Diary of a Mentee

I recall late last year, I realised I needed a mentor since I had just made a decision to focus on Steering for Greatness Foundation and build in some capacity and structure before the next phase of my career. Not wanting to jump on people, I took the route I knew best. I prayed that I would be connected with people that would help me grow. 

It was a priority for 2018 but after some personal attempts at connecting with people I believed should mentor me fell flat, I decided to just focus on my work. Then one fateful day in January, I get a WhatsApp message from an acquaintance asking me to forward a mentoring opportunity to a mutual friend and that she thinks I should apply to. I took a look at it and brushed it off, I was not an entrepreneur and the headline read women in business.

But you see God has a sense of humour. The mentoring program required that a local organisation recommend the mentee to be qualified and then something magical happened. I had a connection who had worked with that local organisation. I called him to ask for a recommendation for my friend who was the entrepreneur to apply and then he asked me, why are you not applying? I mentioned that I am not an entrepreneur and he disagreed and encouraged me to apply that there is so much value I would derive from the network and the mentoring relationship.

Alas, I took his advice, got accepted alongside my friend and was assigned an amazing mentor. The name of the program is the Cherie Blair Foundation Mentoring Women in Business Program. Due to some technical challenges, I have had the privilege of been assigned two mentors. Both of them have been incredibly amazing. Though in different fields, my first mentor pushed me to think beyond Nigeria and think global. She believed in the limitless possibilities of Steering for Greatness Foundation (they both have such great enthusiasm about the importance and magnitude of what it can become) that I literally had to jump on the enthusiasm train too.

For me it is amazing how they both came into my life and have begun to push me to do more and be more. Then when I started getting concerned that it would also be nice to have a mentor who is based in Nigeria and understands the local context, I receive another call from a former colleague. Through her I got linked to two amazing mentors who live and work in Nigeria. Through them I have started exploring my long term career journey, setting SMART goals for different aspects of my life and exploring how to build a sustainable nonprofit and still have a successful career in another field.

All in all, I am gradually becoming the ENABLER I envision myself to be because I have the shoulders of these amazing mentors and peer mentors too who God positioned in life to stand on and learn from.

As an ENABLER, I am passionate about deploying innovation and design thinking as problem solving tools to harness economic potential of individuals and companies. Whether it is through education or consulting or finance or accounting, or even whatever field the future brings, I am ready to enable my generation to be the best!

P.S. I'll share some lessons from my mentoring journey in the near future. If there are any specific questions you would like to ask me about being mentored, feel free to comment below or send me a message.