples we love you know, yeah We we all feel connected with stories. So what mentor and you know mentee relationships have you? Transformative ones have you seen that you can share so people can you

Deborah Heiser (08:55)
yeah.

Olajumoke Fatoki (09:06)
take a cue from that.

Deborah Heiser (09:09)
So I'll give one that's a work example, and it won't even feel like it's mentoring. But let me give you this example because it's in the book that I wrote, but it's one that we wouldn't think of. And I hope that it illuminates how we have mentors everywhere that we just don't know. So imagine it's 2003, and the Columbia Space Shuttle is just coming down into Earth, and it hits the atmosphere and it disintegrates to the horror of everyone watching.

Fast forward to 2005, you're an astronaut in space and you're looking around and you're like, this is amazing. This is everything I ever thought it would be and more. This is fantastic. And then you get a call from Mission Control and they say, hey, we're not sure, but your mission might have that same problem the other one had.

Well, Charlie Camarda, who's one of the mentors with the Mentor Project, was that guy who got that call in space. He was an astronaut. He couldn't open up the door and say, I'm out of here. You you have to do something at that point. So he didn't know, am I going to have to call home and tell my daughter I'm not coming home? Or is this going to be fixed?

So this is one of these things that we hit in our work life and in our personal life that we could come across at any moment. We need to have a problem solved, but we can't do it ourselves. Now he didn't trust calling NASA to say, hey, I need you to help me out. Cause they said, we're not sure. So what did he do? He had a little black book that he brought with him to space with all of the people that he knew were the top engineers that he was really friends with and trusted, trusted with his life.

including the numbers of his family and everybody else. So he called somebody from space and said, hey, can you tell me, am I going to live or die? Do I have to call home or are we going to be able to fix this? What are we going to do? And as you can imagine, wasn't a calm, probably it wasn't a calm call like that. But he talked with his friend and his friend said, listen, I think you have the same problem that the other mission had and you're going to have to have somebody to go out and do a space walk.

did all of the engineering stuff, looked at everything that was going on, taught Charlie what was happening, and Charlie called Mission Control and said we have to do a spacewalk. They sent somebody out to do the spacewalk and they all returned home safely. Now that person he called was a mentor.

Most people don't think of anybody lateral as a mentor. The term mentor got hijacked by corporate America and is not used in the way that it was originally intended, which is for us to learn from someone else. We use lateral mentoring in the workplace and in our home life all the time. So that was a workplace thing. know, NASA is a workplace.


Hmm.

Deborah Heiser (12:00)
and his life and all of his crew members' lives were saved because of that mentor. That mentor taught him what he needed to know because he couldn't do it from the ground. It had to be done out in space. Taught him what he needed to know and worked through that. Now, another example is something so simple, you know, simple, simple, simple. How many people have ever been a student? I was a graduate student. I went out on an externship and a fellow student of mine

called me and this was in the day when cell phones were really expensive. If you called somebody it was going to be like $10. And so I knew something was important. I picked up my phone. said hello. It was my fellow student and she said, hey, and she's like whispering, I know you know how to do Kappa statistics and I have to do it for my pro this project at my externship. And we all worked for free at these externships, but it was for the letter that you get at the end. You want to be able to say, hey, I have this great letter.

Now I can go on and get a job.

She wanted to impress them. So she called me and I said, okay, I'll sit on the phone with you and I'll walk you through step by step and teach you what you need to do. And then you go do the report. So we did that. And she ended up doing the report and was fine. Now, a million other times I had asked another student or her for help in something I wasn't good at. That's lateral mentoring. So we often think of mentoring as being pulled. You know, we're pulling up from some nameless, faceless person saying, pull me up a couple of rungs on

the ladder. But most often, the people we trust the most are people who are next to us that we see every day that we know really well. And those are the ones that we trust to be able to say, I'm comfortable telling you I don't know what I'm doing. Can you help me? so that's really, those are two very different examples, but still mentoring in the personal life and in the work life.

Olajumoke Fatoki (14:01)
Amazing amazing amazing beautiful stories, know, very beautiful stories that helps to bring the subject of mentoring home You know a lot of us like you said look at it from the lateral perspective what this is a Beautiful way to look at it and you know, changes our mindset around the entire concept of mentoring and people can begin to realize that you know, you can look around you you can learn from anyone, you know and

It

doesn't have to be top down like we've been trained that mentoring is, could be, it could be, you know, bottom up and, you know, just having that mindset that you could learn from anyone, you could reach out and call for help and you would get it. And I think those are really beautiful stories you shared, you know, that are really transformative indeed. Thank you so much for coming through on that. All right, all right, all right. So moving on.

I know we already sort of started a conversation on the mentor project, but we're going to deepen that conversation even further. All right. So you already sort of shared the vision behind that project and how it has grown to involve over 80 mentors and mentees across multiple countries. But now my question is what challenges did you face in building this initiative and how did you overcome

calm them.

Deborah Heiser (15:34)
Goodness. I mean, challenges

still exist. It's not like they went away. In the beginning, was the first challenge was nobody believed in it. They thought that mentors are, you know, when the whole perspective of mentoring has been, like I said, it's been hijacked. People use the term mentoring in such a way that it's not really mentoring.

Olajumoke Fatoki (15:40)
Mm-hmm.

Deborah Heiser (16:03)
The term is just used loosely. you know, people are like, nobody that's really, you know, high level in the workplace is going to want to mentor. Nobody has time for that. They're too busy. They're too important. They're too whatever. And so I said, oh, all right, well, it'll just be all, you know, the 10 of us that are here and we're just having a good time. And we only have $547 in the bank. So.

Olajumoke Fatoki (16:04)
Hmm.

Deborah Heiser (16:31)
These are challenges, right? Like legit ones. Nobody's believing in us and there's no money. So what happened was we decided to really double down. All right, this will be it. We're not going to try to go for profit because that goes against what mentoring is. know, mentoring is supposed to come from within and you're supposed to want to do it. And if nobody ever wants to do it, then maybe the theory doesn't work. Maybe all that past research is wrong. But let's see what's here. So first challenge was

Olajumoke Fatoki (16:33)
It really goes with

Deborah Heiser (17:01)
that we had no one believing in us. Then the pandemic hit and that's when the floodgates opened and we had so many people asking to become mentors that I couldn't keep up with it. The next problem was scale. I mean, I truly wasn't sleeping. was, we didn't have an admin person. We didn't have anybody. We had $500 in the bank and I was doing like all of the...

admin work and getting people on, all of that stuff. So that was the next challenge. So after that, we raised a little bit of money, not a lot, but enough to get some, a little bit of admin work to get some platform stuff. But we really were able at that point to see, okay, the theories work, the research works. We know we're doing it right. We know that this is, you know, actually something that is legitimate.

We're the first one that's a mentor focused organization. We're out there and we're seeing that we're in, know, overall we've been in seven countries. We're seeing it works. And the mentors are all like connecting with each other and doing lateral mentoring. But the next challenge was scaling again. You know, what do you do if you have no money and you want to scale? And we aren't charging for mentorship. So everybody kept saying, you know, charge the mentors. And I was like, I'm not charging the mentors.

That's exploiting the mentors. We're asking them to mentor for free and then we're going to make them pay us? No, we're not doing that. So the next hurdle was getting funding in, and that was through donations, through board support, through organizations who helped to support us. And then, you know, finally here we are now and we're pretty we're running pretty smoothly. But I'll say that funding tends to be the biggest

hurdle for us because we now see that we can go out and do limitless amounts of things in the world. The only thing is if we want to send a mentor somewhere or we want to start a program, we have to fund it. So the challenges that I would say are the biggest are that sticking with believing in something that we had, even when everybody said no, and even when everybody said you can't operate on as little money as we had.

to say, then I'm gonna push it all the way to the wall and see if it'll happen. And so that's how we overcame all of those.

Olajumoke Fatoki (19:30)
That

is so beautiful and I feel like there's something about believing in something enough to make it come to life. And then you put in what it takes to bring it to life and then you start to see how much impact it is making on people. You begin to see how much people feel connected. Something people didn't know that they needed until you started. It's so powerful, it's so powerful.

And you know, like most people say, or like I've also come to realize something that keeps us going in the face of challenges, which you have also alluded to is that, is our why, you know, the reason why we started in the first place, you know, it just keeps us going regardless of the challenges we, you know, we just keep taking one step at a time. And I guess that's the reason why, you know, the pro the mentor projects, you know, has been able to come this far and even growing.

by today. Alright.

Deborah Heiser (20:36)
It's all based on the same principles, which I believed in, but didn't know that others would, which is, you know, we have a lot of volunteers.

And we also have a lot of people who support us in many ways. I think that a lot of people don't believe that other people will help or support or that they want to, that they would be a burden or that it's, you know, something that they have to overcome in themselves and believe in what they're doing. That was advice somebody gave me. They said, if you don't believe in yourself enough to be able to ask someone for help, how is anybody going to believe in what you're doing? And that seems easy enough to do, but it's so,

so hard to go out and do that. It feels almost like begging in a way. And so that's one of the hardships that I had to really, and I still struggle with and still work on now, is doing that.

Olajumoke Fatoki (21:20)
Yeah.

That's beautiful and I think I want you to say that again that piece of advice that someone gave you you know, believe yourself enough I don't want to mess it up. I want you to say it exactly how it is

Deborah Heiser (21:41)
The person said to me, you have to believe in yourself and what you're doing enough to be able to feel comfortable to ask someone for support. And I had a hard time with that. You I was raised where you did things you don't ask for help. You're supposed to be self-sufficient. If you're asking, it almost feels like begging. And so it was counter to everything I was ever taught early on. And so that's a struggle that I had.

advice to anybody. It is believe in yourself and what you are doing enough so that you can ask for help from someone else.

Olajumoke Fatoki (22:18)
That

is so profound and if we round up this conversation on that note, we would be good. And I just want people, listeners, audience out there, I hope you heard that.

You need to believe enough in yourself. If you don't believe in yourself, then nobody else would. All right. And you know, I love the addition to it. You need to believe enough in yourself, you know, to be able to ask for support. I know what I'm doing and now I need, you know, to come join me. That's, that is really profound. And you know, something, big takeaway for people on today's episode. Thank you so much Deborah for sharing that with us. All right. So moving on.

How do you see the mentor projects evolving in the future?

Deborah Heiser (23:08)
Oh, my big hope, honestly, is that...

If I could have my own way, it would be that I could really talk about mentorship and get the word out there. And that it would be able to be run with people who are getting paid and who are, you know, we do have some paid people, but really build it up into a real organization that is like a multi-million dollar organization where people are really able to get mentorship in every corner of the world. Because being able to see the impact,

of having somebody that you would never have an opportunity to meet, that you can be mentored for free by them. I mean, it levels the playing field all around the world. I've gotten to see it happen like a person with an idea and they don't know that there's any way to solve that problem. And then a mentor solves it, you know, helps them solve it. So that's where I would love to be able to keep talking about mentorship and how important it is to connect with others and also to have somebody

you know, really taking the helm of the Metro project and turning it into something that's like a really enormous company.

Olajumoke Fatoki (24:20)
That's beautiful. I think in pictures, right? So while you were speaking, I started to envision this, you know, that world of interconnectivity where, you know, just everything you said. And I imagine how beautiful that would be.

And you have my support on this. don't know if that's counts for anything. I believe so much in this and I feel like it holds so much power, you know, to change the world and make a difference. So I see this, you know, going beyond your own imagination and, know, touching the ends of the earth, reaching a lot of people in different places across Africa,

Deborah Heiser (24:42)
Yes.

Olajumoke Fatoki (25:06)
Europe, different places that you never ever thought. Thank you so much for starting such an amazing initiative. Thank you.

Deborah Heiser (25:19)
Thank you and thank you for believing in it.

Olajumoke Fatoki (25:22)
I love it. Yeah. All right. So you

Okay. And I feel like, you know, maybe at the end of the episode, of course, I'm definitely going to get to that, you know, how people can be a part of this. Um, it would be nice to also share that with us, but I would come to that, you know, at the end of the episode, but, um, just wanted to put that out there. All right. So you work with mentors and mentees from diverse generations. What lessons have you seen exchanged across this generational divides?

Deborah Heiser (25:58)
So I've learned that age doesn't matter and generations don't matter. You know, I can't tell you how often I've heard, well, reverse mentoring, kids can teach older people how to do tech. I am so tired of hearing of that. There's so, you know, that is not always mentoring because I know...

you know, that a lot of kids don't want to teach older people tech and it's more of a burden. And that people who are older are tech savvy. What really I have been able to see intergenerationally is that people will start to work and they will try to solve big problems across a board. And it doesn't matter about age. Tech is not a part of it. It isn't like one person is like, I'm not smart enough in this area. It is that

I have been able to see we have an innovation lab and we've done hackathons and our mentors with different backgrounds, very different backgrounds have come together and they've been able to work together to solve problems. So in terms of intergenerational, there were the hackathons that happened. Students as young as 14 from different countries were working on projects and the mentors were helping them. So

One 14 year old girl, she was written up in Forbes, had an idea with her team, but she had this really amazing idea. And it was a hackathon that was done during COVID. her team, which was kids from the US and kids from Argentina were working together. And she had a really cool cybersecurity idea. And the mentors that were there were then working with her. was her idea, not theirs, but then they started working with her on it.

They were able to take this to places and try to get it out there and try to move it forward. She ended up getting written up in Forbes. This person that had the idea was not a science person. She wasn't a tech person. She was like a liberal arts kid in Argentina who was able to come up with some new way of thinking for herself that got everybody from all generations thinking in a new way. And that to me was beautiful because we did not expect that. It was just...

it turned us all kind of on our heads in a different direction.

Olajumoke Fatoki (28:18)
That's really beautiful. It's generational divide. That is really beautiful. That's a really beautiful way to, you know, to explain that. Thank you. All right. So let's talk a little bit about the organizations now. How do you think organizations can foster better mentorship? How do you think organizations can foster better mentorship between experienced professionals

younger talents? I know the questions are kind of interrelated you know.

Deborah Heiser (28:54)
I think that I'm gonna define mentorship because I think this will help with how it can be done because mentorship should be approached the same way we approach making friends, right? I mean, it's different than having a friend, but it should be approached the same way. If you're assigned a friend, that's a little awkward. If you have an expectation of a friend, that's a little awkward.

So here's how it's really defined. The first part of it is, and this helps with getting mentoring programs in organizations. So if you start with generativity, a person has to want to give back. So you have to have a mentor who says, I feel compelled to give back. And it has to be what they want to give back. Maybe I know something and you say, hey, I want that information from you, but I don't feel like giving that.

That's not going to make for a good mentoring relationship. And likewise, the person that's needing the help, the mentee, has to want what the mentor is giving. There's oftentimes a mismatch across all sorts of places. It's often driven by the mentee who says, I want this. And then they go and try to pluck that from a mentor. And not all mentors maybe want to give that, right? So that has to be there. And the next thing is,

And I really want to emphasize that this should be driven by the mentor. Because as a mentee, I can't tell you how many times I didn't know what I didn't know. And so I think I want something and then I come to find out maybe I wanted something else. I just didn't know it was there. A mentor can tell you that. You know, here, look here, I'm going to help you. The second thing is it has to be intrinsically motivated. So if a person is told you better mentor,

that's going to be, you're going to be assigned some people as part of your job, that feels like a burden. And it should come internally from a person wanting to help, just like that Charlie example. No one had to beg that guy to help him. He was like, I'll help you. I want to. Like I did with my friend who was at her job. So here's how that looks. If I love to read or I love to do things, nobody has to pay me to do it.

If I love to mentor and give back to people, nobody has to tell me to do it. But if I were to say to you, hey Ola, would you like to go into a soup kitchen to deliver food and beverages to hungry, thirsty people? You might say, yeah, and I feel good about that. But if I said, you know what, instead of going to the soup kitchen, I want you to go do that same thing at Starbucks for free. You're probably going to say, no, I really don't want to do that. I don't want to volunteer my time at Starbucks, even though you're giving out food and beverage to hungry, thirsty people.

That is exactly what happens in the workplace, is they feel like they're at Starbucks and not the soup kitchen. And that's what we want to keep is that soup kitchen feeling. The feeling of, just changed somebody's life maybe for the better and I feel good about myself. The next thing is that you have to have a meaningful connection. Now we all understand this intrinsically because we don't make friends with every single person that walks across our path. You know, there's gonna be a perfectly fine person that comes our way.

and they're just not our person. Does that mean it's a failure? No, that's just not our friend. Same with mentorship. We also have to trust the person. Charlie didn't trust calling his boss. He thought he could die if he did that. He called somebody else. We have to trust that who we're talking to isn't gonna say, ooh, if you tell me you don't know something, I'm not gonna give you a good performance evaluation or I'm not gonna promote you. Likewise,

If you're in finance and you want somebody, if you want to mentor somebody, you have to make sure they're not going to go steal your clients and run away. So trust is a big deal in the workplace and elsewhere. And finally, there has to be a goal. So with all that, if you're going to set up a mentoring program, make it as organic as possible. Some of the biggest things happen at the water cooler. If you're on Zoom and you work from home, it happens in Zoom settings.

Every Friday at the Mentor Project, we have a thing called Fridays with Fred. It's where all the mentors to get together. We've had books that have come out of that, companies that have been formed out of that. It's complete lateral mentoring. People are saying, you know this, you know that, help me. So it's putting people in positions like lunches. You throw a lunch, somebody can turn to their left or turn to their right and say, hey, Jim, I heard you know how to do this. Can you tell me a little bit about that? It's getting people to conferences.

I can't tell you how many people have sat next to somebody and six months later they're like, I remember I talked to that person and they know this, I'm gonna call upon them for some advice. These kinds of things that we all disregard as not that useful end up being the big catalyst for change and mentorship in the workplace. So yes, hierarchical is great, but the biggest impact doesn't come there. It comes from all of our lateral mentors that we get organically because we trust them.

It feels intrinsic. doesn't feel like Starbucks. It feels like we're, you know, out doing good. So that is what I would suggest to people. It's free. It doesn't cost anything. And people will be happier.

Olajumoke Fatoki (34:16)
Amazing, amazing.

Three things just to wrap that up. It has to come from within, intrinsic in the first place.

You to make it work in organizations, the trust factor, very critical, very important. You know, if people don't trust you, they are probably not going to hear anything that comes from you or be willing to take anything that you have to share, no matter how smart you think you are. All right. And then the last one, there has to be a goal. Why are you doing it? And I believe it has to be measurable as well. So that at the end of the day, you're able to say this, you you can, you can pinpoint specifically.

that

you were able to achieve. And I think that that will really go a long way in helping organizations foster that kind of community where mentorship tries at work. And for me, have experienced a form of reverse mentoring. I think I mentioned this in one of our previous conversations where

the older generation who are not very familiar with tech, know, and I was able to help this person sits on the board, you know, for the organization. And I was able to help show one or two things and she was really impressed. And, you know, she, how this was then ingrained into the culture of the organization was, you know, she been a top executive in the organization. She shared the story, you know, amongst our colleagues.

leagues

when I wasn't even in the room and somehow the rest of them bought into the same into the story and we sort of tried to put policies around it and make it an organizational culture such that you know knowledge doesn't just come from the top you could also learn from someone who you know who is below you or someone on the same level as you so powerful

Deborah Heiser (36:10)
Right.

What

you did, what I would redefine yours as, is a cultural mentoring. You came in, because a lot of people think, I'm going to go tell a person how to turn on Zoom, you know, or something like that. But you were teaching them, you know, the person above you and others something that changed the culture of the organization. That's a cultural mentorship. You were saying, yes, we need to have this tech culture or whatever that is that's there.

in this company and they took that. That's huge to know that you changed a company.

and you came in and you did that in a reverse way, there's power in that. There's a lot of power. We need to recognize that. And cultural mentoring is far more impactful than an interaction, right? I'm going to go teach somebody how to turn on Zoom or how to manage their Calendly, whatever it is. I'm going to change a culture and show that this is needed. I'm so glad you shared that because that's super cool.

Olajumoke Fatoki (36:59)
It is.

Yeah,

very impactful, right? Because the experience hasn't left me. Anytime I get the opportunity to share it, I always do because, you know, it stuck with me because I saw the change that came just from that single, you know, that single process. yeah. Thank you. All right. So,

What makes, okay, for listeners interested in mentoring or finding a mentor, what are the three practical steps they can take to establish a meaningful mentoring relationship?

Deborah Heiser (38:05)
first thing you want to do is to realize that mentoring is everywhere. So just like you found a way to mentor, right, you're mentoring. Look for ways that you can be helpful.

You know, every mentor and mentee, it's two-way street. Somebody's help, both are being helpful. One is, you know, saying, I'm gonna accept what you're giving me and I'm gonna run with it. That's very helpful. The other is, I'm gonna give you something and you can run with it. So figure out where you are in that with everyone you're meeting. So don't just look at somebody as, that's, you know, so and so from the, you know, copy department, or this is somebody from that department. No, what does that person do? And how might you be useful?

Are you going to be the person that helps as a mentor or as the mentee? Think of not grabbing from a nameless, faceless individual for something, but think of a small goal.

So an example for this is Irene was somebody who worked at NASA. Then she went to work at IBM. She had the same amazing skill set she had before, but she didn't know the lay of the land of the new company. So she reached out to somebody two levels above her. And she said her only goal, her only ask was, can you give me the lay of the land here? I don't know what the departments do and how it is that it works. That led to like a four year mentorship.

So think of us when you think don't think long-term I want to get two levels up I need a mentor that's going to do that think of what's an ask that I need right now that would be helpful for me what's the first step what's the first leg and who can help me with that and think of everyone in terms of how you're going to connect with them that's really it.

Olajumoke Fatoki (39:55)
Amazing, amazing. The second leg to that question is how can mentees maximize the value they get from mentorship?

Deborah Heiser (40:05)
The value that a mentee gets, and your mentee got this, she understood the value of what she got from you. She didn't get a tip or a trick. She got a culture change. Understand what you're being given.

So if you understand that you're being given something that can be really impactful, like don't think of it as an interaction. Think of it as how deep does this go and how deep can I make this go? That is going to make you understand the mentorship that you have gotten and it's going to make every one of your other mentoring relationships more valuable. The mentee has a lot of power there that they just don't understand. They feel like all the power is in the mentor and that they are going to just be, they're waiting

to get some kind of information from them, but you just showed that how that was very different in your example. So because your mentee, the person who was actually above you, Abbas, understood that what you were giving was incredibly valuable and it wasn't just an interaction, it was a culture change. So know that you are the holder of something very valuable.

Olajumoke Fatoki (41:16)
Amazing. Thank you. All right. So let's give out a little bit of inspiration to our listeners. So what do you hope that readers take away from your book, The Mentorship Edge?

Deborah Heiser (41:34)
hope the readership...

Those who read it will understand what mentoring really is and what it isn't, and how you can utilize it along with networking, coaching, sponsorship, all of the other advising, all of those other titles that we all put, jumble them together and kind of get it all mixed up that we can tease those out and use those as launching pads for us for even better connections. So the biggest thing is to learn what mentoring is, what it isn't.

all of the different examples of how mentoring just isn't job related. It's what passes on our culture and our values and our traditions. The things that it doesn't matter where you go and live in the world, you take that with you. That does not leave wherever you were. You leave your job, you still hold your culture, your value, all of those things and your traditions. So understanding how that is also impacting us.

The is done by grandmas, it's in religion, whatever one you subscribe to, and it's everywhere around us. And so it helps you to find out where it is so that you can become more connected.

Olajumoke Fatoki (42:49)
I think that is

so powerful. So powerful. All right. So I know we already talked about this here, there, and everywhere as we been broaching on the subjects, but I just want us to contextualize it.

You know a bit more and you know, just to give it a big call out so that our listeners can you know find You know, they can take this away. So Because we speak to a lot of career professionals, you know people who are trying to transition at different levels in their career So how can you know mentorship help professionals like that to thrive in their careers? What are the specific ways that mentorship can help such professionals thrive?

in their careers.

Deborah Heiser (43:38)
So if you're a mentor the way you can thrive is that when you have a protege or a mentee below you, that person's carrying what you, they're carrying your values, they're carrying all of your way of thinking. That's an asset to you.

That is a tremendous asset to you. So realize that for the mentor, having a mentee who is taking what you started and rolling with it and doing more with it, that helps you. That makes you secure. That makes your job really important. If you're a mentee in the workplace and you're able to take on that from somebody, you're value to them.

because they need you to accept their information. Who else? They can't just go tossing it out here and there. You're an incredible value to that individual. So it's that meaningful connection that you want to make that isn't breakable. And you could have 10, 12, 50, one, doesn't matter. But you want, that is your, out there, the real thing that matters to you is that your job is much more secure when you have a connection in either direction.

It's another ally. It's another person you trust. It's just another meaningful connection. So think of it that way. It's very simple. It's just putting yourself out there and making sure that you're making those meaningful, trusted connections with people that you genuinely like and care about.

Olajumoke Fatoki (45:09)
Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you so much. I think that was self explanatory. Thank you. All right, so we finally come to the end of our call questions and we have three rapid fire questions, you know.

quick responses, just to make this to end on the note of fun, you know, that's basically what this is about. So are you ready? Awesome. All right, so let's talk about your memorable mentor. Who has been the most influential mentor in your life and why?

Deborah Heiser (45:47)
I have so many, but the first one that I have with my grandpa.

And he used, I was the oldest grandchild and I used to ride around, had a gigantic Cadillac. And he would have me sit up in the front seat with him and I would run his errands with him. And when he drove around town, he would say, hey, you see Mary over there? She's, you know, she's somebody who's had a rough life and, but she put her three kids through college and he would go on and on about people that I'm sure he didn't know. But at the time I was five, I thought he knew everybody.

So the main thing that he would tell me every week on our Saturday thing was you never know what's going on in a person's life based on what you see. So he would tell me these in-depth stories about people so that I would see them as a person with a story. Well, lo and behold, I'm a psychologist. I like to see the story in every person, right? That was a big mentor that he made me see people as a

Olajumoke Fatoki (46:32)
Mmm.

Deborah Heiser (46:52)
story

as a person as complex and as you know somebody who there's good and there's bad and all of that and that was at five I couldn't have explained it then but it's so clear as day now

Olajumoke Fatoki (47:07)
Amazing. I mean that was indeed so memorable. I can imagine Thank you, thank you grandpa if you can hear us if you get to listen to this Thank you All right. So let's talk about your career highlights, you know, what's the most fulfilling moment of your career so far?

Deborah Heiser (47:17)
Yeah.

I'd say that the biggest career moment for me, I remember at one point I was in research and I was building my resume and I was checking boxes and people were saying, you're so accomplished, you're doing so much and I didn't feel it.

biggest success for me has been when I look at the mentor project and I see all of these people connected who like each other and who are giving back and I get to actually see in real life a theory that was presented decades and decades ago that nobody really talked about but I'm able to see it that it actually worked. So from a researcher perspective, this isn't a research but this is

like an anthropological expedition in a way and I get such a value from that knowing that I feel so good because it makes me feel like the world is just a playground of connections that we can all engage in. So that's the highlight of my career.

Olajumoke Fatoki (48:35)
Amazing,

beautiful. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. That must bring you so much fulfillment and I love it. All right. So fun fact about you. What's a surprising hobby or interest of yours that most people wouldn't even guess?

Deborah Heiser (48:55)
Okay, there are two. I used to skydive, but I haven't done that in a long time. But now I play pickleball. I love pickleball. I know everybody else in the world either loves it or they hate it. I'm one of the lovers of pickleball.

Olajumoke Fatoki (48:57)
Ha ha ha!

Amazing stuff.

I love to skydive someday. So here's my inspiration yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure speaking with you I've enjoyed every bit of this conversation All right, so any final words of wisdom for our listeners before we wrap up on the show today?

Deborah Heiser (49:15)
Here you go.

Look to your left and look to your right. You're looking at your next mentor.

Olajumoke Fatoki (49:38)
Amazing amazing look to your left look to your right and you're looking at the next mentor Thank you so much. That's a beautiful way to wrap this up Alright, so dr. Heiser, I know that our listeners would love to connect with you Engage with you, you know, and maybe even you know join your network The mentor project so how can they make that happen? Do you want to share with us?

Deborah Heiser (50:04)
Sure, so you can go to mentorproject.org and if you know of a student, we offer free mentorship to students as long as you're kindergarten through graduate school, doesn't matter about your age. Click the Become a Menti button.

and we'll get you hooked up with mentoring. If you would like to help support us in some way, I'm here with open arms. If you would like to reach me in another capacity, you can on LinkedIn or at my website, deboraheiser.com. But honestly, we're all very receptive to hearing from people who want to engage and connect.

Olajumoke Fatoki (50:44)
Beautiful, beautiful. Dr. Hisa, this has been such an insightful conversation. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom on mentorship and.

It's its impact on career growth and you know our lives generally For those who want to learn more you already heard about it where you can find the mentor project and how you can connect with them Please go ahead and do so and let's all make the world a better place So our listeners if you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe Leave us a review and be sure to share it with someone

who could also benefit from the mentoring insights. And until we come your way again next time, keep growing and thriving. Thank you.

All right, all right, all right. Thank you so much. That's a high self for yeah. was a beautiful conversation. Very. I love the.

Deborah Heiser (51:37)
Thank you, this was so fun.

I enjoyed

every minute of it. You're a great host.

Olajumoke Fatoki (51:48)
thank you. Thank you for that feedback. Thank you so much. I just speaking with you. I learned a lot and I can't wait for this episode to go live and then we share it with the world and see how much, you know, hope and blessing this brings to people. Thank you. All right. So, next steps, I would send you an email and I'll let you know when the possible release dates would be. for now I've had like, I have like five pending episodes, but I'm definitely going to

Deborah Heiser (52:05)
Thank you.

Thanks.

Great.

Olajumoke Fatoki (52:17)
to match a timeline to it so that we can look forward to it. So if you have any links that you would like for me to add to the description or anything at all that you wanna share that can also make the episode go out there, I would love very much to take that. I'll send that to you in an email so you can also forward whatever you want to add to the description and I'll be sure to have that for you. Thank you. Now I understand why you're on the lead.

Deborah Heiser (52:45)
Thank you.

Olajumoke Fatoki (52:47)
board. I'm Pat Mart, you're really an amazing guest and I love you know every every aspect of our conversation and I really love what you're doing. It's not a lot of people can do it and you know kudos to you for taking up that initiative. All right.

Deborah Heiser (52:49)
Hahaha!

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. And just know,

thank you. I really appreciate that. And just know you're mentoring. Every one of your listeners is taking a piece of you and rolling with it. Most people do, the podcasts don't know that, but you are. So who knows how many lives you're touching, but you are and you're making a difference. So keep it up.

Olajumoke Fatoki (53:11)
You're welcome.

Mentoring. Thank

you so much. Thank you. All right. Enjoy the rest of your day and I hope to connect with you soon. All right. Yeah. All right. Bye. Yeah.

Deborah Heiser (53:30)
You too.

Absolutely, anytime. Take care all. Bye.