Clip: Finding Mentors

Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:

This mentorship theme has showed up a lot in these conversations. What advice would you have for finding mentors cultivating those relationships like how how did you find Mr. Walsh for example? Well I think it’s just finding someone that you look up to is a really critical part of it because if you admire them chances are that other people admire them. And that’s going to lead you to something. I think that would could possibly lead to your success so I think it’s number one it should always be somebody successful. It should be somebody that captures that which you’re seeking. So for instance what my mentors have always given to me is they’ve been successful in their field. Typically you know they don’t have to be a person who is older than you are. It could be somebody that’s a peer it could be somebody younger depending on what you’re seeking. A lot of times though mentors do tend to be people who are further along in their careers. And I think the benefit of that is sometimes you can short circuit mistakes that you don’t have to make if you can learn from their mistakes which is really cool. But I think some of it goes back to what we started our conversation with is building rapport. So you have to have something in common you have to have something that is a spark between you and a potential mentor and then a lot of companies of your companies have formal mentoring programs that can be a good way to just get an experience for what it’s like. If a company doesn’t do a mentoring program or if they don’t have a formal one you can always have informal mentors. Currently today at Percolate. I am an informal mentor for a load of people in our mid-market group which has just been a real honor for me.

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