Secrets of a Stealth Mentee
This is a modal window.
The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported.
Formal Metadata
| Title |
| |
| Title of Series | ||
| Number of Parts | 66 | |
| Author | ||
| Contributors | ||
| License | CC Attribution 3.0 Unported: You are free to use, adapt and copy, distribute and transmit the work or content in adapted or unchanged form for any legal purpose as long as the work is attributed to the author in the manner specified by the author or licensor. | |
| Identifiers | 10.5446/46618 (DOI) | |
| Publisher | ||
| Release Date | ||
| Language |
Content Metadata
| Subject Area | ||
| Genre | ||
| Abstract |
|
Ruby Conference 201818 / 66
5
10
13
14
17
18
21
22
26
29
37
45
46
48
50
51
53
54
55
59
60
61
63
65
00:00
VideoconferencingPerspective (visual)Musical ensembleNumberBlogFeedbackStrategy gameData structureComputer clusterOnline helpDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Software engineeringPoint (geometry)Term (mathematics)Process (computing)Interactive televisionBitProjective planeMultiplication signQuicksortComputer virusResultantMoment (mathematics)Slide ruleSoftware developer1 (number)TwitterCASE <Informatik>TheoryVector potentialVirtual machineField (computer science)Computer programmingSpectrum (functional analysis)Electronic mailing listPerspective (visual)Right angleJSONXMLComputer animation
07:05
CAN busMultiplication signBitQuicksortSocial classData conversionMereologyProjective planeStrategy gameOffice suiteComputer configurationFigurate numberLevel (video gaming)Scheduling (computing)Sheaf (mathematics)Term (mathematics)Goodness of fitRandomizationCodeConnected spaceThermal conductivitySlide ruleDifferent (Kate Ryan album)CausalityRule of inferenceXMLUML
13:55
Characteristic polynomialSimilarity (geometry)TelecommunicationComputer networkCAN busFeedbackOnline helpProcess (computing)Computer programmingEuler anglesDisk read-and-write headInheritance (object-oriented programming)Open setType theoryPoint (geometry)Goodness of fitFocus (optics)Order (biology)Figurate numberVideoconferencingSoftwareMultiplication signComputer configurationTerm (mathematics)Expected valueBitLatent heatForm (programming)Right angleDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Variety (linguistics)Speech synthesisVideo gameDirection (geometry)TelecommunicationAreaData managementXML
23:08
Scheduling (computing)Computer configurationEmailKey (cryptography)Strategy gameFeedbackSample (statistics)Data conversionStrategy gameBitChainKey (cryptography)FeedbackEmailMultiplication signFigurate numberPattern languageWordSampling (statistics)Thread (computing)Position operatorElectronic mailing listComputer configurationPrisoner's dilemmaPoint (geometry)Variety (linguistics)Process (computing)Scheduling (computing)Projective planeNewsletterSpeech synthesisComputer scienceTotal S.A.Type theoryLattice (order)Office suiteDependent and independent variablesAreaDiscounts and allowancesConnected spaceDisk read-and-write headQuicksortUniform resource locatorTerm (mathematics)Sheaf (mathematics)CausalityForm (programming)Computing platformIdeal (ethics)Computer animation
32:20
FaktorenanalyseStrategy gamePerspective (visual)EmailBlogFatou-MengeProcess (computing)BitReflection (mathematics)Right angleVector potentialAreaEvent horizonLine (geometry)Point (geometry)DivisorBuildingEmailLengthQuicksortWave packetGoodness of fitReal numberDynamical systemDependent and independent variablesMusical ensemblePower (physics)Order (biology)MereologySoftware engineeringStrategy gameFeedbackComputer configurationPerspective (visual)SoftwareVulnerability (computing)InformationFrequencyBasis <Mathematik>VideoconferencingSampling (statistics)Multiplication signWordData managementBlog1 (number)Latent heatInteractive televisionView (database)Variety (linguistics)CASE <Informatik>Field (computer science)Suite (music)Sound effectIntegrated development environmentCausalityDecision theorySpeech synthesisXMLUML
41:33
Crash (computing)XMLComputer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:01
I have given a decent number of conference talks now over the years and
00:24
right now I'm going through the moment before every single one of them where I'm like this was a terrible idea why did I sign up for this and also a reminder like it feels like it but I I'm not like literally going to die like this I'm going to survive the next 30 minutes probably it's happened
00:44
in the past. So hello I'm Kay Wu it's short for Catherine Wu but everyone calls me Kay Wu. I am a senior software engineer at Heroku currently and I'm here today to share some things I've learned over the years about receiving good mentorship. The slides should be shared off of my Twitter account like
01:06
the handle should be on most of those slides in here and as a quick run-through of the structure of the talk overall I'm gonna you know dive quickly into what I think the the issue is or how I've experienced it at least you know the usual why do we care about this problem and then the meat of the
01:23
talk is of course in the solutions of tactics that I've had figured out up until now and then there's a fairly extensive list of additional recommended references and resources. So in terms of the problem okay first problem was my
01:47
clicker stopped working for a little bit so let's talk a little bit about a typical mentoring interaction that I at least often experienced. Oftentimes there was maybe some sort of program that that where I got matched up to
02:02
someone maybe a little randomly and there were definitely good intentions on both sides but we're still not quite sure what to talk about maybe we go out for lunch a few times in one case in college I'd had a mentor assigned for all four years however at the end I ended up often feeling like nothing
02:25
was really different nothing really changed as a result of that relationship necessarily and and that's kind of weird right for for something that's supposed to be quite important for one's career development overall. I have a
02:40
theory that especially in the tech world I feel like there aren't that many of us necessarily that have both the experience and the aptitude for becoming really good mentors I mean the field overall is really quite young but the potential is definitely there. So what might this look like instead?
03:05
Once I felt like I got better at figuring this out overall all sorts of things opened up for me a really big deal would be situations where I got encouragement for my mentors to even consider applying for and ended up receiving job opportunities that I on my own didn't think I was even
03:25
qualified for. I changed careers into software engineering I got into giving conference talks and in the most recent example when I joined Heroku I called up my friend Jonan who gave a talk about his waffle making machine just
03:41
earlier I just just called him to let him know that oh I'm like really excited about this offer and like here are some of the details and just on the phone unprompted he like forced me into practicing salary negotiation with him for 30 minutes and made me promise to him that I was going to give it a
04:02
shot and so I would like to say to Jonan that our nanny's bank account really thanks you I was like really helpful right there. So I feel like overall my strategies are not necessarily groundbreaking but they weren't obvious to me at first anyway and so maybe there might be some ideas
04:24
that'll be new for you as well. Overall what I really want to do is level the playing field a little bit and have everyone walk away empowered to get better mentoring for themselves and those that they work with. I do want to
04:41
clarify a distinction between mentors and sponsors both are very important and in this talk I will be mostly focusing on mentors. The distinction between these if you're if you haven't come across this before is something that my friend Kate introduced me to. She had a blog post where she wrote
05:01
about how mentors give her perspective but sponsors give her opportunity and you definitely need both at various points throughout sometimes you will have the same you know both roles in the same person sometimes they will be different and I would say the you could think of it the difference of something like the difference between a sponsor who might think of you when
05:23
there's a really cool job or project opportunity that comes up and says like oh this person would be really great at that like let me put forth their name and nominate them for this versus a mentor who instead might be someone that you would go to to get feedback on how you can improve your
05:41
approach to searching for a job overall. So I do want to call out those two distinctions a little bit because I think they get muddled sometimes and then it gets confusing based on what you're trying to achieve. And then just some broader caveats overall I am definitely here to share what I think
06:00
has worked for me but I very much want to be self-aware of the fact that I know that I am in general probably a little bit more comfortable than average just asking for help from other people and making requests generally. If you ever heard of the ask versus guess culture spectrum I'm like pretty far on
06:21
the ask side of things. I am from the East Coast so that probably makes a big difference there. And what that means for me is that in general I end up operating under philosophy where it's almost always okay to ask for something because hopefully people are totally allowed to say no. That said I
06:45
definitely recognize that a lot of people grow up in cultures where that is not really what's done and there's a lot of importance placed instead on not imposing on others instead. So you know in case it causes discomfort of some kind. I do have a separate talk that goes into this
07:02
idea a lot more in depth but I do just want to call it out because maybe some of the tactics might be a little bit more forward than you're used to or you're comfortable with. I mean I certainly at least hope that I'm still being polite and respectful but either way I think you can definitely adapt
07:20
these different ideas for your own interests and strength get kind of creative and figure out how it might work for your comfort level. Hopefully there'll be time for questions at the end and we can go through that or you can always find me sometime at the rest of this conference we can chat and brainstorm a little bit too. So hold up a second we
07:43
have to go through the like obligatory why is this problem even a problem? Why is it that we want to be mentored? Well if I can be so bold as to disagree with a part of Matt's keynote this morning I would have to
08:00
say maybe some of us do want to take over the world someday. You know like I wouldn't want to rule that out necessarily. So yeah this is the characters on the left here are from an old cartoon show called Pinky and the Brain. If in general you're ever unfamiliar with some random picture pop
08:23
culture reference that I'm making I like my brain just is making random connections as I'm like frantically trying to pull these slides together. So I do have an appendix at the very end with associated phrases so you can feel free to go look it up more in depth there there might be some fun stuff in there. So yeah anyway so outside of that though more seriously I
08:46
just I guess I just generally had this always have the sense that it's important to have mentors throughout your career but for me for a long time it always seemed like something that other people made happen somehow mysteriously
09:01
instead. For example one of my college roommates was just always really amazing at applying for grants she got a Fulbright she just like had really amazing recommendation letters from all of her different professors and and some of them in the same classes that I was taking with her as well and
09:21
eventually I learned that she would like actually regularly go to these professors office hours which when I heard about it I was just like oh like I have like the same syllabus the same schedule and somehow that just never really occurred to me as a strategy to use to just get to know
09:43
someone that way and build the relationship there. So I feel like there are all sorts of things that are kind of like that that once you spend some time reflecting on it and partnering I think there might be lots and lots of untapped opportunities in front of you. One thing I think that you can get out
10:01
of mentoring is to just demystify the world around you a little bit more. If you've ever felt like wait like did I miss something that somehow everyone else seems to know a lot about I feel like mentoring can be a really great way to address that. As another example I was once matched up with a CTO and
10:24
decided in our first conversation that I was just gonna go for it and just ask this like pretty important dude or whatever like what even is a CTO because that was like never covered in a textbook or anything for me I like
10:41
somehow missed that part just I don't know growing up in suburban middle class New Jersey or whatever it's not like we run into venture capitalists like all the time or anything like that and the more I thought about it it's like hey like no one is born knowing this stuff and the people that do know it don't have like an ownership claim on any of it so I can go
11:02
ahead and ask and then I will know more than I did the day before. Another follow-on to that I think that mentoring is really helpful at is just seeing what your options might be. For example if I know what the
11:24
options are then I can figure out what experiments I might want to run, what plans I might want to make to steer towards something or even not towards away from something instead as well. This could be very concrete things like the next project you might work on but it can also be for longer term
11:44
things too like what various different lifestyles and work setups might be like and whether I would be well suited to them or not. And finally please don't tell my kid this but doing things the easy way is awesome. If you can learn
12:05
something the easy way rather than the hard way we should totally go for that. Also there the reason the there's a picture of Ali Wong's baby cobra comedy special from Netflix here is that she has a bit in the special where she's like I don't want to lean in I want to lie down
12:25
instead. So if I could borrow that bit and honestly like if you take away nothing from this talk whatsoever totally fine but if you haven't seen this comedy special you should totally watch it it's like really freaking brilliant. I mean totally not safe for work so hopefully I haven't violated
12:42
the code of conduct but on your own time you should totally go watch it it's awesome she's great. Okay all right enough set up overall let's get into the meat of the talk. I have bucketed my strategies into three general sections. First adapting a phrase from the movie Glen Gary and Glen Ross I haven't ever actually watched this movie I just like hear it
13:04
get referenced in conference talk so I'm just gonna adapt that phrase as well but the phrase is always be menteeing I'm gonna get into a little bit more about what that means in a bit. Second find your kindred spirits this here is a reference to Anne of Green Gables a wonderful wonderful childhood
13:21
book which is the story of an orphan who has lots of misadventures and cares a lot about finding good friends and making connections that way. And third borrowing a slogan I saw all the time in the 90s keep it easy breezy beautiful it's really hard to say this phrase without tacking along
13:41
the covergirl at the end but as I was doing this apparently like they're not even using this slogan anymore which like really blew my mind so like I guess if they don't want to use that I can use it here so we're good. Okay so this first one always be menteeing what I mean by this is that all of this process around mentorship I think it's it's helpful to really
14:04
think about it as constantly ongoing as well as the fact that well at least I always built it up in my head as like a you know oh it's super important for your career you have these really long-term mentorships and I just really held it up as this like giant big like oh it's like it has to be like
14:23
super meaningful super deep etc etc but I actually think that there is a lot of benefits of thinking of it and accepting the fact that you can totally have much more short-term goals and relationships all the way up to you know the the long-term types of relationships that we often hear more
14:41
about so I'm here to say it's it's totally okay to have some more short-term short-term goals in mind maybe oriented around a particular or topic or goal such as giving your first conference talk or something like that that could totally be a focus of a particular mentorship and when you
15:03
achieve that depending on how things go like that might be just where you you wind up and that's totally fine. Edmund Lau has an article that I've linked in the references where he talks about the idea of designing a relationship it's he's mostly talking about have running effective
15:23
one-on-ones between you and your manager but I think the idea is still really useful in terms of going into something thinking a little bit more of kind of what are we both in this for what are we going to get out of it at the end. So let's talk a little bit about who you might receive mentoring
15:43
from. A really common approach I've seen is where there are mentoring programs set up and then you kind of get assigned to a mentor and I've definitely had both helpful and maybe less helpful experiences out of this but you know it isn't even always up to me necessarily whether there's a program
16:03
like this around. And so what do you do then? Well you might be tempted to approach people you admire and ask them you know just like oh like will you be my mentor? I am generally totally all about asking people for help but the direct approach here I think generally doesn't necessarily end
16:23
up being that effective. On the other hand I feel very strongly that you don't have to just sit around waiting to be noticed either like it just always makes me feel like like I'm back in like at the middle school dance and like everyone is just like standing by the walls of the gym hoping that you
16:44
know that someone will ask you to dance or whatever super super awkward and unnecessary. This is one of my personal pet peeves about Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In book. I mean the whole book is very much about putting the onus on the individual for progressing their career and yet I felt like the chapter there on mentoring very much still had an attitude that
17:04
you shouldn't go seeking mentors but you know instead of like just just do good work and like wait for someone to notice. I mean overall I don't have as strong negative feelings about that book as I know a lot of other people do but this this one point I definitely disagree with the idea of you know
17:21
kind of you know just keeping your head down until someone picks you to like bestow some mentoring on or whatever. So given that how do you reconcile these two ideas? One way that I would approach it is just skip this part altogether. I really think that people don't have to even formally agree to be
17:44
your mentor in order to mentor you like they don't actually even have to be aware that it's happening necessarily because one one way I would think about mentoring is is really just like you're going off and learning something from someone and you know obviously we do this all the time from
18:04
books that people write articles they publish you know videos of talks that you you can you could receive so much mentoring from someone and they they they're they're never even really aware of it and like that's super cool like that's that's totally an option that's already out there. The rest of
18:22
the talk is going to be more focused on like the more 101 relationships that you would think about but just wanted to point out like mentoring is learning and that comes in all forms and ways of doing things. I for example have had a bunch of mentors where it just seemed like like I would always ask them questions and then they would just always answer them so I
18:46
just kept asking them some more questions and later I was the one that told them hey by the way I consider you a mentor now like and it's already kind of a done deal and then they can't say no too bad I trick them
19:01
into it. So what might a good mentor look like? In general I feel like I'm looking for someone that I might click with on their values and how they look at the world. I you know like direct communicators people people who don't beat around the bush and usually I feel like I can sense that just like me
19:23
they're probably like on the inside we're just like really on the inside we're really judgmental people but we we want to be better and nice on the outside and so I really admire folks that I feel like I've done a really
19:41
good job of that and I can really learn a lot from them but it's not just about having stuff in common because what I think what elevates our friend into a mentor is someone who maybe has had a variety of different life experiences of one kind or another the the best is when it's someone who I'm always curious to hear their take on something because I'll probably be a
20:04
little bit surprised and I feel like when I'm surprised it probably means that I am about to learn something from here. So for example I would consider that I have mentors in a whole bunch of different subject areas both technical and work wise but also you know I'd mentioned on public
20:24
speaking before I took the job at Heroku I and through it I've had various mentors who are more experienced at working remotely, changing careers, I would even have folks I would say I consider like my parenting mentors
20:40
you know folks I turn to I'm like oh like they seem like they're doing a really good job and like I would I would like to do more like how they are. Oftentimes my mentors are people who are doing stuff that I think is really cool or they've achieved something that I think I might want and I just really admire them but there is a important aspect to this I think
21:04
of having it not be someone that I am just elevating onto a pedestal of some of some kind because there needs to be the opening to eventually come to really trust this person and be willing to be vulnerable
21:20
with them. It can be really scary to share that you don't know what you want or what it is that you really dream about and when just just inherently I think that there's there's very naturally like a lot of fear and hesitation around that and it's it's really wonderful when you can find
21:42
folks that you trust and feel safe with and be able to bring those things out into the life and into the light and figure out where you're going to go from there. So how do we find folks like this? Let's talk about networking. Networking is definitely one of those other topics that I always
22:04
felt like I heard people talk about but I didn't really understand like how you were supposed to do it. And the thing that changed for me is when I redefined networking in my head and thought about it instead as just going out and getting to know people and and making friends
22:25
like with no expectations necessarily just getting to know folks out there. I had a baby last year and so kind of dropped off the Ruby conferences for a couple of years or so. But so this is my first one back in a while. And it's been really nice just to walk around and see some
22:43
familiar faces and catch up with people that I've known for like a few years now, which is pretty amazing, I think. So definitely set the groundwork for that. I think that that is really valuable. And so you know, there are lots of specific ways that you might go about this. Of course, like we are at a conference right now, there are 800 of us here,
23:05
most of them probably you don't know, right? And that's like a really great opportunity. Another way, you know, once once you go home, and we might be a little bit more scattered and dispersed, a strategy I have found really helpful is when I come across something that I've
23:21
found really insightful or helpful in some way, to make sure that I actually take the time and give positive, thoughtful feedback about that work. Like, no one, everyone wants to hear more of that, right? They they put a time and effort into something, they share it with the world. And to hear that someone saw it and took the time with
23:44
it. I think that that just like builds really good vibes. And in general, I think it's really nice to find ways to put more positivity out into the world when I can. I mean, I'm like, not totally not above, you know, leaving a bad Yelp review and
24:01
stuff. But but you know, when there are good things, make sure to stop and notice them and let those folks know. And sometimes even taking a step further and saying like, Oh, I really learned a lot from this and going forth and sharing it with others. And there have been times when I feel like I've almost become like an unofficial evangelist of some kind for various projects around
24:24
like my friend Kate had this and and Chuki they they ran a newsletter on public speaking at tech conferences that I always thought was amazing. And I just kind of glommed on and like became a real cheerleader for that project. I thought it was awesome. And finally, another point I want to make in
24:43
this area is to make sure to go ahead and take people up on their offers to help. Like the office hours for the professors, they made that time available. And I definitely could have took advantage of that a lot more. There are
25:00
other folks that I know in the Ruby community, like Avdi grim, I think every so often, sometimes he'll he'll just sort of be like, Oh, it's my birthday. And to celebrate, I'm going to make available pairing sessions for folks or run a discount of some kind. And, and those opportunities are out there, and you deserve to make use of them. You do. And then
25:24
on the social aspect of things here, I wanted to bring up that my friend Amy taught me actually, is to just like, go ahead and embrace the awkward. I feel like a lot of times we have hesitations from trying to connect with folks as we just
25:42
sort of think in our heads. I mean, I definitely have this too, of like, I am just like, kind of an awkward person. And like, that's just Oh, I don't know if I want to deal with it necessarily. And like, what if they don't want to deal with me, blah, blah, blah. But if you think about it, like, probably those of us that are kind of awkward,
26:01
like, we really outnumber all of the smooth people instead. So like, just just go for it. And if it's really truly awkward or uncomfortable, like, just like go forth and apologize. And I'm trying to do that more of trying to put myself out there. And then just, you know, it's very also
26:21
like tied to therefore needing to apologize if I've forgotten someone's name, but usually, like, I remember the conversation, but I may have like, forgotten someone's name. But you know, I can ask and then we'll be we'll be in good good terms again. Okay, so now that you've have found and gotten to know some cool potential mentors, what next?
26:42
So maybe you want to reach out and see if they'll answer a few questions or go grab coffee sometime. And at this stage, I think it's all about making it easy for that person to say yes. schedule with their time in mind, maybe offering up a location that's convenient for them. Or if you're not collate, co located, pick a commonly used
27:02
platform, something they can just say yes or no to ideally. In general, I do think that having conversations is usually a little easier than having an email chain thread back and forth just as be able to talk out loud is is often just a little smoother than having to like figure out the exact
27:21
right words to write out. But this can vary a little bit. So like, while I was on maternity leave, I did try to shift the daily schedule was unpredictable enough that I wanted to shift things more into email so that, you know, I may not be able to make a scheduled meeting depending on like the diaper situation, right. But with an evil thread,
27:44
like if I wake up at two in the morning and can't go back to sleep, like I can type something out and try to give a semi coherent, thoughtful response at that point in time. And I think ideally, it is also helpful to give a general sense of the topics so that the person you're
28:00
talking to can think about it in the background ahead of time a little bit and not just be completely off the cuff. But otherwise, try to have it be so that they don't have to prepare very much and can just show up like the more you can set things up and smooth the way so that all they have to do is just be present for 30 minutes,
28:20
60 minutes, whatever it may be, the more likely it is folks will say yes to your request. Keep it breezy, by which I mean trying to keep things just like pretty low key and casual. I got this really great tip from my friend Kara, who had said she likes to do a thing of trying to lessen the the burden or the sense of
28:42
responsibility someone might feel by asking them and calling it unofficial mentors instead for them to be unofficial mentors to her. In general, I think if you can be specific about why you're reaching out to them in particular, and keeping this tone of you know, I
29:01
really respect your work and would love to learn from you. It just helps a ton because, you know, mentors, they're just like us, they get imposter syndrome too. And they may not necessarily know, like, why, why you why them why now, the closer the connection in your situations and background, I think the better chance you have
29:21
generally, you've phrased this as well, like, Oh, I'm really interested in your opinion, because dot dot dot fill in the blank there. And overall, you're trying to demonstrate that you have done your homework. And this isn't just a generic request of some kind. And of course, beautiful. I've really just like shoehorned a bunch of
29:41
things in here to keep it with this Logan. But what this section is about is learning relevant things. So first, it is okay to not know what to talk about at first. This is totally fine and very common and very normal, I think. In the next few slides, I'm going to try to give you some ideas and strategies. But just know
30:01
that that, again, is totally normal. One tactic that I really enjoy that this computer science professor Cal Newport writes about is this idea that you can go ahead and ask for experiences rather than asking for advice. The idea is that
30:21
people don't necessarily have the introspection needed to determine what really helped them most in their careers. So if you think about it more as interviewing them on your experiences, you are trying to gather a bunch of data, you talk to a few different people, and then you can analyze for yourself and
30:40
look for patterns on what the key trigger points might have been along the way. So I think that that's like a really interesting strategy in general. And the nice thing as well is it doesn't require very much prep work on the receiving persons or the mentor side of things. You can just ask them questions about what
31:02
was happening and leading up to some event that you're interested in learning about, for example. So I have a variety of lists of sample topics that you can take forward as well. One is, in general, things around problem solving, like any current dilemmas that you're facing, what options you might have, and maybe
31:22
getting feedback on proposed solutions that you have technical or otherwise. For example, I once was in a situation where I'd been working with a mentor really hard towards getting this promotion. It was like a multi-quarter process of some kind. And afterwards, I was pretty exhausted, and I went to her and was just
31:40
like, hey, like, is it okay if I'm really tired right now and just kind of want to take a little bit of a break? Like, is that okay? Am I allowed? And she was just like, oh, totally. It's fine. I know you. You're still meeting everything you need to do. And by the
32:02
way, you're not the kind of person that's going to accidentally stagnate because you're just going to get bored. Like, I know you. You get easily bored. And sure enough, two months later, one of these job opportunities popped up, and she was like, you should apply for this. I think you'd be awesome at it. And that was
32:20
kind of the start of my eventual move into software engineering myself. So that was pretty cool. And it came about because we'd had this relationship, and I respected her and trusted her judgment even on something as whether I was, you know, what I should be doing next and what I might be qualified for.
32:43
One area where I really love hearing more about how people think is on decision-making, because every single time when things come up and people are just like, oh, this is just like, well, it's like a case-by-case basis.
33:00
This drives me nuts because I'm always just like, well, it depends. What does it depend on? Can we get a little bit more specific here? Because things like technical intuition, I think it takes a really long time to build that up. And it's hard to just, you can't really just take a past situation and try to
33:21
apply it to the present because there will be so many details that will be really different in a little bit one way or another, right? So I feel like asking questions along the lines of what made you decide some certain thing? What were the factors that you considered? And one question I really like to ask is what would have changed
33:41
your mind? Like, what are some things that if they were different, would have led down a different path in this situation? Because then you can, it takes that past experience and broadens up the potential future situations that you might apply it to and gets that much more out of it, I feel. And then another area then is, as
34:04
you're building up this trust, is all sorts of things where you just kind of get the behind-the-scenes look at what's going on. There's an idea I came across recently that I really like that is called effort shock. And the idea behind this is we are so used to movies
34:21
like The Gratty Kid or Rocky or whatever else where there's like the training montage, right? And you're like, oh, you know, there's all these clips and like jaunty music playing. And in real life, you're like that, that is the hard part. That is where like that takes sweat and tears. And what is going on in there? What do I really need in order to do something
34:42
along those lines? So asking, you know, what was your strategy to achieve your goal? And how did you work through a mistake? Because I assure you, other people have made all sorts of mistakes. Like it would, I mean, if someone doesn't have a mistake that they can talk about, then they're just lying. Like there's something there. And if
35:00
you have that relationship, you could learn more about it. And again, learning things the easy way, maybe avoiding that particular situation yourself in the future. And finally, this is where the trust and that vulnerability really come into play of asking for fairly personal feedback at this point. When you get
35:24
to know someone over a longer period of time, sometimes this is even harder in a way because, you know, I've been working with someone and I really respect their judgment. And I'm scared of hearing that I'm not measuring up in some way, right? But if I can find
35:42
a way to get past that, I think that information there can be so valuable because this person knows me, knows my tendencies, knows what I've done before in the past, and knows where I need support perhaps and where I might need to be pushed a little bit. But, you know, they don't want to hurt my feelings either. And so if I
36:01
take this step and go to ask them instead of, hey, like, what do you think I could really, like, would be really worthwhile for me to focus on learning next? Or if I have this goal in mind, what do you think, you know, what are some options that I have for trying to improve in this area? Because, you know, these folks, they're in
36:21
this to help you as well. They want you to do better. And if you solicit that for them, it just makes it easier for you to get that information that you need. Overall, I do want to take a moment and make the point as well that you don't have to take all the advice that you're given. Just it's not an all or nothing
36:41
situation, which like I would definitely sometimes have a pretty black and white view of it. But all you really need to do is to indicate that you've thought about it. I mean, if you've, if you never follow any of the advice, or if you never make any changes, like in those before interactions that I talked about, then maybe this isn't quite a mentoring
37:01
relationship. But I do want to you don't have to take everything that you're given, you just think about it and see if it suits you. And so overall, you can really do a lot to make yourself be a great mentee and stand out as someone that others feel rewarded for helping in some way. I don't
37:21
actually mean literal gifts in this case. So a lot of times, like if I'm going out for coffee with someone, I actually prefer to buy my own drink. And I like a, you know, I just don't want impose on someone when, like, maybe they're, they're looking for a job right now. But on the other hand, like I once I've gotten to know other people more, I definitely sometimes
37:40
have bought them books. Or I really love buying baby shower gifts for people, all of their registries, like baby stuff is so small, it's so cute. Okay. But we can go a little more classic and you know, write some really good thank you notes, where you, you know,
38:01
specifically reference what you talked about, how that had an impact on you and demonstrate that reflection that I've been talking about. And so you know, like Matt said this morning, seriously in our for our Ruby community, we're trying to form these positive feedback loops here. So finally, then
38:22
like a really key point is to make sure to follow up and stay in touch, tell people how you made use of your advice. I kind of live and dive on my calendar. So I literally have a monthly reminder in their recurring event that's just like, do a networking thing of some kind.
38:40
And usually what that really means is just firing up and writing a short to medium length email to maybe a former work colleague of some kind or a friend I haven't talked to in a little while and just sort of like, hey, like, here's what I'm up to, wondering how things are on your end, hope you're well kind of thing. Oftentimes, like I'll even include like,
39:01
Oh, yeah, I just wanted to let you know that I still think about the story that you told me or like this insight that you shared from years ago. And I think that that can be something that's really nice for folks to hear. Oh, yeah, I like this quote of it's it's remarkable how much people appreciate hearing from you when you don't even want something
39:20
from them. And it's good thing. It's good thing to keep in mind. Really, a lot of what I've been talking about is towards this theme again of building relationships with trust so that you get that honest advice that you might not get elsewhere. And I think as well, like it can actually be really helpful from even just a selfish
39:41
perspective to consider paying it forward and mentoring others from that idea of you learn something better by teaching it. Because like if you consider it from an instructor's perspective, a really good teacher, you know, they might worry about being pushy or condescending. And so even while they take responsibility with those power dynamics to
40:01
manage the classroom or that relationship, you can help them by making eye contact or kind of speaking up and raising your hand when you have questions. And so to that end, I did find recently this guidebook that Thoughtbot has pointed out for mentorships there. So that's definitely available as well. Okay,
40:20
resources, as I'm nearing the end, a whole bunch of articles and references. So these will have like sample wording that you can use and go into more depth again about a lot of the ideas I mentioned, even more articles, podcasts and videos. I don't listen to a ton of podcasts, but these ones were pretty good. And the Ask a Manager one
40:40
has transcripts that get done so I can read that really quickly too. Blogs in general, I like referenced these folks. I think they're amazing. They're super smart and thoughtful about these things. And then a variety of these books. The first one, Deep Work, I am super obsessed with it. It's all about how to really go deep in your field and do meaningful work. The
41:01
Effective Engineer is really good about how do you increase your impact. I have some quibbles with the working in a corporate environment and unconscious bias, that part of things, so I can talk about that later. And The Manager's Path, I haven't actually read that one, but it's by Camille, and I've heard that even though it's kind of written for managers, it has
41:20
a lot of good stuff as well about from an individual contributor perspective kind of things that you might do to improve that relationship. Okay, thank you.