And 100 Mentorship Sessions Later....

So this number was neither planned nor tracked. I was drafting an article on completing my 20 years of professional life this month. While I was writing on the mentorship part, I randomly decided to look at my calendar and count the number of Saturday Mentorship Sessions I have delivered till date. To my surprise, I crossed delivering 100+ such sessions few days back & I found it more exciting to write about it, than my boring 2 decades of slogging out :).

So how did it start? It started with this quote that I read a few years back:

The Best Way to Learn, is to Teach

This mantra changed my life when I did my first (& informal) mentorship session with one of my team members long time back. Totally unplanned and unstructured free flowing discussion where this guy needed some guidance on choosing between the 2 job offers he had. The discussion helped him make a better & informed decision & more importantly I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion myself, a side of me I never knew existed. That was the prelude to my mentorship journey.

I personally had no mentors and all I had learnt was 'On the job'. So I had no idea how to even approach a discussion like this. But I just decided to keep doing it without bothering about the structure. After doing a few more such discussions informally, I unearthed the importance of having mentors and how it can give meaningful directions to someone. It won't be an exaggeration, if I say that my mentees were the reasons I decided to search for mentors for myself & my life transformed in more than one ways since then. I today have a couple of industry veterans as mentors, whom I keep reaching out to periodically, for guidance.

The Diversity in Mentorship

Coming back to my journey, it was fuelled by the folks who regularly reach out to me on #LinkedIn. When the requests became overwhelming, I decided to block my Saturdays for it. I created a Calendly link that I share with people whom I feel I can make some meaningful contributions using my experience. These LI chat exchanges convert into interactions, subsequently landing into formal sessions. I have had an opportunity to have discussions with so many diverse set of folks on the topics like:

• Career Guidance
• Building organizational structures of Start-Ups
• Brainstorming hypergrowth business prepositions
• Debating Startup Ideas worthiness
• Discussing product roadmaps from Idea to MVP to Final Product
• Creating & Reviewing Investor Pitch decks
• Finding means to save Sinking Businesses or increase runway
• Investment Pitches converting into feedback sessions
• And so so many more.....

The diversity cuts across regions, gender, age groups, industries etc. I have spoken to college grads, people looking for mid career guidance, young entrepreneurs, seasoned professionals turned businessmen, Edtechs, Fintechs, Healthtechs, Govtechs etc. Every single discussion has added value to my persona, my capabilities & my own acumen.

There are a few who came back acknowledging how the discussions helped them, a few of them tried stuff but still didn't succeed, a few could evaluate their career options better, and a lot of them who never came back. In any of these scenarios, I was happy to have been able to contribute in simplifying stuff for them. Even if they gained 1% from the discussion, it was worth our time spent.

If I have to summarize the best R.O.T.I. (Return On Time Invested) for both sides, people who came in with a Problem Statement along with a few solution options, were the ones who benefitted the most. The ones who came with generic issues, got generic solutions and this set comprises of the most people who never came back.

Personally for me, I love my Saturdays like never before. These discussions re-energize me from all the weekdays' fatigue & sets me up to take on the next week, head on. More importantly every discussion prepares me better for the next one.

This voyage doesn't stop here & I continue to look forward to interacting with a lot more of you in coming days... The Journey Continues....

If you are one of them who interacted with with me anytime, drop in a Hello in comments & thank you for shaping me to be a better human being!!!