Do I need a mentor?

This week, I sat down with Soma Ghosh from the Career Happiness podcast to discuss the importance of mentorship. Discover where to find a mentor, what you might need them for, how they can help and much more

Participants

• Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ
• Soma Ghosh - career coach at The Career Happiness Mentor

Transcript

Soma Ghosh: I think my experience has been that without having a mentor I when I felt really lost and alone and isolated because it's been quite hard. Sometimes running my business, I wouldn't have been able to. 

Emily Slade: Hello and welcome back to Future You the podcast brought to you by graduate careers experts, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ. I'm your host Emily Slade and in this episode, we look at the importance of mentorship. 

Soma Ghosh: Hi everyone, my name is Soma Ghosh. I am the founder of a business called The Career Happiness Mentor. I am a careers advisor, podcaster, and business owner. I help professionals who are unhappy at work find fulfilment in their work. I also help parents of teens with careers advice and I mentor business owners and I'm here today to talk about mentorship and the value and importance of mentorship. 

Emily Slade: Fantastic. So you've briefly mentioned it there, but what's your personal experience with mentorship? 

Soma Ghosh: Yeah. So I actually have quite a lot of experience. So, when I started working in schools and colleges, I had several mentors. The lady who helped me get my job was my first ever mentor and also the lady who I was covering for whilst she was on maternity leave. They were both of my mentors and then later when I went to another job. The lady that mentored me was another senior careers advisor. So that was kind of my experience of mentorship in the workplace and some of the things that really, really helped during that time was to just basically help shadow them, help learn what the job was like. I knew how to deliver careers advice, but I didn't know how to do it. In a real-time format, because I'd just done my postgraduate and I needed to know what the challenges were going to be in person. So they were able to help me with a lot of those things in terms of my experience of mentorship in the business world, I've had quite a few different mentors. In fact, I just finished up having mentorship with my last mentor earlier this year. And I've worked with about 3 or 4 different mentors, and they've basically helped me flesh out my business learning about marketing, learning about how to actually run a business, create my podcast, so many different things. I think my experience has been that without having a mentor I when I felt really lost and alone and isolated because it's been quite hard. Sometimes running my business, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

Emily Slade: Mmm.

Soma Ghosh: But also more than that. Having that kind of mentor, mentee relationship has helped me to kind of dig myself out of times where I've wanted to give up, or I've just felt really, really overwhelmed with things. But yeah, in a nutshell, that's kind of my experience of mentorship. 

Emily Slade: I just, I think we should establish what is the difference between a mentor and say like a manager. 

Soma Ghosh: This is a really, really great question and I think for me, my managers were normally emailing me and telling me that trauma. Have you done this piece of work or is this something that maybe you know we need to discuss a little bit more and my manager was more somebody. Allowed me to grow in my role when a mentor is someone that is teaching me to develop personally and professionally. That's kind of how I would define it. I hope that makes sense.

Emily Slade: Makes sense. Yeah. So, yeah. So there's sort of more on board with expanding what particular skills you bring and growing those, whereas a manager is sort of the business side of things of like. As an employee, are you ticking all the boxes that you need to?

Soma Ghosh: Yeah, yeah, exactly. 

Emily Slade: Amazing. So, what is the most significant benefit of having a mentor? 

Soma Ghosh: So I guess some of the most significant benefits of having a mentor is. Is that when you are feeling a little bit lost and isolated, they can really really help you to come to a decision. Some of the other things that I would say is they push you out of your comfort zone. The last mentor that I had, I do remember a couple of times and I've worked with her a few times, but the last time that I worked with her, I remember I was preparing for being interviewed on on BBC Woman's Hour and I was really, really nervous that I was doing this whole kind of like imposter syndrome thing of oh. Right. How did I end up in this position? Then she goes. What are you talking about? You know how you're in this position. They heard your podcasts. They've emailed you. You just need to remember that you're going to be fine. And I was absolutely fine. So in that way, she was able to help me. But also a mentor can really really help you when you're not doing something. So I'll give you an example. I put off public speaking for a long time a few years ago, and one of my mentors just booked my first public speaking thing for me. Because I was not. It. She kind of made me push myself out of my comfort zone, but in terms of the benefits in general, I think. For the listeners, a mentor can really really help you to understand. Maybe some of the missing pieces that you're not having in your career. So if you want to get promoted and you don't know how to do that, a mentor could push for you to help certain skills. If you want to go on a professional learning course and you're putting yourself up, your mentor can actually help you establish why is that and help you through your blocks. And have a real understanding with you to understand that this is what's going to help you forward. So there's lots of significant benefits, but that's those are some of the things that I would share.

Emily Slade: Yeah. Fantastic. So how do you go about finding a mentor? You've mentioned you've had so many over the years. Were they something that your business put forward? Is it something you can request? Do you have to? What? Like where do you find them? 

Soma Ghosh: Yeah, this is a great question. And I think this depends on like how you want to establish things. I've always Emily, to be honest been someone who always wanted mentorship. You've really got to firstly want it is the first thing that I want to say for the people who are listening today, but in terms of finding a mentorship. There are schemes, sometimes in workplace organisations, that help you get a mentor. Sometimes you've. To apply for these and that can be a drawback in some ways because you have to do assessments and things like that, and depending on that you may or may not be approved. That could be one. Another way is that if you find yourself working with a manager or a colleague who may be senior you know, you can ask them, you know, can I have like a weekly or monthly meeting with you so that you can be my mentor and or we can even check in quarterly and establishing that relationship with them. If somebody is new to the workplace currently, this can be really, really difficult, but what I would also say is maybe consider signing up to potential schemes out there. I know that people who might be really, really young who are looking for work there are several schemes out there from the government and in general that you can sign up to. But for me, when I found mentors in my business. I actually paid those mentors, but I know people listening may not be in that position. So for those people who are looking in the workplace, it's about establishing yourself. It's about asking people. It's about applying for those programmes. But from a business point of view, I would say that it's about you finding people that you know are a few steps ahead of you maybe. And you know that you feel as though you aligned with them and then you go about establishing that kind of relationship with them. 

Emily Slade: Yeah, that's brilliant. So as you sort of established, the spectrum of mentorship is quite wide. So does that mean every relationship looks different? Or is there a strict structure? Is there a sort of? Work to be filled in goals to hit, or is it quite flexible?

Soma Ghosh: I think what I would say about this, this is a really, really interesting question because I did have a mentor, my first ever mentor. I still deeply respect and admire, but I did learn a lot from that experience, Emily, because later we became friends and I am not in touch with this person anymore. You know you lose touch with people it. Happens, but I do think it's really, really important that you have always professional boundaries. So if there is a contract that is signed, you sign that contract. If you want to establish those professional boundaries, you keep those professional boundaries. You know your mentor isn't your friend. That was a good learning for me personally. Your mentor is somebody that's there to guide you there to support you there, to nurture and help grow your. But also what might happen is after a while you may outgrow your mentor, sadly, and then you're going to maybe need somebody else to give you something and there's nothing wrong with you. Admitting that because sometimes you can stay in a mentorship relationship longer than you need to, but there should be some parameters, there needs to be boundaries because for it to work there has to be established boundaries between you in some kind of written or verbal context.

Emily Slade: Yeah, definitely. I was going to ask, as you move through your all the different stages of your career and personal development do you outgrow your mentors? How is it a case of you sort of like? Well, that's me. I don't need a mentor anymore. Or would you look at, for example, the next step of mentor, as it were - the mentor above them. 

Soma Ghosh: I think this is a really, really interesting question. You know, throughout my personal journey, what I found and even other business owners that I know, I do remember meeting an individual who didn't have any mentorship at one point and I found that quite interesting. You know, we're all different. We don't necessarily need to have mentors as well. I do want to say that some people learn through podcasts, like we're listening to now. Read books or that you know there's different forms of mentorship. But for me personally, I think that when you have outgrown a mentor, you just get a gut feeling that it's just the same thing. So when I changed from my first to my second mentor, what had happened is she just helped me establish my business. And that was great. But then I needed somebody to give me more of the business acumen and the marketing, and then after that, I needed someone who's going to help me with the online stuff. So it was a stage where stage process for me, Emily personally and anyone who's listening it could be that if you are a lawyer listening for example, you want to be a lawyer. If you wanted to be a partner in a firm, you're going to be at different stages of evolutions in. Career, right? So the beginning, when you graduate, you might be working with associates and you're getting mentorship, and then eventually, if you want to be partner. Going to need. More of the people who have the same aligned goals with you, so I would look at your goals and I would look at where the alignment is and try and understand if those people are a few steps ahead of you. How can you get mentorship from them and how can they help you to progress, but also obviously have a conversation and try and establish. Look, we're still going to be professionally linked, but I just feel like our mentorship journey now is progressively just come to a halt. There's always ways of handling it in a sensible way, yeah. 

Emily Slade: Yeah, you've described scenarios that are quite step by step, like very conscious, you know you have to work through certain steps to get to certain places in certain career paths. You yourself have said you knew that you were seeking mentorship for these specific skill sets. Is it worth investing time and potentially money in a mentor if you're clueless? If you're truly stuck and have no idea what you want to do, where you want to go? And is it easy enough to find someone that can help with such a wide you know problem as it were. 

Soma Ghosh: So really good question, because going back to that, if someone is lost, if someone is confused, I work with a lot of women. One of my career happiness pillars is clarity. Who are very confused and you know, I do provide career happiness, mentorship as well as careers advice. But I also do business mentoring and many of them who are. The day after a while, they're like, oh, yeah, I came to for careers advice, but I'm getting mentorship. Like I didn't even realise this trauma. You know, it's become like this weird paradox of things. And I do think that sometimes what can happen, Emily, is people don't even realise that maybe they're getting an extra benefit of mentorship. I think it could help someone, but we're all very individual and we all learn in different ways. And, you know, for the neurodiverse listeners who might be listening. Always want to account for them. Their brains are wired differently. Right. So they may process things differently and they need someone that's going to align with them. And so I think it's really, really important that if somebody is feeling really overwhelmed and lost, they have an awareness and a reflection of what they need first before they even hire or invest in. A mentor and you know we are in a cost of living crisis. I don't mean to be negative, just practical. So not everyone has that financial capacity always. So if you're in work in a workplace or if you're not employed currently. There are lots of schemes with the government. And you know, through London, I think the Mayor of London has a couple of schemes where you can apply for mentorship and you can get it for free. So if there are different ways and scenarios, you can get it whilst you're trying to get into employment right now after, you know, you've had your degree and you're struggling right now, there's loads of stuff out there. But it's just about helping you to understand that a mentor could give you those building blocks, Emily that you need that if you're just continuing to be lost. Then what can happen is you might get some clarity with a mentor. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. No, that's brilliant. Thank you. So with the rise of well technology and and primarily like remote work, a lot of people working from home these days, how do you see mentorship evolving in the future? Is it do you get the? Out of a remote mentor as you would you know someone that you actually physically meet. 

Soma Ghosh: This is a really interesting question because I was thinking about this question in the context of like I'm a millennial. So I'm talking from a millennial point of view, but I know that many of the listeners may be Gen Zers, and I think that what's going to happen, Emily, is that we've now got these apps which are absolutely brilliant to help. People who may be feeling a little. Little bit shy and may need an apple like a chap kind of book type thing to help them that could be for one form of mentorship in the future, but I do feel that as we progress most of the people that I've had as mentors, you know I've spoken to them. Zoom or? Back in the day, we had Skype and I Skype isn't. Popular now but. Skype and most of it has been. Online and I think it's going to continue to be online because of the way that we work and the way that work is evolving and even internationally, a lot of people that I know in the business world, they have mentors who live in America and Australia. So it's going to evolve. We're going to continue to have online. Mentoring in some form and it doesn't necessarily need to just be in a video chat context, it could be. That maybe someone has written an article on sub stack for example that someone's paying for and it's giving them the tools that they need in terms of mentorship. But it's more in a kind of wider context and you know you have workshops, there's all sorts of different ways. I think it's just going to continue to evolve and it's going to continue. And yes, there is in person stuff. But I think we've got so many ways of having mentorship now it's going to continue to evolve, especially for the alpha generation as well. There's going to be so much that's that's going to go on in the next, I say, 10, 15 years I think, yeah. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. Yeah, that's such a good point. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much. If people want to get in touch with you or find the Career Happiness Podcast, where can they go? 

Soma Ghosh: So you can go to my website www.somaghosh.com and yeah, my podcast if you just search it on all the podcast engines, it's just Career Happiness Mentor.

Emily Slade: Perfect. Thank you so much for your time.

Soma Ghosh: Thank you.

Emily Slade: Thanks again to Soma for their time. Head to Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ.ac.uk for more information on finding the right mentor, all links are in the show notes below. If you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. Thank you as always for listening and good luck on your journey to future you. 

Notes on transcript

This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.

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