Assignment for after class #5:
WBL2010_Assignment 5 UPDATED: Posted 10/28
Mentor Letter – Share with mentors http://wbl2010.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/mentor-information/
To do:
1. Well in advance of class #6: Please review sheets above.
2. Complete individually, but be prepared to discuss and collaborate with your teammates. Post your answers as ONE POST with your teammates. Post on here by MIDNIGHT Tuesday before class.
Other:
We will be working on Hot Mommas Project cases – your personal story explained as a mentor and leader – over the next few weeks. If you want to get started early, click HERE, read, and start writing using directions at link. Think about what you have learned personally, professionally/ins chool, and specific stories that go with those big lessons.
November 7, 2010 at 6:03 pm
******MARIANA SAMPLE MENTOR INTERVIEW*******
• What is your area of occupation?
Journalism and writer
• What was your path in your career?
I started as a journalist. My first job was in a newspaper in Brooklyn, in New York, where I grow up and it was sort of a neighborhood newspaper, weekly and a kind of job which pays US$ 90.00, after graduated from college, just to get started. It is very hard to have this first break, in journalism, as in many careers. Everybody you talk to will say: “We want someone with 3 to 5 years of experience but nobody would give you the change. So it was really hard just to get started. I worked for this newspaper, you know, it wasn’t a great job but at least it gave a chance to show up around and then I went to the journalism school in Columbia. It was across the street actually; the women’s part of Columbia. At that time Columbia didn’t except women. That was the place where women were supposed to go. So I graduated and after that my path became easier. I had a professor who really liked my work a lot so I was married at the time and I had to find a job sort of near Washington, my ex husband used to work to the Washington post here.
So do you think the formal education was primordial in your career?
It wouldn’t be if a could move a lot but my husband used to live here so because I was limited where I could look for a job, it became important in some way to set me apart; otherwise, you could just go and work to a neighborhood newspaper, get some experience there and then just move to a bigger city. My first big newspaper job was in Baltimore, an established paper, pretty big city. I don’t think I could get that job without formal education, because of that, it think it was important.
• Which skills did help you the most in your profession? (Personal / formal education?)
Probably the most important trait was empathy. The ability of listening and trying to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. The ability to see through somebody else’s eyes and the ability to make yourself small. Some people, they walk inside a room and they want to be the centre of attention, to suck all the oxygen. I am the opposite; you can’t be this way if you want to be a good journalist. You have to give room for people to be themselves to slip behind their eyes and understand how they see the world. And the ability to write it right, and be careful with any ideas you might have stuck in your head. If it takes one day to write a paragraph, one day it will be, as soon it is right. Nobody will notice that you spent one day of your life in that paragraph, but it’s all about loving what you do.
So I think you can apply these two traits for different areas: – love for what you do and the ability to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes.
Yeah, if you are a seller you can use these abilities to approach your target. For example, if you are opening a hostel what would make someone chose to stay here: is it clean? Is it safe? How well located is that? Can I come and go any time I want? If my stuff gets ripped off… So you really have to think about everything. You can’t say: Come here, I invested my life savings in this hostel and I want to be a success.
• When did you have the “aha” moment to write your first book- Skies to Conquer? How was the experience?
Actually a book agent called me. I covered education for The New York Times and the Air Force Academy broke with these sexual assaults. It was a big scandal in this country especially because when women reported the rape, the Academy punished them (around 60) instead of punishing the people who made that to them. So I worked on that, they investigated and this book agent called me and asked if I were interested about turning it into a book proposal. I thought about it. There is still an appetizer for this kind of book. So we talked about it and I did a proposal at that time. At the same time lots of stories about children who had been molested from priests were coming out. And I think there is a limited interest about these stories after a while. At that time no publishers were interested about financing a book about rape in the Academy. Plus it would be very difficult to do it. Well, I like difficult tasks… Eventually what happened, in 2005 I was home in maternity license, Sarah had just born, and the agent called me again and he said he just received a call from a publisher, out of the blue, who was interested about a book about the Academy. His idea was more like, one year inside the Academy. The more that I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Make a big picture of the Academy. So I read the proposal, and negotiated the financial part. So it wasn’t that I had that aha moment. Someone else had and I heard about it and I said: AHA! lol
• What were the biggest challenges about writing for a newspaper? How about writing a book?
In a newspaper you are really limited in terms how you can tell a story. So if you want to tell a story like this, maybe you could break it down in small pieces and tell it in 2000 words. And if they really want to invest in that story, you could tell it in four articles in series. It is less than the size of a book’s chapter. So you have to figure it out what it is really relevant about that story, what is essential and shape it. There is also a model of writing you have to follow. Foe example, at The New Your Times we could use the word ironic. So it was great the feeling when I could write the word ironic at my own book!
• What are the three most important things for people my age to do to be prepared for a successful career?
The first one, to have a thick skin; it only takes one person to say yes. So if have to go through 1000 no to get the yes, you have to be able to do not let the no’s defeat you. We never know what behind that no. There are so many possibilities such timing, budget. The second one would be stay on top of the changes in your field. Through this book I discovered so many social web sites to help pushing the book. Nowadays publishers don’t push them that much. Everything is changing so fast and there are so much out there you can use in your benefit. You just need to be aware of that. And the third one is to get dressed every morning. It’s being ready to go, because one day you will have to go.
• Do you think with this economy, immigrants can have a chance of a good job opportunity in USA?
I think there is a field where they can use their status in their advantage. In another words, if their English is good enough, to find a way to draw their skills, to make them more valuable then somebody who is native, so yes, they can. But I think this person has to have at least some experience in their field before they get here. With this economy lots of Americans lost their jobs last year, and this makes this challenge even hard, what I think it is sad.
• Do you think women have the same opportunities as men at the labor market in USA?
No, I don’t. I think it depends what your field is. If you are talking a woman in a normal course of life, which is getting married and having children, once you start actually building a family, it s become harder competing with men or women who don’t have this other obligations. Even though most houses in this country woman are working, the father doesn’t necessarily take big roles in terms of keep the house running, making sure kids get to soccer practice, get picked up, everything goes to the women. I can tell, in my career I had by best moment before I get married. I this is a story, I could just jump into a plane and I would be there to get the best story possible. Now I have other priorities, I have my kids at home and I don’t want to be in that plane. I don’t want to be disappearing for two weeks, and then coming back. Now the story is not the most important thing anymore! But I am competing against people who the story is the most important thing. So in this industry they are tending to reduce people and the first ones who they turned to was woman with children because they don’t have the mobility. This is sad because these women had incredible careers in that paper and as they had to reduce theirs numbers they did that far more frequently to woman than with man.
• Is there anything important I missed?
There one thing: when I started out in journalism, I gave myself 5 years to make sure I could make a living of that. I wanted to be a lawyer. So if you want to do something and you pretty narrow define it you have to think back and open your possibilities. Use your trainings not as something to like a fence that keep you in but as something to extend all your possibilities.
November 8, 2010 at 12:50 am
Names of group member: Stacey
Blog post author name: Stacey
My top three learning’s from this interview.
1) What are the biggest challenges you have had to face in your career?
- One of the biggest challenges I faced was picking up when I was let down or “failed” myself in some form. The first couple of years were rough. The only way that I got myself out of bed at one stage was by saying “Today is my day and I will succeed” and eventually I did. Getting the capital for my business was the hardest thing to do as I am not from a wealthy background so I had to do it all by myself and I must say, the struggle was worth it!
* After speaking with my mentor about her career and goals and how she gto to where she is today. I felt like I could relate to her with challenges she has had to face to get to this point as I felt the same way when I first started to study at university.
2) What kind of experiences helped you to get to your current position? For example: studies
- I did a lot of work in my area. I worked in a food store; I tried learning the business side from friends who already had their own business. I asked a lot of questions about anything and everything to do with opening your own food store. If u want something u need to put in 200%, if not more to make it work.
* This is another time when I felt like a could relate to my mentor as I have put myself out there and volunteered to get experience and gain a good report with others. Getting first-hand experience is the best way to learn.
3) When you were my age (20) did you see yourself doing what you are doing now?
-Man…. I knew I would be successful at whatever I decided to do but at that time I wasn’t yet sure what it was exactly that I would like to do for the rest of my life……
*I really like what has being mentioned with this question as she has spoken so positively and you can see that her positive thinking at the start of her career has kept her going through the tough times.When you can see your future being positive it helps you forget about all the negative let downs that come about.
-Concluding point
Over all, through conducting this interview with my mentor I feel very positive that I could also follow in her foot steps and allow myself to achieve as much as she has in her career. I got a lot of good advice from this woman, although I didn’t show much of my interview but what I did show were the answers I got the most out of for myself. I learnt a lot and feel more prompted to continue my ideas and study the market/ industry to give myself a name.
December 2, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Excellent! I can see you put a lot of thought on your top learnings and concluding point from your mentor interview experience. Nice job catching up with your assignment!
November 9, 2010 at 11:45 am
1.Members: Nicole and Lesley
2.Author: Nicole
3.Summary of Interview (Top 3 Learning’s)
Nicole: My mentor is a Psychiatrist who has her own private practice. She works part-time mainly because of her family. She does out-patient therapy as well as group sessions and of course medication. While conducting my interview I immediately saw the passion and love she has for her career.
The three most important learning’s I will take from this interview is the following.
What skills help you the most in your job?
“I relate to people very well and I am able to create relationships with people very easily. The most helpful skill I have in my profession whoever is that I know myself very well. One can get caught up in the client’s life very easily but if you know yourself and your boundaries you will be able to stay focused on your client and their needs”.
What was your biggest challenge in your career thus far?
“One of my biggest challenges was learning how to run my own practice. They don’t teach you that part at med school so you have to learn it on your own. I wrote letters and ask other psychiatrist’s if they need some at their practices’, I eventually found someone and he became my mentor. I taught me all I needed to know about starting and running my own practice. Business was never my strong point but I needed to learn if I wanted to make a success out of my practice and that is exactly what I did”.
What are three important things that people my age need to know in order to make a success of their careers?
•Have confidence in yourself! You need to put yourself out there and go for it with all you have.
•A Mentor! I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a mentor, because trust me you will need the guidance and support throughout your career.
•Peer Supervision! I still get together with my group once a month. There you get to see if you still on the right path, if u handled a situation correctly or you just need to vent.
Looking at these 3 responses, I realized what it will take for me to make a success of my career. I was reminded about why I actually took this gap year from my studies. It also put into perspective how far I still need to go but that it is all possible with hard work and dedication. Her kids had asked her (mentor) if she had to win $25 million would she quit her job and her responses was “not a chance because I love what I do”. I must say, I have not met many people that would respond in that way but I sure hope that if my own kids had to ask me that question one day that I will respond in the same way.
Lesley: My top three learning’s from this interview are as follows.
1.Biggest challenges they had to face
2.Ways in which I could practice those things
3.Important thins young people my age can learn about your job
4.Biggest challenges they had to face in being where they are today?
Being in the South African army is tough. Mentally, physically, and emotionally. Bailey said that people who are inconsiderate and selfish and who do not worry about the well-being of the organization or fellow employee is mind boggling to him. Theft and damage to state equipment was a huge problem and at most times caused under performance. But through all of that he pushed through and took all the punches handed out to him. Because in the end it was all worth it
After speaking to my mentor, I realized that one has to go through a lot to get to the top and that you have to start at the bottom to make a success of your life. Like the saying goes when life throws you a lemon, make lemonade and be happy
Ways in which I could practice those thing?
Having respect for yourself and your fellow employees is key. To honor your word. Never make promises you can’t keep. Never walk without faith and always know, whatever happens, happens for a reason.
Yet another light bulb moment. One I could relate to, I never make promises I can’t keep and when I by mistake can’t make it. Have a good enough reason as to why I was absent. Faith is also a huge part of life. I always put God first knowing he will never let go of my hand.
Important things young people can learn from your job
Respect= Do unto others as you want done unto you
Honor= your word is your bond
Have dignity= your actions in life determines how people perceive you
Bailey came across as being so positive in what he does so it made me get the understanding that no matter what you do in life, you should at all times have respect, honor what you do and have dignity.
4.Concluding Point
We both learnt a lot from this whole experience. Talking to our mentors gave us an idea of what it is that we need in order to succeed in our chosen careers. Both our mentors were very positive and we hope that this rubs off on us. This was another reality check for both of us, nothing comes easy and if you want the best you have to do your best and give it your all. Through hard work and dedication we as young ladies can achieve our goals by following their examples; and practice what they teach!!
December 2, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Great! It would be an excellent if the formatting of your top learnings was neater and better organized with bullets points. Nice work stating your conclusion!
November 9, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Names of group members: Clara
Blog post author name: Clara
My mentor is an urban planner ( or lead sustainability planner) for the National capital planning commission, which is a planning agency for the federal government. She works on DC area, a part of Virginia and a part of Maryland.
Diane, my mentor, is from San Francisco where she studied sociology, because actually sociology is similar to urban planner because before organizing buildings, shops, transports…. We have to study the people habits and needs. She left San Francisco for a few time and when she went back the life were very expensive because there were many new jobs thanks to internet, and so rich people came in the center of the city and pushed out the Latinos, black people and people without money of the center. And she have been really interested of that policy problem so she started an internship at the San Francisco planning department during 1 year. Then she went to Portland (Oregon)to graduate school to have a master degree and her graduation.
She worked for the planning department of Portland during 7 years( On the water front because it was a very industrialized area , not so sustainable and very ugly) until that she moved to Washington DC for the initiative to redevelop the water front along Anacostia river.
She worked on this initiative until that Fenty abolished the Anacostia water front corporation.
After she went to her current job today for the NCPC.
The skills which help her the most in her job are:
To like the design, the architecture and the environment . But also to like work with people.
To know manage many things, coordinate , and Being organized .
Know speak in front of many people , to do good speech.
My top 3 learning from my mentor’s interview:
I know that it’s really better to try an internship, or be volunteer in an association which is related to my interests.
I also have to take classes in the domain that I like , to see if I really like it and if I could transform my passion in to my job.
And I also have to get the more informations as I can in talking with people . But also search to know on what I have to focus.
Conclusion: I think that this interview has been really useful for me because I have found a mentor who has the same interests as me , and to talk with her gave me new ideas for the future!
And I think that when I will be back to my country I will reapply this meeting with different people who Could share something with me and help me in my studies.
Quotation of my mentor: “ People always tell me Why I do this job? , and their argument is that the city is already built, but a city is always changing, human beings evolve and the city have to be in constant adaptation. This is my job”
December 2, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Good. It would be an excellent or great if the formatting was clearer and more business like by using bullet points and being more organized with your answers. Also, including background information of your mentor was not part of the blog post.
November 9, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Interview
Dream Job – Hotelmanager
Franzi: What is your area of occupation?
Michael: I’m a Hotelmanger
Franzi: What was your path to this job?
Michael: After I’ve finished my school, I went to Hamburg to do my apprenticeship in the Atlantic Kempinski.hotel. After the 3 years, I went to Switzerland to study hotel management. I went back to Germany, where I worked in Munich for 2 years in a leading position. And now I’m in Berlin in another Kempinski hotel for more than 3 years.
Franzi: What kind of degree and course of studies do people need for that job?
Michael: If you want to work in a higher position in an international hotel chain, you need your university entrance diploma that you can study that subject. After your studies, you should work in many different countries to get practical experiences and learn about the different cultures.
Franzi: What do you learn during your apprenticeship as a hotel management trainee?
Michael: First of all you learn how to interact with the guest, for example: how to advise the guest, attend inquiries, accomplish reservations and accept complaints. Furthermore you learn how to deal with reservation concepts and how you book a room. In the service area you learn how to serve the food and beverages right. Alongside, there is the economic service, where you can find out how to prepare the guest rooms. Within the range, merchandise management you get a review over the ordered goods and the inventories.
Franzi: In which countries can I find the best schools of hotel management and what languages do I need for that job?
Michael: The best schools are in Switzerland, for example the school of hotel management in Lausanne. The best in Germany is in Berlin and the best in the USA is the Cornell University.
When you would like to work in this job you should speak except English, also French, Spanish or Russian.
Franzi: What skills do I need for that job?
Michael: It’s very important that you’re an open person who is interested in communicate with the hotel guest. Furthermore you should know how to handle stress. A job in a hotel is very busy!
Franzi: How can I find out, if this is the right job for me?
Michael: The best thing is, when you have the chance to do an internship before your apprenticeship. That you can see how the things work and what the different activities are.
Concluding point:
For me, the interview was a great chance to learn more about the job of a hotel manager. I’m very interested in that job, because you get the chance to work with people from all over the world.
The interview was very informative; it was also a good chance to
approach other people, to interact and work with them.
December 2, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Good. Lack of business formatting and directions not followed properly. The first part of your blog assignment was a summary of the top 3 learnings from the mentor interview not pasting the real interview on the blog. Good job with stating your concluding point.
November 9, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Names of the group members: Anna, Thais
Name of the blog post author: Thais
Summary of the interview:
#1 Anna:
Summary of my mentor career.
After he did his bachelor of chemistry he started working as technical sales person for union carbride. Soon he realized that he would rather do something creative so he worked next to that as cook for free. He visited the cooking school in NYC and did other cooking jobs, he finally decided to open up his own restaurant in Michigan. He sold the restaurant after two years, since he moved with his wife to DC and opened there three new ones and had those successful for 6 years. It was fun work but hard to manage all that, when you have a family so he went back to college and got his masters. After that he worked as director of communication strategies at BRTRC. He still works in that company-now as strategy and defense consultant. His title is senior vice president. When I asked him which job he preferred he did not have a clear answer, he loves both, but the restaurant was not manageable when he got a family with four kids. His biggest challenge was handling the three restaurants
Top 3 learnings: 1) figure out what you really want, no matter if you need to have 10 diffenent jobs
2) do not judge people superficially because of their job. There might be a story behind it
3) bureaucracy is not that complicated in the US than in Germany
#2 Thais: My mentor is the chief editor of a book publisher. But has her own business, a tea house. The three most important questions learning’s:
1) it started did you study or did you make plans? If not, how did you succeed? Think important to follow specific plans, such as business plan, cash flow, inventory control, etc..?
Everything has been studied for two long years in the role. Every business needs to be a little visionary. I saw the company open and running. I saw path and growth. There was thereafter an uncontrollable anxiety to see the business moving. There was no way to expect more. Like if you buy a new car can’t keep it in the garage for a long time, or just put it in motion, no matter who does not know driving. And will learn.
I was persistent and I adopted the policy of the Chinese bamboo that bends but does not break. Being successful also means learning a little every day with the rights and wrongs. And every day was like this when I could not, improvise. Following plans can help a lot, but things do not always go as we wish. You must have a plan B, an extra card up its sleeve, an extra step to use when you least expect it. The basic controls are so badly needed: cash flow (important since the beginning), inventory control (see daily), planning sheets, rules of procedure, graphics and advertising … without a plan and have goals you can not budge. 2) Do you have any interesting story to tell us about your career path that serves as an example to us? A story that talks about rights and wrongs.
Dozens…
One … when I opened my business would have imagined that he immediately announced. Not had the time of maturity necessary for him to bear the fruit (which currently can last from 3 to 5 years). Having a customer base sufficient to pay the costs and possibly have a little extra value in the box that requires time. He had an innovative business. A house theme. Everything that is innovative has an expensive price to pay. Credibility can’t be conquered from night to day. She takes to rise rapidly and rushes down the hill. A hint of thumb: get used to having his word stronger than any paper signed. The world will see this in you. Always act on principle (those things your parents taught him when he was little to be a good boy – the difference between right and wrong) and try to always be fair and honest, even though the path of the facility will look more attractive. Develop your awareness and your empathy (being able to put yourself in the shoes of the people). Develop above all, their power of communication. “Who does not communicate, closes the door.”
3)What was the most critical moment?
There was not exactly “a most critical moment.” In fact, there were several “moments of challenge” challenge the patience, goodwill, belief in a turn later, the tenacity, the initiative to create something new, and hope that everything would be overcome. Fortunately Brazil stopped having those “economic plans” outlandish. Each time the government created one, I knew that the medium term would be a great loss to the economy – usually a drop in consumption and a decline in purchasing power. This reflected in additional efforts to try to pay the bills with dignity. At most, having a business represents you wake up very early and stay late. Represents the minimum be aware of things that happen in your day-to-day. Knowing that every time I see a challenge, you must have creativity, intelligence, and often, in cold blood
Looking for these answers I could understand and learn important questions:
1.Do not matter how complicated it is. Be focus and always want to go further than the eye can see.
2.Organization: This may greatly facilitate our work. Thinking ahead and organize projects can help avoid major mistakes or errors that you can understand.
3.Work hard, has character and determination, can not be easy but can we begin to see results. – Concluding Point
We could be sure to succeed in our careers will not be easy. All passed and many had significant difficulty in their lives. But talk to who’ve gone through the process we are giving birth motivates us and shows us that will not be easy but it is possible to go through all the trouble and have a successful career.
December 2, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Good. It would be a great or excellent if the top learnings were better formatted to make the reading smoother and your points clearer. No need to include a summary of mentor interview. Blog structure could be neater if you organize your ideas well with bullet points. Tip: Always review the final version of your blog draft just in case you need to improve some sentence or paragraph formatting.
November 9, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Name of group members: Daniela
Blog post author name: Daniela
Mentor Interview
My Mentor is a Hotel Manager and works full time in a Hotel in Annapolis, Maryland.
1.How did you start your career?
Well, let’s go back to when I was 15 years old. At that time I had a friend who worked at Dunkin’ Donuts and she invited me to work with her. I had to be there every Saturday and Sunday at 6 in the morning to make coffee and serve the donuts to the clients. That was when I started getting some experience on hospitality with clients. After that, I had several different jobs…in Restaurants, stores…
After I received my undergraduate degree I decided to get my master degree on Hotel Management.
2.Which skills helped you the most in your profession?
I can say that I always had a problem with public talking, but that is obviously one of the most important challenges you have to go through while building a career, no matter what you are going to do…
So, I would say that talking to people ( a lot), knowing how to deal with customers, guests. Also, multitasking is super important, sometimes you have one guest with you on the phone and other standing in front of you at the front desk.
3.What big challenges did you have along your way?
Male-Dominated Industry. Today it is getting better, but years ago when I used to work for big companies you could easily feel the difference. There was always that group of boys that were considered the head of everything, or even male bosses, and I always had to deal with that.
Dealing with staff is hard in general , you have to get use to it.
Companies that move you around a lot, you know, moving to a different state once your job requires that from you, or even going out of the country.
4.What did you see yourself doing when you were in my age? And what else can you tell me about your experiences?
After I graduaded in 1994 I traveled a lot in Europe. I lived in Portugal for 1 year, and when I returned to the States at age 22, I had International Business in mind as my future career. Well, I can say that you will have many different ideas of what to do in your life, sometimes you have something all planned, and then a new opportunity shows up and you just forget all those plans and decide to start something new, completely different, which is good…different experiences will take you to different ways, and that can be the way to get where you want! Ideas change with time…today you want something and tomorrow you might want something else…All I can say is that you have to keep your head straight up for what you like, for what you want, and always be open to new experiences, that is how life goes on. And also, accept who you are, don’t try to be somebody else, just be you and always show your best.
Concluding point:
After talking to my mentor, I found out that we have almost the same way of thinking, all she said is what I always think is the way to go on too! She just reforced my thoughts of how be successful with this interview. It seems she always chosed the right way to get where she wanted, it was just amazing to hear how she started and what she went through to be who she is today.
December 2, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Good. Directions not followed properly. Please make sure you read carefully and understand what the blog assignment really is before posting. The first part of the blog post (Top 3 learnings from mentor interview) is missing but good job with completing the second part (stating your concluding point).
November 9, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Name: Bogdana
Author of the blog post: Bogdana
When planning my interview I decided to make an appointment with two people in case one of them wouldn’t be able to meet and I’ll turn up in a bad situation of not being able to complete my assignment. But I was pretty sure both of them would find a chance to talk to me about their career. As my experience shows I was wrong and indeed one of them almost set me up. And he didn’t know that I had another person to talk to. It was strange and surprising for me since I thought that people who achieved a lot in their professional life knew how to manage their time and I was so sure they wouldn’t let anyone down if someone relied on them. That was an upsetting fact for me and also a good lesson and a good experience after which I realized that having options is always a good thing.
I must say I really enjoyed talking to my mentor. I always like talking to people who are considered to be successful since you always can learn something new and useful from them.
Some of the things he talked about were pretty normal and universal for me. For example, he said that it’s important to build social skills, to pick up a career you really like, that you need to develop diplomacy if you want to advance and succeed. But what I was amazed by is that the person who can afford a lot in his life doesn’t say he has to thank his sense of discipline or responsibility, hard work or luck but that it all could happen only because he followed God and He showed them the right way, He sent the right people into their lives. I really couldn’t imagine that rich successful people could talk like that.
I was also amazed by strong self-motivation of my mentor. And I know that it’s really important. He wanted to change his life, he did it. At one moment of his life he just bought books, he studied by himself, he was so much goal-oriented. Frankly speaking, my motivation can disappear sometimes. That’s why I try to talk to wise people like my mentor sometimes in order not to lose it at all and to be pushed by someone to move forward.
And what I also learned is that even if you choose a profession and later you realize it’s not exactly for you, it’s never late to change a profession and advance in it.
Overall I am happy to have had such a great conversation with my mentor. It made me think over things deeper, it encouraged me to make every day of my life worth living and useful, and helped me set up the right goals for me.
December 2, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Good. Great or excellent would be if you had a more business-like formatting with bullet points of each part of the assignment. Great planning on having a backup mentor!
November 9, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Names of group members: Vanessa and Carmen
Blog post author name: Carmen
Carmen’s mentor is Leanor who is “Consulting Firm” with 20 years experience in Business Woman, personal attention and consulting business. She has a career “Political Science”. Her principal motivation was her family and California City; she grew up in family business people in a city where the business are the primary weapon.
How did she start?
After her divorce and left her first job in “NBC News” for give attention to her child, she didn’t feel afraid to start her own business because she knew than her biggest challenges were and are, be the woman business and also now the only woman in group consulting in this economy, getting business.
How did she do the next stop?
Her experience was making relationships with government organization where marketing and her contacts helped a lot, for be a woman was more interesting for the companies. But she wanted more than her own business, she wanted be very active in Democratic National Politics, so now she is working for “President Obama” and in the future wants to continue working for other candidates. And she is going to continue in her own business than also have appointments commission for president, and she is going to work in restructure in this economy, so she can work in both businesses.
How does she know than she is better than others?
She understand what the clients need and want and what the priorities are, is creative and take importance the people skills getting advices to clients and also her 20 years experience, and doing the people want to work with her, getting passion for something her love.
The most important is start a business and then growing up, give passion for something you love, working hard but if really love your job doesn’t feel like a work.
Teach you challenges don’t be afraid because you are woman, Latino or not American person be different open the doors in the world.
Vanessa’s mentor is the founder and president of both a consulting firm and a law firm. He was a corporate lawyer and then a government lawyer at the Department of Justice. He’s not sure about the fact if this was a direct “path” to what he does now, but it did give some practical skills (in law and government) that are very helpful in his current job and life.
- One of my top three learning’s/takeaways from the interview is that both my mentor was very open and friendly. I was a little bit shy and nervous in the beginning of the interview, but my mentor was so nice and laid-back that I had more and more fun every minute that passed. I also felt so much more ‘secure’ and self-confident in the end. It is not the easiest thing to talk to a ‘stranger’ and be that close to her or him, especially with questions about their private life. It makes the interviewer feel a little “embarrassed” at first, but if the other person likes your questions and the way you appear to them, they start to enjoy answering questions and both sides start to have a good time. It’s really important to be always really polite and to “feel yourself into the other person” to not overstep any boundaries and to also ask the right things, because otherwise you might bore your interview partner and this person gets annoyed by this interview and doesn’t give much information anymore or stops being nice. It might take much more practice on that but this interview showed me that I really enjoy doing that and that I should practice more and more to get better.
- Question: What are ways I can prepare myself for a career and the future itself?
“Read business books and biographies to learn about other people’s road to success (including importantly their failures along the way) and their philosophies – this will help you develop your own. See who you admire most and least, and what careers interest you. This helps you find your own path. Read as many newspapers as you can every day – this hones your mind and will pique your curiosity and appetite for learning more. It also puts you in position to talk intelligently about current events with other intelligent people. And always work on building your network of personal relationships!”
Now in my 20’s it’s my time to find my way in life and I should really work on that. I should really not be lazy about that, about my future. So my mentor really pointed out that a successful career doesn’t show up at the front door. I really have to be willing to work and learn if I want to achieve something great in my life.
- The third aspect and maybe one of the most debatable things for me was:
Is it possible to have a successful career AND a great private life, including getting married and having kids??
It was really hard to find a “yes” or “no” to this answer. After discussing it, I think everyone needs to find out for themselves. In my opinion it is of course not easy to combine the two things, if I want to do a great job in both. I just think if I want to be successful and really great in my job and career, it’s nearly impossible for me to also do great in private life. My mentor answered to the question: “… it can be a 24 hour a day job. Clients call us around the clock, from many different time zones, and they expect immediate responsiveness.” I think it is definitely possible to have private life and a successful career, but this interview just kind of supported my feelings about not being able to manage both and be really successful in both at the same time.
Concluding point:
The experience for both of us was really good. It was not that easy to find a good date and time for the interview in the beginning. But being patient and nice and really showing interest makes the whole situation much easier. We both had a really good time during the interview and learned much from our mentor. It won’t always be easy in life, but we are just not allowed to give up. The interview showed us that it is so important to learn from other people and that it’s always great to have a mentor on our side. We both feel really happy and “secure” now that there is always a person we can go to if we have problems and questions considering our life goals. We both really liked one of the answers and we’ll try to always remember it: “Don’t be in a hurry to get to where you want to be or get ahead of yourself career-wise. Remember that it’s a journey and you have to learn a lot before you can operate at a high level, regardless of your field. So always prepared to work hard! Globalization has made the world more rather than less competitive. There are always going to be people hungry to succeed. You have to match their hunger and willingness to work to achieve your goals.”
December 3, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Excellent, Vanessa- Great, Carmen- Carmen: I would like to see a clearer description of your top learnings more than just three questions and answers of part of your mentor interview. Vanessa: It seems you put a lot of thought and work organizing your ideas regarding the top takeaways. Even though you made reference to some questions and answers from the interview, I could also see that you did a nice job reflecting on how you can apply your mentor’s tips in your own personal life, that is, summarizing your real learnings. Carmen and Vanessa: Excellent team work on stating your concluding point!
November 9, 2010 at 10:14 pm
Names of group member: Christina, Sinam
Block post author name: Christina
We made our Mentor Interview and talked about our summaries and made a decision about our three takeaways.
First of all we have to say that it was a great experience for us to learn more about “real life” and business.
Sinam:
Interview with Rachel:
I had an interview with my host mom who is a lawyer for transactional. For example: If somebody wants to buy a business.
Her path to this job was that a friend told her that there was a job opening. Then she had an interview and after that interview she got the job.
The skills which help her the most in her job is that she is writing an agreement. For example, if somebody wants to sell a business then they can come to her and she talks to the lawyer from the buyer. Rachel makes together with the other lawyer an agreement.
Her biggest challenge is to be able to get everything done. Sometimes that can be very hard because she also wants to spend time with her family.
Rachel’s three most important things for people in my age to do to be prepared for a successful career is: work hard, look for opportunities (chance for success) and make contacts networking.
The ways how we can practice those things is to spend a lot of time planning or running our business. Also to look for the opportunities, for example read newspapers, magazines in your area of business and staying in touch with the people who you meet.
An important thing what Rachel wants to tell us at the end of the interview is when you choosing your business make sure its an area you like.
Christina:
Interview with Jenn:
Mentor: Jenn
Occupation: Lobbyist, Lawyer
I interviewed Jenn for my Mentor assignment. She is my mentor, because she has a successful career and a family. That is why I chose her to be my mentor. I asked her a few questions about her life as a mom and a Lobbyist.
Jenn is a successful Lobbyist, although she has a family. Her job is to work with the federal government and to make the policy. She has been working as a lobbyist for two years. Companies, people or organizations hire her to make their point clear and to influence the executive and legislative power. Seven years before she worked on the Capitol Hill and made national federal policy.
Her path started in college. For her job she has to know all about American politics and government. The English courses she has taken and the law school are favorable for her interpretations and arguments for and against some decisions she has to make. It is not a secret that she became an expert and she knows what she is doing and what her clients need. It is also helpful to build up good relationships. Working on Capitol Hill was an opportunity to have connections. Furthermore she has to be very confident, because sometimes she has to make her point in front of powerful people. Also she has to be able to learn new things she did not know before very quickly. Most important is that she has to think ten steps ahead, so every step in process should be known to have success.
The biggest challenges are to motivate herself to work more on business and to convince more companies. It costs a lot of energy and time to convince people to pay a lot of money for working for them. She should put herself out, although it is very hard when they say no and she experiences a setback, but she cannot give up.
For me was the main point of this Interview that she has to find a balance between family and work. It is very important for me to know how it could be, when I decide to have family and career. Jenn made a big and important decision two years ago. She had the opportunity to have her dream job and work at the White House and do policy. Instead to improve her career she chose another job, because she wants to be there for her children. She made it very clear that she does not need to practice her dream job to be happy. It makes her happier being successful at work and being successful at home.
Personally, the most important part of my Mentor Interview are her advises. I should figure out what I really like to do, so the best way to find out what I like is to try new things for example do internships or travel. Be open minded and enjoy what I do is also very important to become successful.
I realized that I should make good choices now, because “when you get to the point where you have career and family you are happy with it”.
It is awesome to hear about all these challenges and success, so that is why I would like to interview more people about their career and also women from my country, Germany.
We agreed after a long and interesting discussion that our three learnings are:
• We realized that we have to work very hard to become successful. Sometime you have to work long hours to get everything done on time.
• It is a big challenge to balance family and work, because you have to compromise job and family. So you have less time with your kids, but you earn money to pay all bills and make some dreams come true.
• Our mentor interview opened our eyes that there is a big difference in family policy between Germany and the USA. The US family policy has no support for women with children, so a young mother has no other choice to go back to work, although she has a baby. Therefore she has to hire a nanny or somebody who carries for her child while she is at work. In Germany there is a law which guarantees woman after they have born their baby that they can come back to work after a 3 year break. So it makes it easier for women to have a family, because the German government supports family.
December 3, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Great! Nice team work! I think some more “business” type writing and formatting in the first part of your blog will strengthen in the future (#1, #2, #3 and bullet points). Great job on your concluding point!
November 9, 2010 at 10:23 pm
1.Name of group member: Sucetty
2.Blog post author name: Sucetty
Interview:
1.What is your current job?
President and CEO of Rock Creek Advisors, LLC, a strategic consulting and business development firm based in Washington DC.
2.What was your path to this job?
I began my career in politics in 1999 on George W. Bush’s campaign for President in Austin, TX. From there I moved to Washington DC to assist with Republican Party fundraising for the 2000 general election. I then served in Bush’s administration at the Department of Commerce before returning to the re-election campaign as the director of fundraising in the Western United States. After the election I joined up with Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to help him open his lobbying firm, The Ashcroft Group. I served the firm as a Senior Advisor & Principal for five years before leaving to start Rock Creek Advisors.
3.What skills help you the most in your job?
People skills, communication and research. In my line of work it is incredibly important to be informed on the issues and arena in which you work and be able to communicate your ideas effectively.
4. What are the biggest challenges you face in regards to your job?
I am a sole proprietor, so the biggest challenge is that each day the success of the business depends completely on my ability to bring in and service clients.
5.What is a typical day at work for you?
There are no typical days, but generally speaking I spend a lot of time on the phone gathering information and setting up meetings for clients. I also still do quite a bit fundraising, which means I am constantly on the phone and in meetings raising money for specific clients. I also help put together presentations and strategic memos for clients.
6.How is the current economic downturn affecting your industry?
Washington DC has been less affected by the downturn for the simple reason that the U.S. government, in recent years has spend roughly one quarter of GDP annually (that percentage has nearly doubled in the past two years), which means there are always people, companies and foreign entities looking for consultants and advisors who can help them work with the government.
7.What do you like most about your profession?
Helping businesses solve complex problems that increase profitability.
8.What do you like least about your profession?
It’s relatively rare, but it is incredibly frustrating running into bureaucratic processes that stifle progress by prohibiting officials from giving a straight answer. Generally speaking people don’t like to tell other people “no” and in business “no” is actually a very efficient answer as it allows you to reprioritize and expend time, energy and resources in other potentially successful or profitable arena.
9.What are some important steps you feel that people my age should be doing to prepare for a successful career?
Find something that interests you and learn more about it. The most important path to success is motivation. If you are not motivated to get up and go to work each morning, it is highly unlikely that you will be successful in what you are doing. Find something that interests you, pursue it, and see if it is something that you can be passionate about doing every day.
10.What are ways I can practice those things now?
Find out what you are interested in, and then seek out people in your immediate circles of friends, family and associates who may have a tie or relationship in that field. Do your research and be confident in what you want to do. Companies, people, entities, etc are always willing to take a look at hiring people who believe in the organization’s mission and feel that they can compliment and contribute to bottom-line success.
11. Why you decided to live in this state?
Washington DC is truly one of the most interesting cities in the world. It is the seat of the most loved, hated, powerful, wealthy and most discussed government on the planet. Almost every nation in the world actually has a “home soil” here in the form of an embassy or consulate, so it is an incredibly international city. It is home to some of the largest corporations in the world – and all have business with or interest in the business of the U.S. government. For a city only a couple of hundred years old it has an incredibly rich history and a remarkable amount of cultural, historic, and scientific resources. There is a diverse population in age, ethnicity, background, and interest, and it is great city to raise a family. And most importantly it is the city where I met the love of my life who is now my wife, and even though we’ve been here 10 year, we still have so much more to explore, learn and experience in Washington.
CONCLUDING POINT:
I feel more comfortable and positive with myself I already receive a lot of advices from my Mentor and it is really important for my future, now I can see that everything Will be able to realized if you decided to do it, I’m still young, nothing is impossible. I learn a lot and feel more prompted to continue my ideas to realized my goals.
December 3, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Good. Directions not followed properly on the first part of the blog post (summarizing your top learnings, not pasting the whole mentor interview). Nice job on your concluding point!
November 9, 2010 at 10:43 pm
I Names of group members: Gabriela, Alise
II Blog post author name: Alise
III Summary of mentor interviews
–Gabriela’s takeways–
1. The name of my mentor is Stella;
I change because this one is better for the things that I like to work.
2. My mentor always wanted to work with events, so she started work with about my age in this area, but with small jobs, and she start to take same events class ( how to planning, decoration, recreation, small business…). She said the experience is everything to work in events, a lot of times it’s more important than have a university degree.
3. My interview with my mentor was a great opportunity for my, because I could understand better what is time to do now, and what can wait a litter bit more. Was great too for me to learn how I can work with my weakness.
a) The most important thing to do now is to work to improve my weakness, first I need to know with are they, than to find some ways to work it if class, therapy… enjoy my time in USA to know better myself and to study as much as possible.
b)One of the fundamental things to do, as soon as possible, is to think about my future, about what I want to do for my live, what kind of routine I would like to myself. Doing this I can figure out with kind of business works better for me. For examples, if I want to have a family, children it’s difficult to work with something that we need to travel a lot, and to live in different places.
4. After this interview, I’m pretty sure that I love to work with events, and can work with it and have a family. To be a very present mother that is very important to me.
–Alise’s takeways–
When I think of a mentor first thing that I can think of is someone who can guide, teach, has experience. Dalia is a citizen of the world as she once told me. Born in Poland, lived in Egypt, worked in UK, right now lives in US. She is a mom, a wife, a brilliant cook, simple and beautiful woman. I respect her and these are few reasons I wished to interview her.
My TOP4 learnings:
As my mentor answered to all my questions I really wanted to share her answers to the question about important things for people my age to know.
#1 Have a plan. Know what you want. Have a strategy. Don’t wait for perfect plan. I am rational, I wanted to have a career and be able to pay back may study loans in few years. I didn’t want to be poor. Plan finances. You can follow your dream but plan ahead and remember what you have chosen is possible.
#2 Don’t do what others do (so called “herd mentality”). What works for you, not to your parents, friends.
#3 Move on if something doesn’t work. Or if you are not happy but everything seems OK, move on even then.
#4 Remember as a young women you will need to compromise to fit your life together. You can have everything, family, kids, successful career, but NOT in the same time. There is a price for everything.
After interview I was inspired for my whole week. Even now I know things she said will help me when I will need to make some decisions. I also can say that this interview improved our communication and destroyed “the wall” built by my insecurities and differences in our each personalities. I loved to hear her life lessons.
IV Concluding points
My team mate and I enjoyed interviewing our mentors. It was great to step in to their shoes through their life stories, experiences, and their willingness to give as a sound advise for our future plans.
We found these few things in common:
1. Know what you want, have a plan, need to know yourself;
2.Experience and learn different things they can be useful later in your life.
3.That we as Au Pairs should enjoy this year in America, learn the American way of thinking – freedom to be personality and we can have our own opinion.
4.We both enjoyed our mentors!
!!!Only one interesting difference we noticed – As a women you can’t have everything at once: hard decisions! (Alise’s Mentor).
We can have a house, family, business, career at the same time, but we need to figure out a business and how to do that, it’s difficult but it’s possible. SHE DID. (Gabi’s Mentor).
I think we will find it out after few years.
December 3, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Excellent! Great formatting! I can see real team work and a lot of thought on writing the assignment.
November 9, 2010 at 10:49 pm
My mentor is a director of an early
childhood school. I thought It would be
interesting to interview her since there
are so many people involved in what she is
doing and expectations to be managed in
different parts
I felt curios to learn from her.
Question: How do you prepare yourself to
be
successful?
One of the things is about talking with
other people who are doing what you are
doing so that you don’t feel like you
don’t know how to handle something. I think
is knowing where your strengths are and
your own weaknesses are so like when I
came in here last year I knew I didn’t know
anything about it so taking the time to
interview people that had been here and
to watch them for a while before making
decisions so that you knew respecting
their culture, and their history but also
helping them to get better at what they are doing and so really asking for help. It is ok to call somebody and ask them I don’t know how to do something .Show me that I am in the right direction. But It does help to have a good sense of organization cause if you don’t have a plan for each day you are not going to get through your plan, it is going to change a million times depending of what your needs are but I feel like if you just don’t get a plan you just end up in one place responding to people’s needs instead of setting a vision for the school that you want to achieve.
Question: What kind of past experience was the most helpful for your current job?
I think there is a couple of things. I think my education helped. I have a degree in child psychology and social work at social administration so that learning how to run a business as well as what kind of people child development is .And I think my past experience of running organizations you learn what is important and what it is not. What can stress you out, what shouldn’t and so that helps you to know which roles to prioritize. So my last job I run a local office but there was a national organization involved. So I had a lot of freedom to do what I wanted to do to make it work in Dc. It also helped that I have been in a classroom before and I used to work with kids, I ran an after care program. I had my own kids
Question: Have you experienced failure? How did you handle it.
You fail at something every day. Either you forgot about something that you told somebody you would do. You were not able to finish something that you had set out to do. But I think life is about learning from the failures more than the failures. For me if you don’t make a mistake you are not growing a business as effective as it could b.e. Business have to be innovative, responsive to the communities, they have to be situated in. The important part is not how often you fail but how much do we learn from that.
Final Comments;
Even if our interviewees had very different jobs we agree thatboth of them had previous past experiences that helped them for their current jobs. This means that these are people who are applying their acquired knowledge and resources in their careers. Another thing is that both of them have learned how to multitask having to deal with more than one thing by themselves. This is very interesting since we can see this as skills to develop in ourselves. The last similarity we can see is that both of them are constantly learning and communicating with other people to achieve their interests.
December 3, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Fair. Directions not followed properly. Formatting of the blog post is incomplete and unclear. (A model blog format requires mentioning the names of the group members, blog post author and headlines of the topics of the assignment, for example: #1 Three top learnings from mentor interview, #2 Concluding point).
November 9, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Summary of the top three learnings or take-ways from the mentor:
Jennifer
Jennifer interviewed her host mom Patricia who is a well known obstetrician/gynecologist surgeon. She currently works for the George Washington University Hospital as an OB/GYN attendant and has a very successful career, as well as a beautiful family and a brilliant future.
Jennifer thinks interviewing her host mom was an amazing opportunity to know much more about her and how her life was before she got to be the successful doctor she is right now, and found very interesting the fact that Patricia had to go through a lot of staff to be at the point she is right now, this path was not easy, specially because of the money restrictions now that as we all know, going to college in the US can be really expensive, and med school can be way more than other professional choices. But with a lot of responsibility, commitment and most of all “passion”, obstacles can be beaten in life, and so did Patricia who can now say that her dreams became true.
After this brief introduction to who Patricia is, Jennifer can say that the most important learning or takeaways from interviewing her host mom are:
*Nothing can stop you when you have passion for something and you are sure that something is what you really want.
Our passions arise from our hearths, and those who have enjoyed great success in life are those who have had the courage to follow their hearts, even when everyone around them said they were crazy, or would fail completely, or would bring disaster on themselves. It takes courage to follow our passions when they go against what we’ve been taught or what others want for us. But when we exercise that courage, we will find the rewards are beyond anything we thought possible.
*Passion is what drives us; what makes us wake up every day with expectation and hope.
Passion propels us forward by enthusing us with a vibrant sense of awareness and conviction. If we can establish what brings out these feelings of vibrant expectation and self worth in us, then we will have found our passion in life. It’s easier to be disciplined towards a cause that we are passionate about. If we can find what drives you, discipline will follow almost effortlessly.
And that’s exactly what drove Patricia to who she is now, passion about medicine, passion about helping other people feel better physically and bringing new people to the world every day.
*Discipline is the foundation of all success.
As in the learning below, if you can find what drives you, discipline will follow almost effortlessly. So Jennifer also learned that discipline is the guide for our success in achieving what we feel passionate about. Discipline shapes the character of the person, educates the person and the person becomes effective in any business she/he do. We have all the talent in the world, and have great leadership skills even of charisma; however, if we lack discipline eventually we are going to succumb. Success requires more than talent. We don’t need to be brilliant, charismatic, or have some “magic” skill to be successful. We only need to be disciplined to steadily develop the skills we already possess and put all of our energy and attention in that goal we have set to obtain.
*The pursuit of happiness and success is not always easy.
Jennifer also found very important the fact that there will always be challenges. There will always be obstacles. But when you are connected to the things that truly matter to you, then these things can never be more than temporary setbacks. Very few people can say that they are successful
Concluding point: How was the experience for you, including any similarities or differences you see between teammates?
The experience for Jennifer was very rewarding. It’s the process in which you realize there’s a hope for you, a great chance for you to be successful in life, but as everything in this world, it requires some efforts and commitments, depending on how strong those efforts are and the commitment you make yourself and why not, with other, success is achievable or not for you. It’s a great opportunity to take a lot of tips and learnings from someone so close to you and establish a type of bond with that person that could guide you in your path to a brilliant future.
Veronica:
First of all, I had to say that ,at the very beginning, I had in mind another person for my mentor interview. However, in the process I remembered a very interesting person I met not so long ago. Her name is Sali. She is a Senior Security Auditor professional trainer and public speaker. Although she is a specialist in a completely unfamiliar field for me as it is security, her life story caught my attention because it is full of challenges and ups and downs she had to cope with to be the successful woman she is nowadays. She comes from Dubhai where women are not seen as good leaders. Ironically, she came to the US looking for opportunities and equal treatment. However, she faced the same issue and besides culture discrimination among others. So her most challenging virtue was patience to cope with this situations and she determined herself to struggle them throughout preparation and professional education.
This is a very brief introduction of her professional path. She started in Computer Engineering and application development. She worked in GE as a security Engineer. Right after that she finished her masters in Computer Science with a concentration in Internet Security. Two years later, she still felt that she needed to know more about Security, so she joined George Washington University for Information Security Management that gave her the broader understanding of Information Assurance. She worked in live NEWS TV that gave her field experience in Incident Response and Disaster Recovery (Business Continuity). Then she joined the federal space as a federal contractor in Information Assurance programs for 5 years. Then Security Management in Higher Education and lastly a Threat vulnerability Program manager in NIH.
My first great lesson was about the skills that help most in her job:
empathy,
negotiation ability,
persuasion
In her opinion, the three most important things for people my age to do to be prepared for a successful career are :
-Read publications in your desired field.
-Be a critical thinker, analyze what you hear and/or read.
-Think in local and global issues.
The ways I can practice those things now is by using the university libraries, seminars, conferences.
Finally, the most important lesson I learned from her is that “behind every failure lies a big opportunity for success. Think in terms of opportunities NOT limitations”.
December 6, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Excellent! The concluding point can be strengthened by describing more the whole mentor interview experience for “both” of you not only Vanessa’s point of view.
November 9, 2010 at 11:14 pm
Blog post author name: Mint
***The Mentor Interview***
• Introduction
My mentor is a bank regulator who works for FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). We started at she told me what the FDIC does (at this point you can google “FDIC”). Her work life story inspires me a lot. Why would I say that?? Let’s see the interview below. However, this post is my summary from my interview lecture, not the paraphrase from the interview voice record.
•Questions
Q1: Does her education relate to your job??
She got degrees such as Bachelor’s in Philosophy and J.D. (Juris Doctor) in the early life. After graduated, she became a professor in Law school, afterward she became a lawyer for years.
After that, she has been working for the US government which concerns the financial area for a long time before she got this job.
Prior to her appointment at the FDIC, She was the Dean’s Professor of Financial Regulatory Policy for the Isenberg School of Management.
Conclusion, she did not directly get the financial knowledge from school or her degrees, but she has been using her experience that has been collected from school and earlier jobs in order to doing this job.
Q2: What are the big challenges for her?
- Making the balance between work time and family time.
Because of her job, she has to work hard and travel a lot. She would like to do her job the best as well as her position at home. If she does not need to be at the office, she would work at home. She also takes member(s) of the family with her for the work trip sometimes.
- Making an important decision in order to fix the crisis.
In any cases, she and her team need to make a really quick and important decision in order to fix the banking crisis. That would be a big challenge for her as well.
Q3: What was she doing when she was my age??
She started teaching after just graduated from law school.
Q4: Refer to Q3, I think I might be a little too old to start study again. What would she say??
“Don’t be silly!!” she said. People go back to study in school all the time however their ages are.
Q5: Has she ever thought about having her own business??
No, she has not. She thinks owning a business is a big challenge. If your business works, you would be rewarded with a big amount of money. There are many people fail to do their business. Therefore, if you would like to own a business, you must be ready to take risk as well.
Q6: Has she ever thought about changing job?
Not really, however her job has term which is five years. She probably becomes a writer, writing about her financial experience, or being a public speaker.
Q7: Refer to Q6, I am so weak in public speaking skill. How could you speak in public really naturally?
She did not speak or volunteer much in class when she was a student. Public speaking skill comes with her position in jobs. She has been working for government for a long time, so speaking publically is a part of her job to make people and organizations trust in government work.
•Conclusion
Her story is really interesting and I even admire her more and more. This interview gives me many points of view. The examples are below.
- I can do any jobs I want if I will not stop learning and collecting my knowledge and experience.
- Managing time for work and for family in balance.
- Getting over the weakness such as speaking in public, it takes time. If I keep doing and practicing more and more, I would get used to it.
Interview my mentor tonight, I might did not gain much business story, but I am sure I can learn much about financial, which is part of business, from her. I also told her my business idea is “Thai/Fusion Food Catering” business. She supported my idea and let me use her kitchen in case I would like to start my business from now on.
December 6, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Good. Directions not followed properly. 3 Top learnings missing. Nice job with your conclusion!
November 9, 2010 at 11:14 pm
Author – Quessy
My mentor is a Procurement Agent for the US Government. She went on to graduate with a bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Economics and a post-bachelor in Logistics. She says “My education and dedication is what led me to my current position.”
My top three learning’s from this interview.
1-What is the biggest challenge for you in your job?
Integrity and work ethics. Ethics is not about what we say or what we intend, it’s about what we do. This is the heart of integrity, demonstrating a consistency between ethical principle and ethical practice. Integrity is a fundamental measure of character. When working with contracts is common to have external pressures to buy the item someone above you wants and from whom they want it from. It so happens, that every procurement agent and organization is subject to laws and regulation that prohibits acquiring a good with public money without first doing a price and market research to make sure you are not paying too much for a product.
2-What do you consider really important thing for people my age to do to be prepared for a successful career?
She says that the most important thing for me is to know how building self confidence. So, she said that I need to take action for example. Be present. This will help me snap out of over thinking and just go and do whatever I want to get done. And it puts me in state where the right actions often just seem to flow out of me in a focused but relaxed way and without much effort. One of the simplest ways to connect with the present moment is just to keep myself focus on my breathing for a minute or two. Believe that I really, really want it, just taking action isn’t something I have to force. Taking action becomes a very natural thing. It’s something I can’t wait to do. We need to be curious. She says that when we are is stuck in our fear we are closed up. We tend to create division in our world and mind. We create barriers between us and other things/people. When you shift to being curious your perceptions go SWOOSH! And the world just opens up. Curiosity is filled with anticipation and enthusiasm. It opens you up. And when you are open and enthusiastic then you have more fun things to think about than focusing on your fear. Than I asked …How do you become more curious? One way is to remember how life has become more fun in the past thanks to your curiosity and to remember all the cool things it helped you to discover and experience.
One of the things that she mentioned too is NETWORK she says to have a good network I should know as much people as I can, maximize my communication skills, never stop studying, and develop strong network relationships. Keep in mind that networking is about being genuine and authentic, building trust and relationships, and seeing how you can help others. Ask yourself what your goals are in participating in networking meetings so that you will pick groups that will help you get what you are looking for. Some meetings are based more on learning, making contacts, and/or volunteering rather than on strictly making business connections.
3- What would you recommend me to practice those things now?
Remember that perseverance, believing in yourself and a good attitude are a must for success. You also have to truly want something in order to have it. If you don’t know what you want and how bad you want it, you won’t get it. Take courses, seminars, virtual lessons. Meet people of your area of interest, interview, visit them and make an effort to be around them when possible. Hold volunteer positions in organizations. This is a great way to stay visible and give back to groups that have helped you. Ask open-ended questions in networking conversations. This means questions that ask who, what, where, when, and how as opposed to those that can be answered with a simple yes or no. This form of questioning opens up the discussion and shows listeners that you are interested in them. Become known as a powerful resource for others. When you are known as a strong resource, people remember to turn to you for suggestions, ideas, names of other people, etc. This keeps you visible to them. Have a clear understanding of what you do and why, for whom, and what makes your doing it special or different from others doing the same thing. In order to get referrals, you must first have a clear understanding of what you do that you can easily articulate to others. Be able to articulate what you are looking for and how others may help you. Too often people in conversations ask, “How may I help you?” and no immediate answer comes to mind. Follow through quickly and efficiently on referrals you are given. When people give you referrals, your actions are a reflection on them. Respect and honor that and your referrals will grow. Call those you meet who may benefit from what you do and vice versa. Express that you enjoyed meeting them, and ask if you could get together and share ideas.
Concluding point
After all, I thought “I will be a mentor one day”!!
I can say that interview opened my mind and I got so motivated that ideas came in my mind about my career. I would say that we must have a mentor because I believe is really the key to our success. However you won’t be succeed in your business unless you have a good mentor. A mentor behaves as like as your closest friend and she tell you what you need to know and what you don’t need to know. The importance of mentoring relationships becomes evident as we recognize the value of networking and maintaining relationships throughout our professional career. The value of a good mentor is immeasurable when it comes to learning the tricks of the trade as well as becoming connected to those in the know and possesses the ability to hire. About my teammate conclusion is very similar of mine because the idea of having a mentor is the same for us i.e., it’s really important for someone having a mentor because can advise, support and help you avoid an unnecessary resignation due to feelings of incompetence and isolation. The mentor demonstrates and upholds the values and ethics of the profession they represent.
December 6, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Excellent! You put a lot of work and thought into this. Great detail and organization of answers!
November 9, 2010 at 11:18 pm
Name of group member: Connie
Blog post Authors name: Connie
1. What is your current Occupation?
DJ, TV Personality and Business Man
2. What was you career path?
I have my degree in Engineering, while I was the university I was a radio DJ for our campus radio station, I fell so much in love with it that I decided to be a radio personality, It was not easy for me to get there, I was without a job for two and half years, got rejected a lot but that never made me give up, It made me want to work harder. I’m not going to say I never thought of giving up, I did but my passion made me want to work harder towards my dream. Finally I got a call from a local radio station, they wanted someone to do the 2am – 4am slot, I took the job even though I knew it was not paying, but I told myself that I’m building my resume, I worked for that radio station for 4year.
On my fourth year the radio show was cancelled and again I wasn’t working for four months, seemed like all my doors where closing in being a Radio DJ, so I decided to find a job in the Engineering field, Then I got a job as an Engineer, but one month into the Job I got a call from one of the biggest radio station, my Previous manager referred them to me, That’s when I told myself this was going to be my Big break, I left my Engineering job, then I started at radio station, working the twice a week. Then from twice a week to getting my own morning show that’s five days a week. That was my biggest break, so I’ve been with this Radio Station till recent date and then after that’s when all the other doors opened for me.
3. What skills help you the most in your job?
Well the skills that helped me the most was the Radio station I worked for when I was in the university and the local radio station that I was volunteering at, so don’t be scared to volunteer because that helps you to get more experience and that’s how you get some connections.
4. What are the most important things for people my age to be prepared for successful career?
Oh, there’s a lot, first im going to say that failure is part of the deal, Don’t go out there and think everything is going to smooth sail, Things don’t go as we want them to go, so If you fail, never ever give up, keep on pushing until u get somewhere. Be prepared for rejection, you will get rejected sometimes and don’t take that personally, just keep on trying somewhere else.
December 6, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Fair. Directions not followed properly. Blog post incomplete.
November 9, 2010 at 11:19 pm
1. NAMES OF GROUP MEMBERS: Jani and Sarah
2. NAME OF BLOG POST AUTHOR: Jani
My mentor is a psychiatrist working at the Department of Defense as deputy director of Health Strategic Operations. Sarah’s mentor is her mother who is the manager of a big dental practice in Germany. Although our mentors are different in many ways, we still felt that there were similarities in their paths to career success and advise they gave us. We decided to incorporate these similarities in our top three learnings.
3.TOP THREE LEARNINGS FROM OUR MENTORS:
* Pursuing career success is a marathon, not a sprint.
My mentor did her medical training in India as well as her psychiatry residency. There after she had to do her repeat residency in the USA at Yale. She followed that with a post doctoral fellowship and worked at the NIH for 9 years. Only last year June did she find her dream job, (writing mental health policies for soldiers returning from war), where she feels she is able to impact many lives and make a real difference.
Sarah’s mother grew up in a small village in Germany. Coming from a background of financial difficulty she was unable to graduate from high school and so left school at an earlier age. She struggled to find jobs as there were minimum educational requirements for almost all available positions. One day a dentist asked her if she would be interested in an apprenticeship position. Although she wasn’t sure she would like this she made the most of this opportunity. When she finished her apprenticeship, she worked for many dental practices. She finally landed a job with one of the best dentists in Germany. Our mentors had to be patient, make the most of opportunities available and learn new skills on their way to career success, it did not happen overnight.
*Positive thinking is solution thinking.
My mentor said that the skill that helps her most in her job is her ability to critically analyze complex problems and come up with ways to solve them. She said that what sets her apart is that she chooses not to dwell in unproductive activities and always displays a positive “can do“ attitude. When I asked her what I can do now in preparation for career success, she said to always use positive words like “I can”, “I will”, and “I am able”. Remaining positive after failure, or “setback” as my mentor calls it is crucial. She stressed that it is okay to fail and that it is the best way to learn. Approaching even failure with a positive attitude is a great help. She said to “think about what you have done right, what you can do better and what you should stop doing”.
Sarah’s mentor also told her that the key to her success has been her positive attitude in the workplace and willingness to learn. When she had to leave high school because of financial reasons she had to remain positive and make the most of every opportunity available to her. She had to prove to her employer that she had something special to offer. We both agree that our mentors taught us that bringing enthusiasm and a positive attitude to an organization is very important.
*Career and family life
Both our mentors are successful women who also have to juggle their time with busy households. My mentor felt that her biggest challenge is finding balance. She said that she struggled with the guilt of working extremely long hours and being on business trips many days of the months whilst having two children under the age of six.
Sarah’s mentor also works extremely long hours and has a household of her own to run. But both mentors feel that success comes with a certain amount of sacrifice and that in the long run it has and will benefit and secure opportunities for their children.
We both realize that at some point we will have some tough decisions to make in terms of our own family and work life balance. We see these women doing what they do, living seemingly perfect lives, but in actual fact they also have a hard time dealing with sacrifices and lack of time with the ones they love.
4. CONCLUDING POINT : Bring enthusiasm
We both really enjoyed this opportunity to speak and learn from successful people. It was interesting to both of us how little we knew about the careers paths and struggles of even people we see every day. It was also interesting to see how people can be very successful with or without formal education. Both these women have made a success of their careers, one having completed her PHD and the other not even graduating from high school! What we took away from this is : Bring enthusiasm and hard work. Success does not happen over night, we have to learn skills, solve problems, learn from failures and have a positive attitude.
December 6, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Excellent. A real model / perfect example post. Great team work, great detail, and great formatting.
November 9, 2010 at 11:38 pm
1. Names of group members: Lina, Laura, Danutch
2. Blog post author name: Lina
3. Summary of your top three learnings or takeways from the mentor:
Danutch:
This is my top three that I’ve been learning from my mentor “Julie”. She’s working as an Assistance Federal Public Defender.
• Dare to do something that I greatly believe in. Julie compared her work with a mouse that is protecting its friends from the elephants’ steps. The judges were compared with the elephants because they have a lot of more power. Although it is so hard to win the case, she still trusts in her responsibility which is defending for the people who in charge with crime so she always tries to help her clients to get free with the clear proofs as much as she can find.
• Not to be afraid to take change for everything. Before this present work Julie used to work with law firm. It was a good work and she got a lot of money but it was kind of boring. When someone offered her to try this work, she accepted it without hesitation because she realized that working in law firm wasn’t something that is she looking for. That was a good decision because her present work so much satisfy her.
• I can’t turn back time. Go for it!! When Julie couldn’t fix her clients’ problems and they had to go to jail, she always wishes she could do more for them. Trying everything all my best in every time so that I’ll not get down later.
Laura:
• My mentor is a lecturer in American History and was my tutor at university. I asked him what the biggest obstacle he faced was, whilst developing his career. His answer surprised me, as he said that the biggest obstacle was himself. He believes that during his time as an undergraduate and the beginnings of his postgraduate education, his self-doubts and lack of confidence in his abilities held some of his work back. This prevented him from taking risks and he said that if he could go back his work would be much more interesting, as he would have more confidence in his arguments. This showed me that obstacles are certainly not always external and that even the most successful of people have doubts.
• I asked my mentor if he believed that people of my age would be able to develop a successful career in the current economy, especially in the UK where it is particularly bad for graduates. He said that he believes strongly that if a person works hard enough and shows enough passion for their area then they will go places. He knows it will probably be harder and may take a bit longer in the current climate, but it will happen. This has given me hope that when I get home I will be able to begin a career in something I am passionate about.
• When I asked him what the hardest thing about being a historian is, he answered that it can be a lonely job. This surprised me, as he always appears as an upbeat and positive person. However he said that he spends much of his time alone, research, writing and marking papers (a job he particularly hates.) What this has taught me is that no career path will be exactly what you think it will be. My mentor loves his job but there are aspects about it that he really does not like. Any job you do will have parts that you do not like, but you have to take the rough with the smooth.
Lina
My top three learnings are:
• To know and realize that there are positive and negative things with every job. Not any job going to feel like the world’s greatest every day, but that is also one of the challenges to a successful career.
• When I asked what the three most important things are for people my age to do to be prepared for a successful career, Maureen answered to dare to take risks, to learn from every opportunity you get and every one you have the chance to meet. To see your career as a journey and not a destination. You always going to learn things on the way and everyone make mistakes. Nobody is perfect but it is the ability to recover from your mistakes what makes people successful.
• Don’t have any rush in life. You need to figure out what YOU want to do with your life. Take the time you need and remember that life isn’t a competition.
4. Concluding point: How was the experience for you, including any similarities or differences you see between teammates?
Danutch:
I chose Julie to be my mentor because one day I’d heard she was listening to the music of “Johnny Cash” who used to have a time in jail. His music has lots of compassionate. Julie’s told me that his music always push her back on track when she gets tired sometimes. Then I’ve been realizing that she always put her heart into her work even most of the time her work isn’t too easy. It was a great experience talking to her because I’ve learnt a lot about trying and fighting hard for something that she really wants or believes in. She was a wonderful mentor who encourages me to get my goal.
Laura:
My interview has taught me that that the most important aspect of success is to have confidence in yourself and to take risks. If you do this then you can overcome external obstacles such as the economy and will help you gain the trust of others. My mentor has inspired me to keep trying, as during the year after I graduated I found it very difficult to keep on trying when so few opportunities were available. He has persuaded me that it will happen, I just have to keep trying, as he did.
Lina:
My interview with my mentor was a really great opportunity to realize that everyone has been in the same place as I am right now, when you don’t really know what you want to do with your life and you don’t know where you are going to end up. I have learn that if you just put your soul and heart into something that you really want it’s always going to work out somehow, you just need to believe it and never give up.
Together:
To conclude our experience: we all had a quiet similar experience and we all learned similar things, as fighting hard for what you believe in, always keep trying and never ever give up!
December 6, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Excellent. A perfect example of model blog post. Great team work, great detail and neat approach of learnings and concluding point!
November 9, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Names of the group members: Marcia, Sabrina and Ana Carolina
Blog poster author name: Marcia
Sabrina’s part
Mentor’s name: Serena and John
1. Question: When was the best time in your life?
Serena said: When John and I were dating. We did funny things together, like a great trip to Costa Rica and my first Job I had in Washington DC.
- It was so nice to see how she explained her time with John.
2. Question: What are the 3 most important things for people my age to be prepared for a successful career?
John said: Don’t be afraid to change job and take risks in your life. Don’t think what you want to do, think what you like to do!!!
Serena said: network helps us!!
Sabrina’s experience
For me it was not new, because I have all the time meetings with my host-parents and we review my work, living together and children. The only difference is that I ask them about their life (personal/job). From this point I was prepared and relax before and during the Interview.
I think it is a good training for our future, when we have meetings with our bosses or co-workers. How to listen, how you show you are interested, what they say, how to react, how to sit (that it looks self-confidence and interest). What I mean is that your whole body is important, too.
I record nice, that Serena was more telling about personal things as John.
And last but not least it was really interesting to hear their stories.
Carol’s Part
Mentor’s name: Andrea
I belive that when we choose a mentor is because we look up after this person, respect their opnion and feel confortable sharing our
fears and doubts. My mentor is Andrea, a land-scape designer. She got her degree at Art at the University of Washington and when decided to take
some more additional courses in order to become a teacher, she had to move to NY with her husband. For the following years she
worked in different jobs for the money but never forgot her true passion, when she got accepted in a masters programs in NY, she and
her husband had to move again. Finaly, they moved to Washington DC and after 2 kids she had the chance to go back to school, this
time she got her land-scape associate degree at GWU. Her art backgroung are her best skills, but she always found difficult to keep
up with all the new tecnologies and plant materials. After 20 years, Andrea almost quit last year because of her health, but after a
great job offer she was brought back to her profession and still make people’s gardens to look great.
I learned from her never to be afraid to take a chance, always be passionate about what you want to do and never be discouraged
by a disapointment. Also to talk to a person with an opinion that you respect, it doesn’t always have to be a mentor, but a person that you can also trust and rely on. A mentor can be a person that you identify with, in my case I identify with my mentor, her personality and the way she sees the world.
Marcia’s part
Mentor’s name: Mary Heather
3 Top Learning
1. What are the biggest challenges?
In my profession it’s really complicated when I start to think if everything I choose for my patients are going to be good for them, specially because I don’t have control about everything and bad things can happen to them. One other point is, to keep my personal life in balance with my professional life. I have missed a lot of my kids growing, because I’m always busy and my schedules sometimes don’t allow me to be with them.
2. In any point, did you think about changing your carrier?
One time I tried to sell Arbonne and to see if I could quit and stay more home with my kids. I ended up getting low pay checks, until I got the last one with 12 dollars written on it. I couldn’t do it. In any case, I can’t see myself doing anything else. Be a doctor is what I love to be.
3. What are the three most important things for people of my age to do to be prepared for a successful career?
Find out what you really want to do and never give up on your dreams. Be confident of what you are looking for and be confident when people ask you about what you want, even when you don’t know what you are talking about, show you can make the difference and that you will always do your best and give your best for whatever you are looking forward to be/do in your life. A good education is the key, but it’s nothing when you don’t know what to do with it. Save money and always have a budget in life, it will help you any time.
Marcia’s experience
Whatever you try to do in life, be confident that you can and go forward to do it. Never give up, because people out there are going to eat you alive if you don’t know what you want or if you show them you don’t know what you are talking about. You have to learn how to sell yourself and don’t be afraid of failure. It will eventually happen and will be the best lessons for you in the future. She is someone I really admire and someone I would go for an advice.
December 6, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Great, Sabrina and Carolina. Excellent, Marcia. I would like to see a clearer summary of the top learnings in Sabrina and Carolina’s answers. Marcia, you put a lot of thought when stating your top takeaways. Overall, nice job with describing your personal concluding points!
November 10, 2010 at 7:39 am
Summary of my mentor interview
My mentor is a woman and she is 43 years old. Now she is working in a protectory. Her carrier starts at the age of 19 years. She made an apprenticeship as an educator within 3 years. After these 3 years she worked in a dorm for trainees 2 more years. The job was very hard and not enjoyable so that she decided to start a family and take a break form working. Her husband had his own company. Together with him, she worked 10 years in this company. A big financial crisis came and she had to look for an other job. A few years she worked in different jobs to find the right job for her.
Now after almost 10 years jumping from one job to another she is back in her old job. And now she really enjoy it. She is working with younger children with other background information.
My conclusion is that the most people find there dream jobs very early but they decided to go the wrong way. My mentor loves to be an educator but working with teenagers was not the right way for her. After almost 20 years she found her way back to her dream and took the right way. Now she works with kids who really need her help. Every day she can see how they change. That is her biggest gift.
It was very helpful for me to have a mentor. Now I know that I should never give up. I just have to look for a different way. My mentor gives me the spirit to go forward. Mentors are mostly older so they have more experience and maybe they did go the same way like you did and can help you that you won´t make the same mistakes like them or help you find the best solutions for problems. The mentor is kind of a friend and kind of a role model. This assignment showed my that it is a big opportunity to have someone to ask.
December 6, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Good. Directions not followed properly. The top learnings are not clearly stated. Nice job with describing your concluding points.
December 4, 2010 at 6:15 am
Names of group member: Jessica
Blog post author name: Jessica
Top three questions of the mentor interview:
1.) What was your motivation during your career bracket?
Actually I was not very motivated at first. I have a wealthy background so my family always opened the floodgates to me. But on the other hand they brought me up with a lot of opportunities that pushed me totally. My grandfather was a pilot so he felt like I should do the same what is actually a bad thinking but in my case it turned to a good account…I felt totally in love with airplanes as I was working on my private license. It just became my passion. After I finished my license I felt like I didn’t reach enough at all and my demand of myself finally grow up and pushed me until I studied management because out of the sudden I felt just comfortable working on my goals and reach them successfully.
* As I talked to my mentor about his career I was impressed about how his situation turned from a lazy and less motivated boy to an interested, hard working and successful pilot and chief executive officer. I’m impressed about how some people just showed themselves that they can do it and they just did it.
2.) What do you think would have happened to you if you wouldn’t have such a wealthy background that pushed you to make decisions in life?
I did know that anytime I just have to make my decisions for life and that I should study something to be able to live a life I obviously wanted but my personal opinion is that it is or it could be sometimes even more difficult to develop your own mind because it seems to be all predetermined like my grandparents and parents who wanted me to step in their footsteps what I was actually not that impressed about. Luckily I found a passion in what my grandfather told me to do and that was just the beginning of pushing myself to what I am now.
3.) What is your advice to people who don’t find a passion like you which pushed you totally into what you are right now?
My advice sounds simple and difficult at the same time. Never forget dreams do come true, if we only work hard enough and like you can see with my personal example, everybody is good at something, everybody has any interests. If you really know what you want, than this is your direction to go, this is the key for a happy and successful career and life.
4.) Concluding point
Although my mentor’s life is probably different from the majority, he did really impressed me because he just found something he really liked and he totally flourish. He is a person who gives you the feeling that you can do it, that you can do what you want to do as long as you work for it and trust in yourself.
December 7, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Great job catching up with your assignments. I can see a lot of thought and work into this.
December 5, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Names of group member: Vivian
Block post author name: Vivian
The interview bellow, show me capability. He is my host dad
Roger
Profession: Financial Director
1. First of all can you tell us about your first job?
My first job was with Ross-Hill Controls a small privately-owned Texas firm which manufactured specialized electrical equipment and was the world leader in its niche. The company was bought by Ansaldo, an Italian conglomerate, which afforded me the opportunity to live and work in Milan for 3 years. It later became part of Siemens.
2. What did you get from there?
I learned how to effectively manage multi-million dollar projects and managing people. In addition due to my overseas experience, I learned how to work effectively in international environments.
3. Which was your first environment with what you had decided to be when you grow up?
This was when I lived in Guyana. I got interested in anything electronic and my father encouraged this interest by obtaining old radios for me to dismantle and learn from. That is when I decided that I wanted to be an electrical engineer.
4. Where did you graduate?
University of Houston for my BSc, MSc, and PhD class work – I did not complete the dissertation. In addition, I returned to the University of Houston for an Executive MBA and obtained the Chartered Financial Analyst certification through self study and passing to three annual exams combined with work experience.
5. Do you use in your daily professional moments at least 50% of what you pay for in college? Yes, primarily my MBA education along with the engineering rigor foundation.
6. How you see the new generation, I mean the new professionals that one day will lead when you retire?
I see the new generation as increasingly more dynamic and interconnected by various means. Also through technology global cooperation will continue to be more accessible to more people; so they will be increasingly more global in their work.
7. What do you recommend brand-new business fellas to read?
“Getting to Yes” because much of business life is around negotiating.
8. You Americans have one wonderful an impressive ability on business, do you think it’s cultural or because you like it?
I think it is culture. America was established and built through immigration. The immigrants brought with them the desire to succeed and thus built a system that allows individuals to succeed through hard work.
9. If you in your point of view could effect for good in business whatever it is what you would change?
Increase the awareness that businesses are as much part of the global community as individuals and that comes with the responsibility to be good corporate citizens. Specifically, business is not all about the pursuit of profit at any cost.
10. Anything else you could share with us?
The first piece of advice that I would offer is that a diversity of experience is very valuable anywhere from diverse business experiences to working with a variety of cultures. The second piece of advice is to master your technical skills – finance, engineering, medicine etc – to the point where it is second nature and accepted as a given. The growth does not end there however as business is all about interacting with others and thus finely honed social or soft skills are necessary. In essence one must be able to effective work with others. This is what Goleman calls “Emotional Intelligence” in his book by the same name.
December 6, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Fair. Directions not followed properly. The blog post was not pasting the actual mentor interview.
December 6, 2010 at 1:34 am
Blog post author: Candice
Mentor interview
My mentor is Nancy. She works in the medical field and is a physician. Currently she is working as an adult,adolescent and child psychiatrist and is a director of an extensive training program in her psychiatry department.
Her path to this career has not been easy and very inspirational. She decided to go to medical school at the of 35 as i single woman and now as a single mother had achieved that goal and worked hard towards a successful rewarding career. She has been very motivational as a mentor.
Takeaways
1) Have a plan!
It is very important to think ahead and have a plan as to what you want, how you want to achieve it and what path to follow. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan and that is something that you have to take into consideration but if you have a guide to follow and options at your disposal you wont detour from your main goal. Once you clarify your vision and decide on how you are going to achieve your goals you will feel more confident and better prepared…even at life’s little obstacles along the way. There are a lot of little steps to take along the way so knowing how to achieve each step is helpful to getting to the end goal successfully. Nancy knew she had many years of hard work and financial stain on but she always kept focus on the bigger picture and the goal towards working in the medical field…and she says if she did not make a plan to she would not be where she is today. I know in my own life as I plan to finish my studies and be successful I have to have a plan and clear vision in getting there. She told me to set short term goals to achieve the long term objective.
2)Surround yourself with positive people!
If you have people in your life that believe in you, support you, and encourage you to be the best that you can be and stay focus on your goals you are halfway there. Having a solid support system is so important and they help push you towards achieving your long-term goals. The more positive influence you have in your life the better you function in all areas. There are lots of people who can help you along the way. You never stop learning and growing and even though she did not always have the support of her family in career choices she knew that she wanted to go to medical school. She said she had many mentors along the way and people that could give her constructive advice that would eventually make her the confident person she is and help her professionally in her career. I found we have something in common in that we have a lack of family support in our chosen career but Nancy has reminded me to not give up on my passion and seek the company and guidance of those who will help me.
3) Embrace the challenges!
Everyday is not going to be a fantastic day and she has realized that she has more work that time. She honestly thinks she has one of the best jobs in the medical field but it is a very demanding job. There are so many things to do in one day and in her line of work the small things are just as important as the big things. When things get a bit tough…don’t get let it break you down. Professional challenges are often life challenges(learning points) and force you to work harder and realize your full potential. When you overcome the lows you can then fully appreciate the highs. Don’t be afraid…take each day as it comes. Know your own sense of worth and you have the ability to overcome
challenges because you know how you choose to act and react to situations.
Those difficult days have made her a much stronger, capable person!
This gives me so much confidence to enter the professional working world. I know maybe somedays will be testing and challenging but that can make me work harder and allow me to shine.
Conclusion:
Interviewing my mentor had been a great experience and given me a lot of confidence and direction. She was very open and gave me practical advice. I learnt a lot and saw I different side to her that I had not known. I know her helpful advice will assist me in my choices and I hope to follow in her footsteps as a successful woman. I am not afraid of the future anymore, just better informed and ready to make it in the business world.
Takeaways
1) Have a plan!
It is very important to think ahead and have a plan as to what you want, how you want to achieve it and what path to follow. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan and that is something that you have to take into consideration but if you have a guide to follow and options at your disposal you wont detour from your main goal. Once you clarify your vision and decide on how you are going to achieve your goals you will feel more confident and better prepared…even at life’s little obstacles along the way. There are a lot of little steps to take along the way so knowing how to achieve each step is helpful to getting to the end goal successfully. Nancy knew she had many years of hard work and financial stain on but she always kept focus on the bigger picture and the goal towards working in the medical field…and she says if she did not make a plan as to how to make it through she would not be where she is today. I know in my own life as I plan to finish my studies and be successful I have to have a plan and clear vision in getting there
2) Surround yourself with positive people!
If you have people in your life that believe in you, support you, and encourage you to be the best that you can be and stay focus on your goals you are halfway there. Having a solid support system is so important and they help push you towards achieving your long-term goals. The more positive influence you have in your life the better you function in all areas. There are lots of people who can help you along the way. You never stop learning and growing and even though she did not always have the support of her family in career choices she knew that I wanted to go to medical school. She said she had many mentors along the way and people that could give her constructive advice that would eventually make her the confident person she is and help her professionally in her career. I found we have something in common in that we have a lack of family support in our chosen career but Nancy has reminded me to not give up on my passion and seek the company and guidance of those who will help me.
3) Embrace the challenges!
Everyday is not going to be a fantastic day and she has realized that she has more work that time. She honestly thinks I has one of the best jobs in the medical field but it is a very demanding job. There are so many things to do in one day and in her line of work the small things are just as important as the big things. When things get a bit tough…don’t get let it break you down. Professional challenges are often life challenges and force you to work harder and realize your full potential. When you overcome the lows you can then fully appreciate the highs. Don’t be afraid…take each day as it comes. Know your own sense of worth and you have the ability to overcome
challenges because you know how you choose to act and react to situations.
Those difficult days have made her a much stronger, capable person!
This gives me so much confidence to enter the professional working world. I know maybe someday will be hard but challenging but that can make me work harder and allow me to shine.
Conclusion:
Interviewing my mentor had been a great experience and given me a lot of confidence and direction. She was very open and gave me practical advice. I learnt a lot and saw I different side to her that I had not known. I know her helpful advice will assist me in my choices and I hope to follow in her footsteps as a successful woman. I am not afraid of the future anymore, just better informed and ready to make it in the business world.
December 6, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Great job! Next time please make sure the contents of your blog post doesn’t repeat twice. Overall, you put a lot of thought and work into this.