#5 Power Plays for Women: 5 Mentors

I’ve had many mentors in my career. And before.

In college, the head of the art department took me under his wings, let me come over to share work over the summer and was the influence that took me on my path to NYC. Because of him, I had the only one woman show in my class. My first job in New York, I had three. A creative director who taught me everything he knew and advice for working in a man’s world, an account director who fought for my ideas when they started to make the creative director jealous, and a boss who bought my art and shared it with clients. That same account person told me when it was time for me to leave the nest and handed me a piece of paper with my next job.

And so it went over the years.

But it’s not enough to just have a mentor, success falls squarely on your own shoulders. You have to want it and work for it. They open doors and give advice, but ultimately in the long run, you need to take your skills, drive, energy to make the most of their guidance. I’m just about to take a huge next step at Big Fuel, and I owe it in large part to the mentorship, patience and faith they have shown in me.

And let’s not forget all the wonderful women, we’ve all met through our blogs and on twitter. I don’t know how many mentors I have as a result of the social web. When I had very few followers on Twitter, Erica Ehm, of the Yummy Mummy Club discovered my early tweets. She told me when she met me finally at Blogher that she knew early on I was one to follow. I believe she has sent many wonderful Moms/women my way for Mom-entum.

These two stories are wonderful. Thank you Holly and Deb. You make me think of my early mentors, as far back as high school. Taking the time to talk to and encourage someone says, “You’re special. I believe in you.” It’s addictive. I try to foster this healthy addiction in mu class of future women leaders where they become so reliant on each other and the interaction that the minute class is over, they want to recreate it in their own lives.

In my experience, having more than a mentor has been helpfull and of extremaly importance. Reading this post, made me stop to think of people that I consider as my mentors and I realized that I have more than only one person that I trust for his/her words and respect for their opinions. It was one of my mentors that helped me to see my profession and all the faith she depposited on me only pushed me forward towards my real “calling”. She taught me to have faith and belive in myself and my tallents. My second mentor is my mother, with all her love and support she helped me continue with my education, being so patience and willing bo be one of my “models”. My mom taught me how to be aptience during a long process.
Me third mentor is another person, that I call a friend who taught me to intertpretate every obstacle as an option to grow and outgrow every challeng that I would have in my life. She helped me to be able to see that after a rainy day, comes a rainbow. She taught me another very important thing: how to be positive.
After reflecting, I was absolutely positive about all the importance of mentors in our lives, they can be a family member, a friend or someone you look after. It doesen’t matter who your mentors will be and how related to them you are. The importancy relies on the impact that they will have in your life and if you turn to be someone’s mentor, the impact that you can have in a person’s life aswell.